Isatai'i

Isatai'i, also known as Isatai, or Eschiti

Not much is known about Isatai'i’s youth. He was born a Kwaharʉ Comanche, a few years before Quanah Parker, probably about 1840. As an adult he became a medicine man, not a traditional warrior. He first came into prominence right before the Second Battle of Adobe Walls as he preached a Messianic War against buffalo hunters and other whites he feared were ending the Comanche way of life. Isatai'i's prophecies were based on his claim that he had ascended far above the earth into the clouds and had conversed with the Great Spirit. He claimed the Great Spirit had granted him extraordinary powers. Among these powers were the ability to cure the sick, bring the dead back to life, to control the weather and other natural phenomena, and to make bullets fall to the ground, harming no one. He claimed that he could belch up bullets and cartridges, and reswallow same. He correctly predicted the disappearance of the comet in 1873, and also correctly predicted a drought that year—predictions that solidified his status as a miracle worker, prophet, and medicine man.^[4]

Preparing for the Second Battle of Adobe Walls

Isatai'i brought all the bands of the Comanches together for the sun dance in May 1874. At the sun dance, he began preaching a war of revenge and extermination, and told the warriors they would be invulnerable to their enemies. Comanche history says that Isatai'i’s hatred of the whites was motivated by the deaths of family members at their hands.^[4]

It is notable that members of other tribes, mainly the

About fifteen warriors were killed and a larger number wounded, including Quanah Parker.[4]

After Adobe Walls

Isatai'i tried to absolve himself of blame for the disastrous defeat by claiming his magic had been weakened before the battle when a Cheyenne killed a skunk in violation of a sacred taboo.^[4] Taking this poorly (especially by the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers), he was severely beaten and then renamed, from Kwihnai Tosaabitʉ (English: White Eagle) to Isatai'i (Wolf's Vulva). Isatai'i was discredited and publicly humiliated.^[5]

Later life

Although many military historians do not consider the Second Battle of Adobe Walls a major historic engagement, it was a crushing spiritual defeat for the Southern Plains Indians, who had come to believe fully in the superhuman prophetic powers of the medicine man, and being driven off by civilian buffalo hunters certainly marked the end of their time as any sort of military power. Within a year, the Comanche and Kiowa were all on the reservation.^[4] Isatai'i died in 1916, and is buried in a family cemetery in Stephens County, Oklahoma.

Footnotes