North America’s Midwest Native American Tribes

The Sioux Indians

The Sioux Indians are a group of Native American tribes and one of the First Nations peoples in North America. They are also known as the Dakota. Sioux is also a term that can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation, or to any of the nation’s many language dialects. Three major divisions based on language divisions compromise the Sioux: the Dakota, Lakota and Nakota.

The Santee Dakota live in the extreme east of the Dakotas, Minnesota and Northern Iowa. Yankton and Yanktonai Dakota are collectively referred to by the endonym Wichiyena, and reside in the Minnesota River area. They are considered to be the middle Sioux and have, in the past, been erroneously classified as Nakota. The actual Nakota are the Assiniboine and Stoney of Western Canada and Montana.

Lakota are also known as Teton and are the Sioux found furthest to the west. They are known for their hunting and warrior culture. Today, the Sioux maintain many separate tribal governments that are scattered across several reservations, communities, and reserves in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Montana in the United States, as well as in Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan and Alberta in Canada.

The Sioux name was adopted in English by the 1760s from French. It has been abbreviated from Nadouessioux, first attested by Jean Nicolet in 1640. The name, at times, is said to be from an Ojibwe exonym for the Sioux language meaning “little snakes”. The Proto-Algonquian form *na towe wa, meaning “Northern Iroquoian” has reflexes in several daughter languages that refer to a small rattlesnake. An alternative explanation to the name is derived from an (Algonquian) exonym na towe ssiw, forming a verb *-a towe meaning “to speak a foreign language”. Currently the Ojibwe term for the Sioux and related groups is Bwaanag (singular Bwaan), and means “roasters”, presumably referring to a style of cooking that they have used in the past.

Some of the tribes within the Sioux have formally or informally adopted traditional names, such as the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, also known as the Sichangu Oyate, and the Oglala, who often use the name Oglala Lakhota Oyate, rather than the English “Oglala Sioux Tribe” or OST. An alternative spelling in English for these people is Ogallala, and is considered improper.

Historically, the Sioux have referred to the Great Sioux Nation as the Ochethi Sakowin, which means “Seven Council Fires”. Each fire would symbolize an oyate (people or nation). The seven nations that compromise the Sioux are the Mdewakanton, Wahpeton, Wahpekute, Sisseton, Yankton, Yanktonai and the Teton (or Lakota). The Seven Council Fires would assemble each summer to hold a council, renew kinships, decide tribal matters, and then participated in the Sun Dance. These seven divisions would select four leaders known as Wichasa Yatapika from among the leaders of each division. Being one of these four leaders was considered the highest honor for a leader. However, the annual gathering meant that the majority of tribal administration was cared for by the usual leaders of each division. The last meeting of the Seven Council Fires was in 1850.

Today, the Teton, Santee (a mixture of the four Dakota tribes), and the Minnesota Dakota, and Yankton/Yanktonai are usually known, respectively, as the Lakota, Eastern Dakota, and Western Dakota. In any of the three main dialects, Lakota or Dakota translate to mean “friend” or “ally”, referring to their alliance that had once bound the Great Sioux Nation.

History of the Sioux Indians

The Dakota were the first to be recorded as residing at a source of the Mississippi River during the 17^th century story of the Oglala Sioux Indians. By 1700, some Dakota had migrated to what is now South Dakota. In the late 17^th century, the Dakota had entered into an alliance with French merchants. The French had been trying to gain the advantage in the struggle for the North American fur trade against the English, who had recently established the Hudson Bay Company.

Chippewa Indians had given the Sioux their name, meaning “little snake”. Their features, that particularly stand out are their long, straight jet-black hair, representative of people that had descended from Asia. Which it is believed that they had came to North America from Asia thousands of years ago.

Generally speaking, they were nomadic people, meaning they never really stayed in one place for a very long time, typically following the pattern of the buffalo. This had ensured that there would be food and clothing wherever they traveled to. In the 1500s the Spanish had introduced horses to the Sioux Indians and once again they began to use horses as a means of carrying articles and transportation, which made their lives much easier, particularly since they were living the nomadic lifestyle. The tribe had chiefs that would designate various aspects of their lives, including war, civil rules, and of course they also had medicine men. More on these people later.

The first time Europeans had encountered the Sioux occurred when French traders Pierre Radisson and

Groseilliers Medard had reached what is now Wisconsin during the winter of 1659 to 1660. Later visiting French traders and missionaries would include Claude-Jean Allouez, Daniel Greysolon Duluth and Pierre-Charles Le Sueur, who had wintered with the Dakota bands in the early 1700s. In 1736, a group of Sioux would kill Jean Baptiste de La Verendrye and twenty other men on an island in the Lake of the Woods. However, trade with the French would continue until after the French gave up North America in 1763.

By the 1860s, the fight over land got quite intense, the Sioux would battle the white man in order to keep their land. Eventually though, the United States government would sign a treaty that allowed the Sioux to keep a portion of their land, otherwise known as a reservation.

Once the gold rush took place, rumors had spread that there was gold located on the land of the Sioux and again a battle had ensued and the Sioux would join up with the Cheyenne tribe. This battle was led by the legendary Indian, Sitting Bull.

Over the next couple of decades, the Sioux would travel to the Dakotas, taking a place in the famous battle known as Custer’s Last Stand, which would end in the killing of all soldiers that attempted to attack them. Unfortunately though, in 1891, the Battle of Wounded Knee occurred, the Sioux would lose the battle, as well as many people. Today, there are about 30,000 Sioux that live in South Dakota, and still others that live in Nebraska, Montana, and Canada.

Chief Crazy Horse

Chief Crazy Horse was a proud leader of his people in the Lakota-Sioux Indian tribes. He was a courageous warrior who was dedicated to preserving and protecting the Native American way of life against the white man. He would die at the hands of an American soldier whom stabbed him in the back.

At an early age, Chief Crazy Horse had earned the reputation of being fearless. Before he was even twenty-years-old, he had stolen horses from a feuding tribe and had led warriors into battle. During the 1870s, he was one of the leaders of the resistance against the white man at Black Hills in what is now South Dakota. The Sioux had refused to relocate to an Indian reservation then, so Chief Crazy Horse and his followers fought off the white man successfully.

In the famous battle of Little Bighorn, Crazy Horse, along with Sitting Bull and other Indian tribes, had defeated General George Armstrong Custer. It was an embarrassing defeat for the white soldiers. Early in the next year after Little Bighorn, another white general would attack his people and an ongoing battle would ensue with many Lakota Sioux starving to death. Eventually, Crazy Horse and the Indians would surrender.

Even when on a reservation, Crazy Horse was a dignified leader. He was always involved in caring for his people. It was in this particular reservation that he was killed by an American soldier. He was captured beforehand by another general of the Army since he was allegedly plotting another revolt. When he was thought to be resisting arrest, a soldier used his bayonet and stabbed him in the back.

Today, the actions of Chief Crazy Horse seem heroic and his people still keep his memory of leadership and love of his people alive. In fact, the Crazy Horse Memorial, located near Mount Rushmore, and is being built in his honor. The likeness of Chief Crazy Horse has been sculpted from rock and has been an ongoing project since 1948.

The Sioux and Pawnees

Author and historian, Mark van de Logt would write:

“Although military historians tend to reserve the concept of “total war” for conflicts between modern industrial nations, the term nevertheless most closely approaches the state of affairs between the Pawnees and the Sioux and Cheyennes. Both sides directed their actions not solely against warrior-combatants but against the people as a whole. Noncombatants were legitimate targets. …It is within this context that the military service of the Pawnee Scouts must be viewed.”

The Battle of Massacre Canyon on the 5^th of August 1873, was the last major battle between the Sioux and the Pawnee Indians.

The Arikara War of 1823

During 1823, hundreds of Sioux warriors would be the first American Natives to help the United States Army in an Indian war, west of the Missouri River. During the short Arikara War, the combined forces would attack two adjoining Arkara villages in, what is now, South Dakota.

The Dakota War of 1862

Shortly after a failed crop in 1861, and a winter starvation into 1862, the federal payment was late. Local traders would not issue any more credit to the Santee Indians and one trader, by the name of Andrew Myrick would go as far as to say, “If they’re hungry, let them eat grass.” By the 17^th of August of 1862, the Dakota War began when a few Santee men had murdered a farmer and most of his family. This inspired further attacks on settlements along the Minnesota River and the Santee would attack the trading post. Later settlers would find Myrick among those that were dead, with his mouth stuffed full of grass. On the 5^th of November of that same year, in Minnesota, in courts-martial, three hundred and three Santee Sioux were found guilty of rape and murder of hundreds of American settlers. These Sioux were sentenced to be hanged, no attorneys or witnesses were allowed as defense for the accused and many of the Sioux were convicted in less than five minutes of court time with the judge. President at the time, Abraham Lincoln had commuted the death sentences of two hundred and eighty-four of the warriors, while he signed off on the hanging of thirty-eight Santee men on the 26^th of December in Mankato, Minnesota. This was the largest mass-execution in United States history, on United States soil.

