The Kiowa gourd dance is the traditional dance of the Tai-pe-go warrior society, which was one of several men's societies in the Kiowa tribe. Although Tai-pe-go distantly refers to words meaning skunkberry and brave, its translation has become obscure over the years, and today is specifically the name of this society. The English name of gourd dance is derived from the special rattles held by the dancers, originally made of gourd or rawhide, but now of baking powder cans or metal salt shakers. Even though these metal rattles have been used in this dance for more than 50 years, they are still called gourds when speaking of them in English.

As told by Leonard Cozad Sr., the Kiowas had bands or societies, I don't know how far back, From what I got from a few of my elders, they had these dances only once a year in the summertime. In those days we had a sun dance - a bigger place to go for all the societies and organizations; and these sun dances were put on by different societies, such as the Young Colts (Alto-yui), the Mustangs (Tse-taa-do), the Gourd society (Tai-pe-go), the Black Leggings (Ton-kon-got), and the Elite Warriors (Koe-sen-ko). Each of these societies has their own songs. When they are going to put up a sun dance lodge, each society has a brush dance, from Gourd dance and Black Leggings on down, except for the Elite Warriors, we never heard anything about that. But these others are the ones, the people who have work to do to put up the lodge. When it's done, that's when the sun dance begins. In the meantime, all these different societies have their own places in the circle - a big circle with the lodge in the center, and they put on dances as time goes on.

Even though the last Kiowa sun dance was held in 1890, the gourd dance continued to be held by the original Tai-pe-go members until 1927, when the last dance was held 3 or 4 miles southeast of Carnegie. After this, most of the old people died out, and the gourd dance was not held again until Armistice Day in 1946 when it was again performed in Carnegie. There was no formal organization then, as the Tai-pe-go had disbanded, but beginning in September of 1956, some of the descendants of the original members have formed new organizations, and today the century-old warrior dance is held at least annually for armed forces days and other special occasions, and is enjoyed not only by Kiowas, but also by many other visiting tribes.

It's just like prayer songs, it just makes you happy, and makes people feel good. When we sing these songs, we want to help the people who may be in mourning and want to come back or may be sick, or have troubles. When they hear the drum and the song, then they want to live - they want to go on to hear these good things among the homes and their children.

In this recording we are very proud to present these fine singers and songs of the Kiowa tribe, and we are indeed grateful to singers and dancers who have made this album possible.