Tehan
Tehan was captured as a young child, probably around the age of five, by the Kiowa Indians and raised into their tribe. Who he was and the circumstances of his capture are both areas of speculation among historians. He was likely born in the mid-1850s either by the Kiowa or another tribe and later traded or sold to the Kiowa.
By the time he was a young man, he was a fully-fledged Kiowa warrior, known as Tehan, which is the Kiowa pronunciation for the area known as Texas. It is likely he was captured by settlers traveling to that destination, with none of the remaining party surviving the raid. He was raised under the tutelage of the medicine man Maman-ti, and committed multiple attacks on white settlers leading up to the Red River War, in which he fought.
He was captured (some say he surrendered in order to return to white society, which seems doubtful) and held prisoner. Kiowa scouts looking for him and other members of his party besieged a supply train supporting the American troops, allowing him to escape. The Kiowa had fortified a position in which Tehan and others now awaited the next move of the troops.
A leader named Big Bow was believed by military leaders to have been the leader of some of the most vicious Kiowa raids. Both Big Bow was aware that Tehan knew of his activities, and was since he was white and thus potentially disloyal, Big Bow killed Tehan in 1875, in order to help keep the magnitude of his crimes secret. At least that was Big Bow’s story. He later told another in which Tehan died of thirst trying to cross the desert alone.
Another story is that Tehan was actually an ordained minister named Griffis, a claim made by the minister himself, with little evidence to support it. The good minister embellished his claim by claiming to have been freed from Kiowa custody by Custer’s attack on Washita Creek. One explanation made by some historians is given the nature of his name, there may have been more than one white captive who fought with the natives under the name Tehan.