Afterwards, the United States had suspended the treaty annuities to the Dakota for four years and had awarded money to the victims and their families. The men that were remanded by order of President Lincoln were sent to a prison in Iowa, where more than half of them later died.

During and after the revolt, many Santee and their kin had fled from Minnesota and Eastern Dakota to Canada, or had settled in the James River Valley in a short-lived reservation before they were forced to move to Crow Creek Reservation on the east bank of the Missouri River. A few of the Santee had joined the Yanktonai and moved further west to join with the Lakota bands to continue their struggle against the United States military. Others were able to remain in Minnesota and the east, on a small reservation that existed into the twenty-first century, including Sisseton-Wahpeton, Flandreau, and the Devils Lake Reservations in the Dakotas, some others ended up in Nebraska, where the Santee Sioux have a reservation on the south bank of the Missouri River today.

Those that had fled to Canada now have descendants that reside on nine small Dakota Reserves, five of which are located in Manitoba, Canada. These are the Sioux Valley, Long Plain, Dakota Tipi, Birdtail Creek, and Oak Lake [Pipestone] Reserves. The other remaining four are in Saskatchewan, Canada and include the Standing Buffalo, Moose Woods [White Cap], Round Plain [Wahpeton], and Wood Mountain Reserves.

Red Cloud’s War

Also known as the Bozeman War, the Red Cloud’s War was an armed conflict between the Lakota and the United States Army that took place in the Wyoming Territory and Montana Territory from 1866 until 1868. The war was fought over who would control the western Powder River area in north central Wyoming. In 1851, the Lakotas had recognized the area as being Crow Indian Territory.

The war was named after Red Cloud, a prominent Sioux chief who had led the war against the United States after the military had encroached into their area. The United States had a treaty that guaranteed the right to “establish roads, military and other posts” in the area. The war would end with the Treaty of Fort Laramie and the Sioux’s victory in the war would lead to their temporary control of the Powder River country.

The Great Sioux War of 1876

The Great Sioux War of 1876 compromised of a series of battles that took place between the Lakota and allied tribes, such as the Cheyenne, against the United States military. A number of battles were again fought on the land that the Lakota had recognized as Crow Indian territory in 1851. The earliest engagement was the Battle of Powder River. The final battle would take place at Wolf Mountain. Also included in the war were the Battle of the Rosebud, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Battle of Warbonnet Creek, Battle of Slim Buttes, Battle of Cedar Creek and the Dull Knife Fight. Between 1876 and 1877 the war was also known as the Black Hills War and was centered on the Lakota tribes of the Sioux, although several natives believe the primary target of the United States military was the Northern Cheyenne Tribe. A series of battles had occurred in Montana territory, in the Crow Indian Reservation, Dakota territory, and Wyoming territory, resulting in a victory for the United States military.

The Wounded Knee Massacre

The massacre that occurred at Wounded Knee Creek was the last major armed conflict between the Lakota and the United States. It was described as a “massacre” by General Nelson A. Miles in a letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

On the 29^th of December 1890, five hundred troops of the 7^th Cavalry Regiment, supported by four Hotchkiss guns (a lightweight artillery piece, capable of rapid fire), had surrounded an encampment of the Lakota bands of the Miniconjou and the Hunkpapa, with orders to escort them to the railroad for transport to Omaha, Nebraska. The battle of Wounded Knee was started by a simple gun shot, no one was hurt, nor did anyone know who had fired the shot. The United States Army had thought that the Native Americans fired at them, and a huge battle broke out, the Army would kill over three hundred Native Americans.

When the Massacre was finally over, twenty-five troopers and more than one hundred and fifty Lakota Sioux were dead, including men, women and children. It still remains to be a mystery which side was responsible for the first shot. Some of the soldiers are believed to have been victims of “friendly fire” as well, since shooting took place at point-blank range in chaotic conditions. Around one hundred and fifty Lakota are believed to have fled the chaos, many of whom might have died from hypothermia.

Reservations and Reserves

During the late 19^th century, railroads had wanted to build tracks through Indian lands. Companies would hire hunters to exterminate the bison herds, which were the Plains Indians’ primary food supply. The Dakota and Lakota were forced to accept the United States defined reservations, in exchange for the rest of their lands and farming and ranching of domestic cattle, as opposed to a nomadic, hunting economy. During the first years of the Reservation Era, the Sioux people had depended on annual federal payments that were guaranteed by a treaty of survival.

In Minnesota, treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota in 1851 had left the Dakota with a reservation that was twenty miles wide on each side of the Minnesota River. Today, half of all enrolled Sioux in the United States live off of reservations. Those that are enrolled members in any of the Sioux tribes in the U.S., are required to have an ancestry that is at ¼ degree Sioux, which is equivalent to one grandparent.

Twentieth Century Activism

The Wounded Knee Incident

The Wounded Knee incident began on the 27^th of February 1973, when the town of Wounded Knee in South Dakota was seized by followers of the American Indian Movement. Occupiers had controlled the town for seventy-one days while various state and federal law enforcement agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the United States Marshals Service had laid siege to the town. Two members of A.I.M. were killed by gunfire during the incident.

The Republic of Lakotah

The Lakota Freedom Delegation, a group of controversial Native American activists, had declared on the 19^th of December 2007, that the Lakota were withdrawing from all treaties that were signed with the United States to regain sovereignty over their nation. One of the activists, Russell Means, had claimed that the action is legal and cites natural, international and United States law. The group considers the Lakota to be a sovereign nation, although the state is still generally unrecognized. The proposed borders reclaim thousands of square kilometers of North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska and Montana.

Current Activism

The Lakota had made the national news when NPR’s “Lost Children, Shattered Families” investigative story had aired. It would expose what many critics consider to be the “kidnapping” of Lakota children from their homes by the state of South Dakota’s Department of Social Services (D.S.S.). Lakota activists, such as Madonna Thunder Hawk and Chase Iron Eyes, along with the People’s Law Project, have alleged that Lakota grandmothers are illegally denied the right to foster their own grandchildren. They are currently working to redirect federal funding away from the state of South Dakota’s D.S.S., to new tribal foster care programs instead. This would be a historic shift away from the state’s traditional control over the Lakota’s foster children.

Early on in 2014, a Lakota group also launched MazaCoin. This is a digital currency that is claimed to be the “national currency of the traditional Lakota Nation”.

Protesting Against the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline

During the summer of 2016, Sioux Indians and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe began to protest against the construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, also known as the Bakken pipeline. If completed, the pipeline is designed to carry hydro-fracked crude oil from the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota to the oil storage and transfer hub of Patoka, Illinois. The pipeline travels only a half a mile north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. It is designed to pass underneath the Missouri River and upstream of the reservation, which would cause many concerns over the tribe’s drinking water safety, environmental protection and harmful impacts on their culture. The pipeline company claims that the pipeline will provide jobs though, and would reduce the American dependence on foreign oil and reduce the price of gas.

Protesting Dakota Access Oil Pipeline — **Protesting Against the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline**

The conflict sparked a nationwide debate and a lot of news media coverage as well. Thousands of indigenous and non-indigenous supporters joined the protest, with several camping sites being set up south of the construction zone. The protest was a peaceful one, and alcohol, drugs and firearms were not allowed at campsites or the protest site.

On the 23^rd of August, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe had released a list of eighty-seven tribal governments who had wrote resolutions, proclamations and letters of support, stating their solidarity with the Standing Rock and Sioux people. Since then, many more Native American organizations, environmental groups and civil rights groups have joined the effort in North Dakota, including the Black Lives Matter movement, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and the 2016 Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and her running mate Ajamu Baraka, and many more. The Washington Post called it a “National movement for Native Americans”.

On the 1^st of November, President Obama had announced that his administration was continuing to monitor the situation and had been in contact with the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to examine the possibility of rerouting the pipeline to avoid the lands that the Native Americans had held sacred. Thirteen days later, the USACE would announce that “the Army has determined that additional discussion and analysis are warranted in light of the history of the Great Sioux Nation’s dispossession of lands, the importance of Lake Oahe to the Tribe, our government-to-government relationship, and the statute governing easements through government property.”

The Obama Administration was criticized by the Energy Transfer Partners for “political interference” and stated that “further delay in the consideration of this case would add millions of dollars more each month in costs which cannot be recovered.” The Governor of North Dakota, Jack Dalrymple criticized the decision saying that the pipeline would be safe and that the decision was “long overdue”. Craig Stevens, spokesman for the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now (MAIN) Coalition, called the Corps’s announcement “yet another attempt at death by delay” and said that Obama’s administration “has chosen to further fan the flames of protest by more inaction.”

On the 4^th of December, the USACE had announced that it would not grant an easement for the pipeline to be drilled under Lake Oahe and was undertaking an environmental impact statement to look at possible alternative routes.

