211803. Chief Joseph's Song - sung to "dance in" the Traditional Dancers. Tonkawa Powwow 2012. Special Traditional Dance Contest. Special recognition to Don Patterson, Chairman of the Tonkawa Tribe for a successful powwow. All invited groups - The Comanche Little Pony Warrior Society, The Ponca Groud Dance Clan, and the Blackbeard Family were treated well and had special accommodations.
The Nez Perce were brought to Fort Oakland after Chief Joseph surrendered and gave one of the most memorable speeches ever, "....I will fight no more, forever...". There are some Nez Perce buried here according to Don Patterson, one of whom is the child of one of the Lewis and Clark expedition leaders. The Tonkawa were brought to the Nez Perce reservation at Fort Oakland and the Nez Perce eventually were taken back to their homelands.
This gathering is historic in the sense that two former enemies are together in brotherhood and fellowship...the Comanche and the Tonkawa. The Tonkawa served as scouts for the Texans, very effectively, in their war against the Comanche. Without their help the Texans would have never caught the Comanches by surprise, as they did on a few occasions. After moving the Tonkawa to a Texas reservation, the Texas citizens turned against them and they were moved to a reservation near Anadarko, Oklahoma. There, the Comanches massacred them and the few survivors were taken back to Texas for a while before being shipped by train to the Nez Perce reservation in Fort Oakland.
So, the significance of having these two former enemies together, enjoying each other's company is huge. The Comanches thank Don Patterson for his wisdom in overcoming past historical mistakes and making things right again. (See Tonkawa, and Ponca @ www.wikipedia.com)
I might add, that the Ponca and the Comanche were enemies until they made peace in the 1800's. During the Peace Treaty, the Comanche gave the Ponca many horses, and the Ponca gave the Straight Dance to the Comanche. The rights to dance another tribe's dance was of great value in olden times. In another treaty, in 1838, the Comanche received the rights to dance the Cheyenne Arrow Dance, which the Comanche called the Gourd Dance as recorded 1883 by Herman Ten Kate, a Dutchman passing through Comanche country near Lawton, Oklahoma and recording his anthropological studies. He was a Dutchman who wrote in French.