Summer 1856
Séñ-äló K`ádó, “Prickly-pear sun dance.” The prickly-pears or tunas (Opuntia tortispina?) are shown above the medicine lodge. This dance was held at a place where there was an abundance of prickly-pears, at the mouth of a small creek, probably Caddo or Rate creek, entering Arkansas river about 10 miles below Bent’s fort, in Colorado. It was held late in the fall, when the prickly-pears were ripe, instead of in midsummer, as usual, and the women gathered a large quantity. This circumstance has given the distinctive name to the k`ádó. The sweet fruit of the tuna is much prized by the Indians, who eat it raw, while the fleshy leaves are used as a mordant in their painting upon buckskin.