In January of 2017, the new president, Donald Trump, in a move that stood in contrast to the actions of the Obama administration, had signed a presidential memorandum to advance the approval of the pipeline construction, while stating his intention to “renegotiate some of the terms” of the pipeline bill. The order would expedite the environmental review that Trump described as an “incredibly cumbersome, long, horrible permitting process.” These executive orders also outlined how the completion of the pipeline would create more jobs which is something that the Trump administration believe is essential and important. They also feel as if the wages that people are being paid should be increased, another factor of the continued completion of the pipeline that the administration feels would be beneficial. The fast change of pace is what had led to clashes and resulted in arrests of those who were residing on the land in order to continue the protesting of a pipeline. The actual purpose of the orders signed by Trump was to counteract the denial by the USACE to continue the pipeline being built, which was originally issued in November of 2015.

On the 7^th of February, the USACE sent a notice of intent to the United States Congress to grant an easement under Lake Oahe 24 hours following notification of the delivery of the notification. Two days later, the Cheyenne River Sioux sued the easement decision, citing an 1851 treaty and interference with the religious practices of the tribe.

By the end of February, the deadline for protesters to leave the camp had approached and the protest site was closed. Although many had left voluntarily, ten people were arrested, however, even with the arrests, there was no major conflict. The construction of the pipeline was completed by April.

The first oil was delivered through the pipeline on the 14^th of May, and on the 1^st of June, testing was complete and the pipeline became commercially operational. Even before starting commercial operations several leaks had occurred. To my knowledge, at the time of this post, the pipeline is still operational.

Political Organization

The historical political organization was based on participation of individuals and the cooperation of many to sustain the tribe’s ways of life. Leaders would be chosen based on noble birth and demonstrations of their chiefly virtues which included bravery, fortitude, generosity and wisdom. Political leaders were members of the Naca Omniciye society, which would decide matters of tribal hunts, their camp movements, whether to make war or peace with their neighbors, or any other community action. The societies of the Sioux were similar to fraternities. Men would join to raise their position in the tribe. Societies composed of smaller clans and varying in numbers among seven divisions. There were two types of societies: the Akichita society was for younger men and the Naca for the elders and former leaders.

The Akichita (Warrior) societies were to train warriors, hunters and to police the community. There were also smaller Akichita societies including the Kit-Fox, Strong Heart, and Elk, as well as others.

Leaders in the Naca societies, per Naca Omniciye, were tribal elders and leaders. They would elect seven to ten men. Depending on what division they were in they would be referred to as Wichasa Ithanchan (“chief man”). Each Wichasa Ithanchan had interpreted and enforced the decisions of the Naca. The Wichasa Ithanchan would also elect two to four Shirt Wearers, who would be the voice of the society. They had also settled quarrels among families, as well as foreign nations. Shirt Wearers had often consisted of young men from the families with hereditary claims of leadership. However, men with obscure parents who had displayed outstanding leadership skills had also earned the respect of their community and may also be elected. Crazy Horse is an example of a common-born “Shirt Wearer”.

A Wakichunza (“Pipe Holder”) was ranked below the “Shirt Wearers”. They would regulate peace ceremonies, selected camp locations, and supervised the Akichita societies during their buffalo hunts.

Sioux Linguistics

Three closely related language groups compromise the Sioux: the Eastern Dakota, also known as Santee-Sisseton or Dakhota, Santee, or Sisseton; the Western Dakota or Yankton-Yanktonai, or Daknota, Yankton and Yanktonai; the Lakota or Laknota, Teton, or Teton Sioux.

Earlier linguistics and a three-way division of the Sioux language was identified as Lakota, Dakota and Nakota which were the earlier dialects of a single language. However, the latest studies show that Yankton-Yanktonai never had used the autonym Nakhota, but had pronounced their name roughly the same as the Santee, for example: Daknota. These later studies identify the Assiniboine and Stoney as two separate languages, with Sioux being the third language.

The Sioux language had three similar dialects: Lakota, Western Dakota (Yankton-Yanktonai), and Eastern Dakota (Santee-Sisseton). The Assiniboine and Stoney speakers refer to themselves as Nakhota or Nakhoda.

Dakota is a term that has been applied by anthropologists and governmental departments to refer to all Sioux groups. This results in the names such as Teton Dakota, Sante Dakota, etc. This would mainly be due to the misrepresented translation of the Ottawa word from which Sioux is derived from.

Modern Geographic Divisions

The Sioux continue to have many separate tribal governments that are scattered across several reservations and communities in North America. Some governments cover the Dakotas, Minnesota, Nebraska and Montana in the United States, but others cover Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan and Alberta in Canada.

The earliest known European record of the Sioux identifies them in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin. After the introduction of the horse in the early part of the 18^th century, the Sioux had dominated larger areas of land from what is now Central Canada to the Platte River and from Minnesota to the Yellowstone River, including the Powder River country.

The Santee (Isanyathi or Eastern Dakota)

Migrating north and westward from the southeastern United States were the Santee. They would first move into Ohio and then into Minnesota. Some also came up from the Santee River and Lake Marion area of South Carolina. The Santee River would be named after them and some of their ancestors’ ancient earthwork mounds have continued to survive along portions of the dammed-up river that forms Lake Marion. In the past, they were a Woodland people who would thrive on hunting, fishing and farming like much of the other tribes we’ve already addressed.

The Ojibwe migrations from the east in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, with muskets that were supplied by the French and British, had pushed the Dakota further into Minnesota and west and southward. “Dakota Territory” was a name that the United States gave to their northern expansion west of the Mississippi River and up to its headwaters.

The Ihankthunwan-Ihanjkthunwanna (Yankton-Yanktonai or Western Dakota)

Yankton and Yanktonai divisions are the anglicized spellings for the Ihanjkthunwan-Ihanjkthunwanna, and consist of two of the bands or two of the seven council fires. According to Nasunatanka and Matononpa in 1830, the Yanktonai have been divided into two sub-groups known as the Upper Yanktonai and the Lower Yanktonai (Hunkpatina).

They had been involved in quarrying pipestone. The Yankton-Yanktonai had also moved into northern Minnesota. During the 18^th century, they were recorded as living in the Mankato region of Minnesota.

The Lakota (Teton or Thithunwan)

The Sioux had likely obtained horses sometime during the 17^th century, though some historians date the arrival in South Dakota of horses to 1720, crediting the Cheyenne with the introduction of horse culture to the Lakota. The Teton (Lakota) division of Sioux had emerged as a result of this introduction. Dominating the northern Great Plains with their light cavalry, the western Sioux quickly expanded their territory further to the Rocky Mountains.

Lakota had once subsisted on bison hunts and on corn. They had acquired corn mainly through their trade with the eastern Sioux and their linguistic cousins the Mandan and Hidatsa along the Missouri River. The name Teton or Thithunwan is considered to be archaic among the people, who prefer instead to call themselves Laknota.

Sioux Ethnic Divisions

The Sioux are divided into three ethnic groups, the larger of which are divided into sub-groups as well, and then further branched into bands. The Santee live on reservations, reserves, and communities in Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota and Canada. However, after the 1862 Dakota War, many Santee were sent to the Crow Creek Indian Reservation. Two years later, some Sioux from the Crow Creek Reservation were sent to the Santee Sioux Reservation. Most of the Yanktons live on the Yankton Indian Reservation in the southeastern part of South Dakota. Some of the Yankton also live on the Yankton Indian Reservation and the Crow Creek Indian Reservation as well. The Yanktonai are also divided into the Lower Yanktonai, and occupy the Crow Creek Reservation. The Upper Yanktonai live in the northern part of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in northern Montana. In addition, they reside at several Canadian reserves including Birdtail, Oak Lake and Moose Woods. Of the three groups, the Lakota are the westernmost of the Sioux Indians and occupy land in both North and South Dakota.

Today, many of the Sioux also live outside their reservations. The Santee Division in Eastern Dakota include the Mdewakantonwan, Sisseton, and Wahpekute. The Yankton-Yantonai Division (Western Dakota) consist of the Yankton, and Yanktonai, including the Upper Yanktonai and Unkpatina or Lower Yanktonai. Finally, the Teton Division (Lakota) include the Oglala, Hunkpapa, Sihasapa, Miniconjou, Brule, Sans Arc and the Two Kettles tribes.

The Pawnee Indians

The Pawnee are another Plains Indian tribe who have their headquarters in Pawnee, Oklahoma. The people of this tribe are federally recognized as the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. Historically, they had lived in the Nebraska and Kansas area. In the Pawnee language, the people had referred to themselves as Chaticks si Chaticks, or “Men of Men”.

In the past, the Pawnee had lived in large earth lodge villages with adjacent farmlands. They had used tipis when they were traveling. With the arrival of horses, the Pawnee had retained their agricultural lifestyle, with tribal economic activities throughout the year alternating between farming crops and hunting buffalo.

