The First Tornado

Hi everybody, I hope that you're enjoying your summer. My summer break has been really nice. I recently visited my home state of Oklahoma; just in time to enjoy all of the Spring and Summer thunderstorms that crop up this time of year. As I was busy dodging hail storms, I began to wonder what the old stories had to say about inclement weather. I do remember my grandmother sharing fragments of a story about the first tornado. She described storms as being (Mah-bane) or "crazy" like a horse. However, she didn't remember the full story of the first tornado or why storms and tornadoes were considered horse-like. Fortunately, my mother had saved a book from the early 1980's titled "My Book of Kiowa Stories." These were children's books that were given to members of the Kiowa tribe. As far as I know, these books were never published and there were very few printed editions. So when I came across the short story of the Horse-Spirit in my mom's edition, I felt extremely lucky to have found it. So today, I thought that I would share with you the Kiowa story of the very first tornado.

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The Horse Spirit

In ages long since past, the Kiowa people once lived near the mountains at the edge of the known world. At this time, there were still many mysterious places, charged with strange powers, scattered about the lands. One such place was the clay bank of a clear and meandering river that lay east of the mountains. This mysterious bank was covered with a clay that was as red as the distant sunsets.

The old medicine-man of the Kiowas warned everyone to avoid this odd place. He also told parents to make sure that their children avoided it as well; and for many years, the Kiowas did just that. They shunned this strange place and, in time, forgot about it all together. 

One hot summer morning, four Kiowa children found the odd river bank and they began to play in the strange red clay. In their youthful innocence, the children began to fashion the clay into the everyday objects and animals that they knew. One child crafted a buffalo out of the red clay. Another child fashioned a large frog. Still, another child created a camping lodge out of the red earth. The fourth child decided that he would not shape something that he had already seen, instead he would create something new and unknown to world. In his inspiration, the boy crafted an animal with four legs that resembled a dog, but his creation was much taller and far more majestic. He detailed his beautiful clay creation with long mane and a long tail of mane to match. He then named his creation "horse."

To the children's great surprise and delight, the little clay horse came to life. At first, it moved around slowly and cautiously as it tested its new legs. But with each passing moment, the horse-spirit grew in both confidence and stature. Eventually the horse grew taller than the surrounding trees and, with an almost reckless joy, it began to dance in a wide circle. The children grew very afraid for a dreadful wind was stirred into being by the powerful horse-spirit. The children ran away as the horse continued to dance faster and faster still.

The wind generated by the horse-spirit grew stronger and stronger until dark storm clouds gathered high above and the surrounding trees bowed before the awesome power of the gale. Eventually, the winds grew so strong that the river beds were laid bare and fish were thrown high into the dark skies. Old trees were uprooted and laid low. The very grass itself was stripped away exposing the bare ground. Even the mighty buffalo were scattered about the plains like children's toys. It was a terrible thing to behold. 

Still the horse-spirit danced on and on and grew faster still. Lightning came forth from the horse-spirit's mouth and the thrashing of his tail created the very first tornados. And so it was that the horse-spirit, whom the Kiowas named Mawn-kaw-ee, came forth into the world leaving chaos and destruction in his terrible wake. However, Mawn-kaw-ee was not purposefully cruel. The horse-spirit could understand and speak the Kiowa language. So at times, when the Kiowa people saw Mawn-kaw-ee dancing in the distance, they would yell out "WE ARE KIOWA!" When Mawn-kaw-ee heard this he made sure to dance in a different direction.