During the early part of the 19^th century, the Pawnee had numbers over 10,000 people and were one of the largest and most powerful tribes in the west. Although it had dominated the Loup and Platte River areas for centuries, the Pawnee had later suffered from increasing encroachment and attrition by their numerically superior, nomadic enemies: the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho. Collectively, they were known to them as cararat, which means “enemy tribe” or “cahriksuupiiru, meaning “enemey”. Later, they were occasionally at war with the Comanche and Kiowa who were further to the south. They would suffer many losses due to disease, crop failure and warfare, to the approximate loss of 2,400 people by 1873. After this time, they were forced to move to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. A number of the Pawnee warriors were enlisted to serve as Indian scouts in the United States Army, so that they could track and fight their tribal enemies that resisted European-American expansion on the Great Plains.

Pawnee Government

There are about 3,200 people enrolled as Pawnee, and nearly all of them reside in Oklahoma. The tribal headquarters is located in Pawnee, Oklahoma, with the tribal jurisdictional area in parts of Noble, Payne, and Pawnee counties. The tribal constitution establishes the government of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. This type of government consists of the Resaru Council, the Pawnee Business Council, and the Supreme Court. The enrollment process into the tribe still requires a minimum of 1/8^th blood quantum.

The Resaru Council, also known as the “Chiefs Council” has eight members in it. Each of the eight serve four-year terms. Each band of the Pawnee has two representatives on the Council, of which each representative would be selected by members of the tribal bands the Cawi, Kitkahaki, Pitahawirata and Ckiri. The Chiefs Council has the right to review all acts of the Pawnee Business Council regarding the membership of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and its claims and rights growing out of treaties between the Nation and the United States, according to provisions listed in the Pawnee Nation Constitution.

The supreme governing body of the Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma is the Pawnee Business Council. It is, however, subject to limitations imposed by the Constitution and applicable Federal Law. The Business Council can exercise all inherent, statutory and treaty powers of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma by enactment of legislation, the transaction of business, and by otherwise speaking or acting on the behalf of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, on all matters which the Nation is empowered to act. This includes the authority to hire a legal counsel to represent the whole Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma.

Members that were new to the Council were voted in by people of the tribe. The elections for new members are held every two years on the first Saturday in May.

Economic Development

Two gaming casinos, three smoke shops, two fueling stations, and one truck stop are operated by the Pawnee. In 2010, an estimated $10.5 million was the economic impact of these businesses for the tribe. Increased revenues from casinos have helped the Pawnee provide for their citizen’s welfare and education. The tribe also issues their own tribal vehicle tags and operate their housing authority as well.

The Pawnee Culture

The Pawnee are divided into two large groupings. Living in the north was the Skidi/Skiri-Federation, the most populous group of the Pawnee Indians. The South Bands are further divided into several villages. The Cawi/Chaui Band of the South Bands were generally considered the politically leading group. Each band was autonomous, which was typical of many Native American tribes. Each band saw to its own people. In response to the pressures of the Spanish, French and Americans, as well as neighboring tribes, the Pawnee began to draw closer together.

These Native Americans primarily have a sedentary lifestyle, combining village life and seasonal hunting, which had long been established on the Plains. Archaeological studies of the ancient sites have demonstrated that people had lived in this pattern for nearly seven hundred years, since about 1250 CE.

They would generally settle close to the rivers and placed their lodges on the higher banks. The Pawnee had built earth lodges that by historical times had tended to be oval in shape, during earlier stages, these lodges were rectangular. Pawnee would construct the frame, which was made of ten to fifteen posts, set ten feet apart from one another, which had outlined the central room of the lodge. The size of the lodges had varied based on the number of poles that were placed in the center of the structure. Most lodges were four painted poles, which represented the four cardinal directions and four major star gods, not to be confused with the Creator. A second outer ring of poles would outline the outer circumference of the lodge. Other horizontal beams had linked the posts together.

The frame of the lodge was covered first with smaller poles, that were tied together with willow withes. The structure was covered with thatch and then earth. A hole was left in the center of the covering, which served as a combined chimney/smoke hole and a skylight. The door of the lodge was placed to the east of the rising sun. A long, low passageway, which had helped to keep outside weather out would lead to an entry room that had an interior buffalo-skin door on a hinge. This door could be closed at night and wedged shut. Opposite to the door, on the west side of the central room, a buffalo skull with horns was on display, and was considered to be great medicine.

Mats were also hung on the perimeter of the main room to shield smaller rooms in the outer ring, which had served as the sleeping and private spaces. The lodge was semi-subterranean, as the Pawnee recessed the base by digging it about three feet (one meter) below the ground level, thereby insulating the interior from extreme temperatures. Lodges were strong enough to support adults who would routinely sit on them, and children who played on top of the structures.

There would be thirty to fifty people that would live in each lodge, usually of related families. One village could consist of as many as three hundred to five hundred people and ten to fifteen households. Each lodge was divided into two sections, the north and the south. Each section of the lodge had a head who would oversee the daily business of that lodge. These were further subdivided into three duplicate areas. Each area had tasks and responsibilities that would relate to ages of the women and girls. Membership of the lodge was quite flexible.

Tribes would go on buffalo hunts in the summer and winter. Upon their return, inhabitants of a lodge would often move into another lodge, although they had generally remained within the village. The lives of men were more transient than those of women. Men had obligations to their wife, and the family that they married into. However, they could always go back to their mother and sister’s home for a night or two of attention. When a young couple would marry, they would live with the woman’s family in a matrilocal pattern.

Political Structure

The Pawnee are a matrilineal people. Their ancestral descent is traced through the mother, and children are considered to be born into the mother’s clan and part of her people. Traditionally, a young couple would move into the bride’s parents’ lodge. Pawnee people would work together in collaborative ways, marked by both independence and cooperation, without coercion. Men and women alike are quite active in political life, with independent decision-making responsibilities.

Within a lodge, each north-south section had areas that were marked by activities of the three classes of women. Married women and mothers were considered mature women and did most of the labor. Women just learning their responsibilities are considered single women. Those who looked after the young children were considered older women.

Among the collection of lodges, political designations for men were essential. There was a Warrior Clique and Hunting Clique.

Women would tend to be responsible for the decisions about resource allocation, trade and inter-lodge social negotiations. Men were responsible for the decisions that pertained to hunting, war, and spiritual/health issues. Women would tend to remain without a single lodge, while men would typically move between the lodges. They would take multiple sexual partners in serially monogamous relationships.

Agriculture

The women of the Pawnee were skilled horticulturalists and cooks. They would cultivate and process ten varieties of corn, seven varieties of pumpkins and squash, and eight varieties of beans. Women would plant crops along the fertile river bottom-lands. These crops would provide a wide variety of nutrients and complemented one another in the making of whole proteins. In addition to this were varieties of flint corn and flour corn for consumption, women would plant an archaic breed, which they called “Wonderful” or “Holy Corn”, which was specifically to be included in sacred bundles.

The Holy Corn was cultivated and harvested to replace corn in sacred bundles that were prepared for the major seasons of winter and summer. Seeds were taken from the sacred bundles for the spring planting ritual. A cycle of corn had determined the annual agricultural cycle, as it was the first to be planted and the first harvested, with accompanying ceremonies that involved priests and men of the tribe as well.

In keeping with their cosmology, the Pawnee classified the varieties of corn by color. There was black, spotted, white, yellow and red corn, which, excluding spotted, related to the colors associated with the four semi-cardinal directions. Women also kept the different strains pure as they cultivated the corn. While important in agriculture, squash and beans were not given the same theological meaning as was corn.

Hunting

After obtaining horses, the Pawnee adapted their culture and expanded their buffalo hunting seasons. Since horses provided a greater range of travel, the Pawnee traveled in both the summer and winter westward to the Great Plains for buffalo hunting. They would often travel up to five hundred miles or more in one season. In the summer, the march would begin at dawn or before, but usually didn’t last the entire day.

Once buffalo were located, hunting didn’t begin until the tribal priests had considered the time propitious. The hunt began with the men stealthily advancing together toward the buffalo, but no one would kill any until the warriors or the tribe gave the signal. This would make it so the buffalo were not startled until the hunters could get in position for an attack on the herd. Anybody who broke ranks could be severely beaten. During the chase, hunters guided their ponies with their knees and wielded bows and arrows. They could incapacitate a buffalo with a single arrow shot into the flank between the lower ribs and hip. The animal would then soon lie down and perhaps bleed out, or hunters could finish it off. An individual hunter may shoot as many as five buffalo in this way before they would backtrack and finish them off. They had preferred to kill cows and young bulls since the taste of older bulls was disagreeable.

After the men had their successful kills, women would process the bison meat, skin, and bones for various uses. The flesh was sliced into strips and then dried on poles over slow burning fires before they were stored. When being prepared in this manner, it was usable for several months. Although the Pawnee preferred buffalo, they also hunted other game including elk, bear, panther and skunk, both for their meat and skins. The skin was used for clothing and other accessories, storage bags, foot coverings, fastening ropes and ties, etc.

The Pawnee would return to their villages to harvest crops when the corn was ripe in the late summer or in spring when the grass had become green and they could plant a new cycle of crops. Summer hunts would extend from late June to about the first of September, but may end early if it was a successful hunt. At times, the hunt was limited to what is now western Nebraska. Winter hunts were from late October until the early part of April and were often to the southwest into what is now considered western Kansas.

Religion

Like many other Native American tribes, the Pawnee had a cosmology with elements of all of nature being represented in it. They had based many of their rituals on the four cardinal directions. Pawnee priests would conduct ceremonies based on sacred bundles that included various materials such as an ear of sacred corn that held great symbolic value. These were used in many religious ceremonies to maintain the balance of nature and the Pawnee relationship with gods and spirits. During the 1890s, already living in Oklahoma, the people participated in the Ghost Dance movement.

The Pawnee believed that the Morning Star and Evening Star gave birth to the first Pawnee woman. The first Pawnee man was the offspring of the union of the Moon and the Sun. As they believed that they were descendants of the stars, cosmology had a central role in their daily and spiritual lives. They would plant crops according to the position of the stars, which related to the appropriate time of the season for planting. Like many tribal bands, they too sacrificed maize and other crops to the stars.

The Skidi Pawnee also practiced human sacrifice, specifically of captive girls in the “Morning Star Ritual”. They would continue this practice quite regularly through the 1810’s and possibly after 1838, which was the last reported sacrifice. They believed that the longstanding rite ensured the fertility of the soil and success of their crops, as well as the renewal of all life in the spring. The sacrifice was also related to the belief that the first human being was a girl, born of the mating of the Morning Star, the male figure of light, and the Evening Star, a female figure of darkness in their creation story.

Typically, a warrior would have a dream of the Morning Star, usually in the autumn, which would mean it was time to prepare for the various steps of the ritual to begin. The visionary would consult with the Morning Star priest, who then helped him prepare for his journey to find a sacrifice. With the help of others, the warrior would capture a young unmarried girl from an enemy tribe. They would then keep the girl and care for her over the winter, taking her with them as they made their buffalo hunt. They then arranged her sacrifice in the spring, in relation to the rising of the Morning Star. She was well treated and fed throughout this time.

Once the Morning Star arose with a red ring, the priest knew this was the signal for the sacrifice. He would then direct the men to carry out the rest of the ritual. They would construct a scaffold outside of their village made of sacred woods and leathers from different animals. Each of these had important symbolism. The scaffold was erected over a pit with elements corresponding to the four cardinal directions. All elements of the ritual related to a symbolic meaning and belief and were necessary for the renewal of life. The preparations for the sacrifice would take four days.

A procession would then take place that consisted of men and boys, even male infants that had to be carried. The procession would accompany the girl out of the village to the scaffold. Together they would await the Morning Star. When the star was due to rise, the girl was placed and tied on the scaffold. At the moment that the star appeared above the horizon, the girl was shot with an arrow, then the priest cut the skin of her chest to bleed. She was quickly shot with arrows by all of the participating men and boys to hasten her death. The girl was then carried to the east and placed face down, so that her blood would soak into the earth. Appropriate prayers for crops and the life she would bring to all life on the prairie would be spoken at this time.

In about 1820, news of these sacrifices had reached the East Coast of the United States. It would cause a sensation among the European-Americans. Before this, the United States’ Indian agents had counseled the Pawnee chiefs to suppress the practice, as they warned of how it would upset the American settlers who were arriving in greater numbers to the area. Knife Chief had ransomed at least two captives before sacrifice. For any individual, it was extremely difficult to try to change a practice that had been tied so closely to the Pawnee belief in the annual renewal of life for the tribe. During June of 1818, the Missouri Gazette of St. Louis contained the account of one of these sacrifices. The last known sacrifice of Haxti, a 14-year-old Oglala Lakota girl took place on the 22^nd of April 1838.

Sometime in the 1960s, the historian Gene Weltfish drew from earlier work of Wissler and Spinden to suggest that the sacrificial practice may have been transferred in the early 16^th century from the Aztec of what is now Mexico. More recently, historians have disputed the proposed connection to the Meso-American practice. They instead believe that the sacrifice ritual originated separately within the ancient traditional Pawnee culture.

The History of the Pawnee

In 1541, Francisco Vazquez de Coronado had visited the neighboring Wichita and there encountered a Pawnee chief from Harahey in Nebraska. There is not much mentioned of the Pawnee until the 17^th and 18^th centuries, when the successive incursions of Spanish, French, and English settlers attempted to enlarge their possessions. The tribes at the time would tend to make alliances, as and when it would suit them. Different Pawnee sub-tribes could make treaties with the warring European powers without disrupting their underlying unity, as the Pawnee were masters at unity within diversity.

Traditionally, Native American and First Nations tribes would sell their captives from warfare as slaves to other tribes and to the European traders. In French Canada, Indian slaves were generally called Panis (anglicized to Pawnee), as most, at first, had been captured from the Pawnee tribe or their relations. The Pawnee became synonymous with “Indian slaves” in general use in Canada, and a slave from any tribe came to be called Panis. In as early as 1670, a historical reference was recorded to a Panis in Montreal. By 1757, Louis Antoine de Bougainville had considered that the Panis nation “plays…the same role in America that the Negroes do in Europe”. Historian Marcel Trudel would document that close to two thousand “Panis” slaves had lived in Canada until slavery was abolished in the colony in 1833. Indian slaves would compromise of close to half of the known slaves in French Canada (also called Lower Canada).

During the 18^th century, the Pawnee were allies with the French and also traded with them. They had played an important role in halting the expansion of the Spanish onto the Great Plains, by decisively defeating the Villasur Expedition in battle in 1720.

A Pawnee tribal delegation had visited with President Thomas Jefferson, and in 1806 Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, Major G. C. Sibley, Major S. H. Long, among others, began to visit the Pawnee villages. Under the pressure from Siouan tribes and European-American settlers, the Pawnee would cede their territory to the United States government in the treaties of 1818, 1825, 1833, 1848, 1857, and 1892. During 1857, they had settled on the Pawnee Reservation along the Loup River in present-day Nance County, Nebraska, but they continued their traditional way of life. They would be subjected to continual raids by the Lakota from the north and west. On one of these raids, a Sioux war party of over 1,000 warriors had ambushed a Pawnee hunting party of three hundred and fifty men, women and children. The Pawnee had gained permission to leave the reservation and hunt buffalo when about seventy Pawnee were killed in another attack that occurred in a canyon in today’s Hitchcock County. Today, the site of the attack is known as Massacre Canyon. Due to ongoing hostilities with the Sioux and the encroachment of American settlers to the south and east, the Pawnee decided to leave the Nebraska reservation in the 1870s and then settled on a new reservation in Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma.

Up until the 1830s, the Pawnee, in what would become United States territory, were relatively isolated from interaction with Europeans. As a result, they were not exposed to Eurasian infectious diseases like the measles, smallpox and cholera, of which they had no immunity to. In the 19^th century though they would be pressed by Siouan groups encroaching from the east, who also brought diseases with them. Epidemics of smallpox and cholera, and endemic warfare with the Sioux and Cheyenne would cause dramatic mortality losses among the Pawnee. An estimated population of 12,000 in the 1830s was reduced to 3,400 by 1859 and were they were forced to a reservation in what is now Nance County, Nebraska.

The Pawnee in the village of Chief Blue Coat had suffered a severe defeat on the 27^th of June 1843 when a force of Lakotas attacked their village, killing more than sixty-five inhabitants and burning twenty earth lodges.

Warriors enlisted as Pawnee Scouts in the latter half of the 19^th century in the United States Army. Like other groups of Native American scouts, the Pawnee warriors were recruited in large numbers to fight on the Northern and Southern Plains in a variety of conflicts against the hostile Native Americans. Since the Pawnee were old enemies of the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche and Kiowa tribes, they had served with the Army for fourteen years between 1864 and 1877, earning a reputation as being a well-trained unit, especially in tracking and reconnaissance. The Scouts would take part with distinction in the Battle of the Tongue River during the Powder River Expedition of 1865 against the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho, as well as in the Battle of Summit Springs. They had also fought alongside the United States in the Great Sioux War of 1876. On the Southern Plains they fought against their old enemies, the Comanche and Kiowa, in the Comanche Campaign.

During 1874, they requested relocation to Indian Territory in Oklahoma, but the stress of the move, diseases and poor conditions on their reservation reduced their numbers even more. It was during this time that outlaws often smuggled whiskey to the Pawnee. The teenage female bandits Little Britches and Cattle Annie were imprisoned for this crime.

A year later, most members of the nation had moved to Indian Territory, which was a large area reserved to receive tribes that were displaced from the east of the Mississippi River and elsewhere. The warriors had resisted the loss of their freedom and culture, but gradually they too adapted to being on a reservation. On the 23^rd of November 1892, the Pawnee in Oklahoma signed an agreement with the Cherokee Commission to accept individual allotments of land in a breakup of their communal holding. By 1900, the population of the Pawnee was recorded by the United States Census to be at just 633. Since then, the tribe has begun to recover their numbers.

Recent History

In 1906, in preparation for the statehood of Oklahoma, the United States government dismantled the Pawnee tribal government and civic institutions. The tribe would reorganize under the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act of 1936 and then established the Pawnee Business Council, the Nasharo (Chiefs) Council, and a tribal constitution, bylaws, and charter.

During the 1960s, the government settled a suit by the Pawnee Nation regarding their compensation for lands that were ceded to the United States in the 19^th century. In an out-of-court settlement in 1964, the Pawnee Nation was awarded $7,316,097 for the land that was ceded and undervalued by the federal government in the previous century.

Bills, such as the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 have allowed the Pawnee Nation to regain some of its self-government. They would continue to practice their cultural traditions, meeting twice a year for inter-tribal gatherings with their kinsmen, the Wichita Indians. They also have an annual four-day Pawnee Homecoming for their veterans in July. Many of the Pawnee also return to their traditional lands to visit their relatives and take part in scheduled powwows.

The Comanche Indians

The Comanche Indians are another Native American nation from the Great Plains of America. Their historic territory, known as Comancheria, had consisted of what is now eastern New Mexico, southeastern Colorado, southwestern Kansas, western Oklahoma, and most of the northwest of Texas and northern Chihuahua, Mexico. The Comanche are a federally recognized tribe, and are also known as the Comanche Nation and have their headquarters in Lawton, Oklahoma.

After European contact, the Comanches were hunter-gatherers with a horse culture. During the later part of the 18^th century, there may have been as many as 45,000 people in the Comanche Nation. They were the dominant tribe on the southern Plains and would often take captives from the weaker tribes during warfare, then would sell them as slaves to the Spanish and later Mexican settlers. They had also taken thousands of captives from the Spanish, Mexican, and American settlers.

Today, the Comanche Nation has 15,191 members, approximately 7,763 of them reside in their tribal jurisdiction area around Lawton, Fort Sill and the surrounding areas of southwestern Oklahoma. Every year, in mid-July, the Comanche have their Comanche Homecoming Annual Dance in Walters, Oklahoma.

The language of the Comanche is a Numic language of the Uto-Aztecan family, sometimes their language is classified as a Shoshoni dialect. Today, only about one percent of the Comanches speak this language. The actual name “Comanche” is from kimantsi, meaning enemy, and is a name given them by the Ute Indians.

Comanche Government, Economic Development, and Cultural Institutions

As stated before, the Comanche Nation has their headquarters in Lawton, Oklahoma. Their tribal jurisdictional area is located in Caddo, Comanche, Cotton, Grady, Jefferson, Kiowa, Stephens, and Tillman Counties. To be a member of the Comanche tribe, one is required to have one-eighth blood quantum, equivalent to having one great-grandparent who was Comanche. As of July of 2016, the interim Tribal Chairman is Susan Cothren, Tribal Administrator is Jimmy Arterberry, and Comanche Business Committee members are Susan Cothren (as Vice-Chairman), Jerry Tahsequah (Secretary/Treasurer), Johnny Poahway, Harry Mithlo and Clyde Narcomey.

The Comanche tribe operates its own housing authority and also issues tribal vehicle tags. They also have their own Department of Higher Education, primarily awarding scholarships and financial aid for their members’ college educations. They also operate the Comanche Nation College in Lawton, Oklahoma. Casinos are also a means of income for the Comanche Nation, of which there are four that are run by the tribe: Comanche Nation Casino in Lawton, Oklahoma; Comanche Red River Casino in Devol; Comanche Spur Casino in Elgin and Comanche Star Casino in Walters, Oklahoma. Another means of profit for the tribe are ten tribal smoke shops.

In 2002, the tribe had founded the Comanche Nation College, a two-year tribal college, also in Lawton, Oklahoma. Each July, Comanche people from across the United States gather together to celebrate their heritage and culture in Walters, Oklahoma, at the annual Comanche Homecoming powwow. The Comanche Nation Fair is held during every September, and the Comanche Little Ponies host two annual dances, one is over New Year’s, and the other is held in May.

Comanche History

Shortly before 1700, the Comanche had emerged as a distinct group when they broke off from the Shoshone people that were living along the Platte River in Wyoming. In 1680, the Comanche had acquired horses from the Pueblo Indians after the Pueblo Revolt, it was after this that they had separated from the Shoshone, as horses had allowed them greater mobility in their search for better hunting grounds.

Horses were a key element in the emergence of a distinctive Comanche culture. They were of such strategic importance that some scholars have suggested that the Comanche had broken away from the Shoshone and moved southward to search for additional sources of horses among the settlers of New Spain to the south, instead of searching for new herds of buffalo. The Comanche may have been the first group of Plains natives that had fully incorporated the horse into their culture, and had introduced the animal to other Plains peoples. From Natchitoches in Spanish Louisiana, Athanase de Mezieres had reported in 1770 that the Comanche were:

“so skillful in horsemanship that they have no equal, so daring that they never ask for or grant truces, and in possessions of such a territory that…they only just fall short of possessing all of the conveniences of the earth, and have no need to covet the trade pursued by the rest of the Indians.”

The original migration of the Comanche had taken them to the southern Great Plains, sweeping the territory that extended from the Arkansas River to central Texas. By 1700, the Comanche had reached present-day New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle, forcing the Lipan Apache people even more southward. The Lipan Apache were defeated in a nine-day battle along the Rio del Fierro (Wichita River) in 1723. The river may have been the location mentioned by Athanase de Mezieres in 1772, containing “a mass of metal which the Indians say is hard, thick, heavy, and composed of iron”, which they “venerate…as an extraordinary manifestation of nature.” The Comanche would call this Ta-pic-ta-carre, meaning standing rock; Po-l-wisht-carre or standing metal; or Po-a-cat-le-pi-le-carre, meaning medicine rock. The general area contained a “large number of meteoric masses.” By 1777, the Lipan Apache had retreated to the Rio Grande, and the Mescalero Apache to Coahulla.

During that time, the population of the Comanche would increase dramatically, due to the abundance of buffalo, an influx of Shoshone migrants, and their adoption of significant numbers of women and children that they took from rival groups. The Comanche never formed a single cohesive tribal unit, but had been divided into almost a dozen autonomous groups, called bands. These groups would share the same language and culture, and rarely would fight one another. They have been estimated to have taken captive thousands of people from Spanish, Mexican, and American settlers in their lands as well. Curtis Marez suggests that this contributed to the development of mestizaje in the borderlands, as descendants of such captives were mixed-race.

By the mid-19^th century, the Comanche were supplying horses to the French and American traders and settlers. Later they also supplied horses to the migrants that passed through their territory on their way to California for the Gold Rush along the California Road. The Indians would steal many of the horses from other tribes and settlers, earning a reputation as formidable horse thieves, later extending their rustling to cattle. Stealing livestock from the Spanish and American settlers, as well as other Plains tribes, had often led to war.

Comanche Indians also had access to a vast number of feral horses, which numbered about two million in and around Comancheria. These horses were no problem for the Comanche, as they had been particularly skilled at breaking them to saddle. In the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, the Comanche lifestyle had required about one horse per person, though warriors each had possession of many more. With a population of about 30,000-40,000 and in possession of herds many times that number, the Comanche led a surplus of about 90,000 to 120,000 horses.

The Comanche were also formidable opponents that would develop strategies for using traditional weapons for fighting on horseback. Warfare was a major part of the Comanche way of life. Their raids into Mexico would traditionally take place during full moons, when they could see to ride through the night, leading to the term “Comanche Moon”. During this time, the Comanche raided horses, captives and weapons. The majority of Comanche raids into Mexico were in the state of Chihuahua and the neighboring northern states.

Comanche Divisions

In the society of the Comanche there were four levels of social-political integration. They have both a patrilineal and patrilocal nuclear family, and an extended family group. The Comanche people live together in a household, with no limits to the size, but kinship recognition was limited to relatives two generations above or three below. The residential local group had compromised of one or more family, but one would form its core. There were also divisions; or bands, sometimes called tribes. These consisted of several local groups linked by a kinship, sodalities (political, medicine, and military), and a common interest in hunting, gathering, war, peace and trade.

For an example of such political and kinship-based division, the Yaparuhka had identified as a separate division, since their culture and linguistics were different from other Comanche bands, thus they became the “(Yap) Root-Eaters”, in contrast to the Kuhtsutuhka (“Buffalo-Eaters”). The Yaparuhka division was compromised of several residential local groups, such as the Ketahtoh Tu, Motso Tu, and Pibianigwai.

In contrast to the neighboring Cheyenne and Arapaho to the north, the Comanche never developed a political idea of forming a nation or tribe. The Comanche had recognized each other as Numunu and the different bands seldom fought against one another. However, the Kwaaru Nuu would pursue policies against the Spanish and Indian settlements in New Mexico independently of the Kuhtsutuhka. As a consequence, at the time when the Comanche society was breaking down, the once respected and feared Penatuku Nuu provided the United States Army Indian Scout for Americans and Texans against their still fighting and free-roaming Comanche kin.

The band was a primary social unit of the Comanche. A typical band might number about one hundred people. Bands were part of larger divisions or tribes. Before the 1750s, there were three Comanche divisions: the Yamparikas, Jupes, and Kotsotekas. During the 1750s and 1760s, a number of Kotsoteka bands split off and moved to the southeast. This would result in a large division between them and their original group. There were now the western Comanche, and break-away Kotsotekas, the eastern Comanches. The western Comanche lived in the region of the upper Arkansas, Canadian and Red Rivers, and the Llano Estacado. The eastern Comanche lived on Edwards Plateau and the Texas plains of the upper Brazos and Colorado Rivers and east to the Cross Timbers River.

Through time, these divisions were altered in various ways. During the 19^th century, the Jupes vanished from history, probably merging into other divisions. Many Yamparikas had moved southeast, joining the eastern Comanche and becoming known as the Tenewa. Many Kiowa and Plains Apache (or Naishan) had moved to the northern Comancheria and became closely associated with the Yamparika. A group of the Arapaho, known as Charitica had moved into the Comancheria and joined the Comanche society. Other new divisions also arose, such as the Nokonis, who were closely linked with the Tenewa and the Kwahadi, and emerged as a new faction on the southern Llano Estacado. The western-eastern distinction changed in the 19^th century and observers began to call them Northern, Middle and Southern Comanche.

One of the largest groups and southernmost as well, had lived on the edge of Edwards Plateau and east to Cross Timbers. They would come to be known as the Penateka (Penatuka Nuu) Southern Comanches.

In the eastern part of Comancheria, between the Colorado and Red Rivers roamed the Nokoni. To the south of them were the strong, associated smaller bands or residential groups of the Tenawa and Tanima. Together, the Nokoni, Tenawa and Tanima were known as the Middle Comanche. Just to the north of the Nokonis, in the Red River Valley, between the Red and Canadian rivers, resided the numerous residential local groups of the powerful Kotsotekas. They took their name from the large buffalo herds that were always in their territory.

The northernmost Comanche band was the Yamparikas. As the last band to move onto the Plains, they had retained much of their Shoshone tradition because the Kotsoteka and Yamparika living in the northern part of the Comancheria, they were called the Northern Comanche. The last large group was known as Kwahadis. They were originally the Kotsoteka-residential local groups that had moved south out of Cimarron Valley onto the desert plains on the Llano Estacado. They would emerge as a new division in the 19^th century. Even though the western-eastern distinction had changed in the 19^th century, these people were classified as Western Comanche because of their relative isolation on the westernmost edge of the Comancheria.

All of these division names were spelled in many different ways by Spanish and English writers, spelling differences still continue to this day. Large-scale groupings had become unstable and unclear during the 19^th century. The Comanche society were slowly overwhelmed and ultimately subjugated to the United States.

The Comanche and the Settlers

When it came to the European settlers and later settlers as well, attempting to colonize the Comanche territory, the Comanche maintained an ambiguous relationship with them. The Indians were valued as trading partners since 1786 via the Comancheros out of New Mexico, but were feared for their raids against settlers in Texas. Similarly, they were, at one time or another, at war with virtually every other Native American group that was living on the Southern Plains, leaving opportunities for political

maneuvering by European colonial powers and the United States. At one point, Sam Houston, the president of the newly created Republic of Texas, almost succeeded in reaching a peace treaty with the Comanche in the 1844 Treaty of Tehuacana Creek. Houston’s efforts were thwarted in 1845 when the Texas legislature had refused to create an official boundary between Texas and Comancheria.

While the Comanche had managed to maintain their independence and increase their territory, by the middle of the 19^th century they had faced annihilation because of a wave of epidemics due to Eurasian diseases that they had no immunity to, such as smallpox and measles. The outbreaks of smallpox in 1817 and 1848 and cholera in 1849, had taken a major toll on the Comanche. Their population dropped from an estimated 20,000 in the middle of the century, to just a few thousand by the 1870s.

In the late 1860s, the United States began to make efforts to move the Comanche into reservations with the Treaty of Medicine Lodge in 1867. The reservations had offered churches, schools and annuities in return for the vast tract of land totaling over sixty thousand square miles (160,000 square kilometers). The government promised to stop buffalo hunters, who had been decimating great herds on the Plains, provided that the Comanche, along with Apaches, Kiowas, Cheyenne, and Arapahos moved to reservations totaling less than 5,000 square miles (13,000 square kilometers) of land. However, the government did not prevent the slaughtering of herds as they had promised. The Comanche under Isa-tai (Coyote’s Vagina) retaliated by attacking a group of hunters in the Texas Panhandle in the Second Battle of Adobe Walls in 1874. The attack was a disaster for the Comanche. The United States Army was called in during the Red River War to drive the remaining Comanche in the area into reservations, culminating in the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon. Within just ten years, the buffalo were on the verge of extinction, effectively ending the Comanche way of life as hunters. During 1875, the last free band of Comanches, led by the Quahada warrior Quanah Parker would surrender and moved to Fort Sill Reservation in Oklahoma. The last independent Kiowa and Kiowa Apache also surrendered.

Unhappy with their lives on the reservations, 170 warriors and their families, led by Black Horse, left the reservation in late 1876 for Llano Estacado. In 1877, attacks on buffalo hunter camps led to the Buffalo Hunters’ War.

Some of the Lipan Apache and Mescalero Apache bands, along with some Comanche that joined them, held out in northern Mexico until the early 1880s when the Mexican and United States Army forces drove them onto reservations as well, or drove them into extinction.

The 1890 census had shown 1,598 Comanche that resided on the Fort Sill Reservation, which they had to share with 1,140 Kiowa and 326 Kiowa Apache.

The Cherokee Commission

An agreement with the Comanche, Kiowa and Apache was signed with the Cherokee Commission on the 6^th to 21^st of October, 1892. It would further reduce the Comanche reservation to 480,000 acres (1,900 square kilometers) at a cost of $1.25 per acre ($308.88/km2), with an allotment of 160 acres (0.65 km2) per person, per tribe, to be held in a trust. New allotments were made in 1906 to all children that were born after the agreement, and remaining land was opened to white settlers. With the new agreement, the era of the Comanche reservation came to an abrupt end.

Other Comanche Treaties

The Peneteka Band of Comanche had agreed to a peace treaty with the German Immigration Company under John O. Meusebach. This would be known as the Meusebach-Comanche Treaty. This treaty was not affiliated with any level of government, but Meusebach had brokered the treaty in order to settle the lands on the Fisher-Miller Land Grant. The ten counties of Concho, Kimble, Llano, Mason, McCulloch, Menard, Schleicher, San Saba, Sutton, and Tom Green were formed from this treaty.

In contrast to many treaties of the time, this treaty was very brief and simple, with all parties agreeing to mutual cooperation and sharing of the land. The treaty was agreed to at a meeting in San Saba County, Texas, and was signed by all parties on the 9^th of May 1847 in Fredericksburg, Texas. The Meusebach-Comanche Treaty was very specific between the Peneteka Band and the German Immigration Company, no other band or tribe was involved. The German Immigration Company would be dissolved by Meusebach himself not long after it had served its purpose. By 1875, the Comanche had been relocated to reservations.

Five years later, the artist Friedrich Richard Petri and his family moved to the settlement of Pedernales, near Fredericksburg. Petri’s sketches and watercolors gave witness to the friendly relationships between the Germans and various local Native American tribes.

The 1850 Fort Martin Scott Treaty was signed in San Saba between the United States government and a number of local tribes, among which were the Comanche. The treaty was named for the nearest military fort, which was Fort Martin Scott. The treaty was never officially ratified by any level of government, but was binding only on the part of the Native Americans.

Captive Herman Lehmann

One of the most famous captives in Texas was a German boy named Herman Lehmann. He had been

kidnapped by the Apache, only to escape and be rescued by the Comanche. Lehmann became the adoptive son of Quanah Parker. On the 26^th of August 1901, Quanah Parker had provided a legal affidavit verifying Lehmann’s life as his adopted son between 1877 and 1878. Then on the 29^th of May 1908, United States Congress had authorized the United States Secretary of the Interior to allot Lehmann as an adopted member of the Comanche Nation. He was given 160 acres of Oklahoma land, near Grandfield.

The Comanche’s Recent History

For the Comanche, entering the western economy was a challenge in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Many tribal members were defrauded of whatever remained of their land and possessions. There was a paramount chief appointed by the United States government by the name of Chief Quanah Parker, who had campaigned vigorously for better deals for his people. He would meet with Washington politicians frequently, helping manage land for the tribe. Parker would become a wealthy cattleman and also campaigned for the Comanches’ permission to practice the Native American Church religious rites, such as usage of peyote, which was condemned by European Americans.

Before the first Oklahoma legislature, Quanah testified:

“I do not think this legislature should interfere with a man’s religion, also these people should be allowed to retain this health restorer. These healthy gentlemen before you use peyote and those that do not use it are not so healthy.”

During the second World War, many Comanche had left their traditional tribal lands in Oklahoma to seek jobs and more opportunities in the cities of California and the Southwest. About half of the Comanche population still lives in Oklahoma, centering themselves around the town of Lawton.

Recently, an eighty minute 1920 silent film was “rediscovered”, it was titled “The Daughter of Dawn”. It features a cast of more than three hundred Comanche and Kiowa.

Comanche Culture

Social Order

Comanche groups didn’t acknowledge a single leader. Instead, a small number of generally recognized leaders acted as counsel and advisors to the group as a whole. These included the “peace chief”, the members of the counsel and the “war chief”. The peace chief was usually an older individual that could bring his experience to the task of advising. There also was no formal inauguration or election for the position, it was instead a general consensus. The counsel had made decisions about where the band should hunt, whether they should war agianst their enemies and whether to ally themselves with other bands. Any member could speak at council meetings, but older men usually did most of the talking.

In times of war, the band had selected a war chief. In order to be chosen for this position, a man had to prove he was a brave fighter, he also had to have the respect of all the other warriors in the band. While the band was at war, the war chief was in charge, and all warriors had to obey him. After a conflict was over though, the war chief’s authority had ended.

Comanche men did most of the hunting and all of the fighting in wars. They had learned how to ride horses when they were young and were eager to prove themselves in battle. On the Plains, the Comanche women would carry out demanding tasks of cooking, skinning animals, setting up camp, rearing children, and transporting household goods.

Childbirth

If a woman went into labor while the band was on the move, she simply had to pause along the trail and give birth to her child. After a few hours of rest, she would then take the baby and catch up with the rest of the group. If a woman had gone into labor while the band was in camp, she was moved to a tipi, or a brush lodge if it was during the summer. One or more of the older women would assist her as her midwives. Men were not allowed inside the tipi during or even immediately after the delivery.

First, midwives would soften the earthen floor of the tipi and dug two holes. One hole was for heating water, the other was for the afterbirth. One or two stakes were driven into the ground near the expectant mother’s bedding for her to grip during labor pain. After the birth, midwives hung the umbilical cord on a hackberry tree. The Comanche people believed that if the umbilical cord was not disturbed before it rotted, the baby would live a long and prosperous life.

The newborn would be swaddled and remained with the mother in the tipi for a few days after birth. It was placed in a cradleboard and the mother would go back to work. She could easily carry the cradleboard on her back, or prop it against a tree where the baby could watch her while she was collecting seeds or roots. Cradleboards had consisted of a flat board to which a basket was attached. The latter was made from rawhide straps, or a leather sheath that laced up the front, with soft, dry moss as a diaper. The young child was safely tucked into the leather pocket.

During cold weather, the baby was wrapped in blankets and then placed inside the cradleboard. The baby would remain in the cradleboard for about ten months, it would then be allowed to crawl around. Both girls and boys were welcomed into the band, but boys were favored. If a baby was a boy, one of the midwives would inform the father or grandfather with “it’s your close friend”. Families might paint the flap on the tipi to tell the rest of the tribe that they had been strengthened with another warrior. At times, a man would name his child, but mostly the father would consult a medicine man, or another man of distinction to do so. This was done in hopes that the child would live a long and productive life. During a public naming ceremony, the medicine man lit his pipe and offered smoke to the heavens, earth and each of the four directions. He’d pray that the child would remain happy and healthy. Then he would lift the child to symbolize its growing up and announced the child’s name four times, each time he would raise the child higher. It was believed that the child’s name had foretold its future. Even a weak or sick child could grow up to be a great warrior, hunter, and raider if it was given a name suggesting courage and strength. Boys had often been named after their grandfather, uncle, or other relative. Girls usually were named after one of their father’s relatives, but the name was selected by the mother. As children grew they also acquired nicknames at different points in their lives to express some aspect of their lives.

Children

The Comanche viewed their children as their most precious gift. Children were rarely punished, but at times when they were, an older sister or other relative was called upon to discipline a child. Parents may also arrange for a boogey man to scare the child if they were bad. Occasionally, old people would wear sheets and frighten disobedient boys and girls. Children were also told about the Big Cannibal Owl (Pia Mupitsi). The story went that the Cannibal Owl lived in a cave on the south side of the Wichita Mountains and ate bad children at night.

Children would learn from example by observing and listening to their parents and others in the band. As soon as a girl was old enough to walk they could follow their mother about the camp and played at daily tasks of cooking and making clothing. She would also be very close to her mother’s sisters, who were not aunt, but pia, meaning mother. She’d also be given a little deerskin doll, of which she took with her everywhere. A girl would learn how to make all the clothing for her doll as well.

A boy had identified not only with his father but with his father’s family, and the bravest warriors in the band. He would learn to ride a horse before he could walk and by the time he was four or five he would be expected to be able to skillfully handle a horse. When a boy was five or six, he was given a small bow and arrows. Often a boy was taught to ride and shoot by his grandfather, since his father and other warriors were on raids and hunts. His grandfather also would teach him about his own boyhood and history and legends of the Comanche.

As a boy grew older, he would join other boys to hunt birds. Eventually, he would go further from camp looking for better game to kill. Encouraged to be skillful hunters, boys learned signs of the prairie as they had learned to patiently and quietly stalk game. They would become more self-reliant yet by playing together as a group, which also formed the strong bonds and cooperative spirit that they would need when they hunted and raided.

Boys were highly respected because they would one day become warriors and may die young in battle. As a boy approached manhood, he would go on his first buffalo hunt. If he made a kill, his father honored him with a feast. Only after a boy proved himself on a buffalo hunt was a young man allowed to go to war.

When he was ready to become a warrior, at about fifteen or sixteen years of age, a young man first “made his medicine” by going on a vision quest, which was a rite of passage. Following his quest, his father gave the young man a good horse to ride into battle and another mount for the trail. If he proved himself as a warrior, a Give Away Dance may be held in his honor. As drummers faced east, the honored boy and other young men danced. His parents, along with his other relatives and the people in the band, threw presents at his feet—especially blankets and horses symbolized by sticks. Anyone might snatch one of the gifts for themselves, although those with many possessions refrained, as they didn’t want to appear to be greedy. People often gave away all of their belongings during these dances, providing for others in the band, but leaving themselves with nothing.

Girls would learn to gather healthy berries, nuts and roots. They would carry water and collected wood as well. When she was about twelve years old, a girl would learn to cook meals, make tipis, sew clothing, prepare hides, and perform other tasks that were essential to becoming a wife and mother. After learning these things she was considered to be ready for marriage.

Death

During the 19^th century, traditional Comanche burial custom was to wrap the deceased’s body in a blanket and place it on a horse, behind a rider. The rider would then ride out in search of an appropriate burial place, such as a secure cave. After the entombment, the rider covered the body with stones and then returned to camp, where the mourner slahsed his arms to express his grief. The Quahada band followed this custom longer than other bands and buried their relatives in the Wichita Mountains. Christian missionaries had convinced the Comanche people to bury their dead in coffins inside graveyards, which is the practice used today.

Transportation and Habitation

When they had lived with the Shoshone, the Comanche mainly used dog-drawn travois for their transportation. However, later they had acquired horses from other tribes, such as the Pueblo, and also from the Spaniards. Since horses are faster, easier to control, and able to carry more, this would help with their hunting and warfare and made moving camp easier as well. Larger dwellings were made due to the ability to pull and carry more belongings. Being herbivores, horses were also easier to feed than dogs since meat was a valuable resource. The horse was of utmost value to the Comanche. The size of a man’s horse herd would show how wealthy a Comanche man was. Horse’s were prime targets to steal during raids. Raids were often conducted specifically to capture horses, and often times horse herds numbering in the hundreds were stolen by the Comanche during raids against other Indian nations, the Spanish, Mexicans, and later from ranches of Texans. Horses were also used for warfare with the Comanche being considered to be among the finest light cavalry and mounted warriors in history.

A great deal of the area inhabited by the Comanche was flat and dry, with the exception of major rivers like the Cimarron River, the Pecos River, the Brazos River and the Red River. The water of these rivers was often too dirty to drink though. Therefore, the Comanche usually lived along smaller, clear streams that flowed into them. These streams supported trees that the Comanche would use to build their shelters.

The Comanche had sheathed their tipis with a covering that was made of buffalo hides that were sewn

together. In order to prepare the buffalo hides, women would first spread them on the ground, then scraped away the fat and flesh with blades made from bones or antlers, and then left them in the sun. When the hides were dry, they would then scrape off the thick hair and then soak the hide in water. After several days, they vigorously rubbed the hides in a mixture of animal fat, brains, and liver to soften the hides. The hides were made even more supple by further rinsing and working back and forth over a rawhide thong. Finally, they were smoked over a fire, which gave the hides a light tan color. To finish a tipi covering, women laid the tanned hides side by side and stitched them together. There would be as many as twenty-two hides used in this process, but most only used fourteen. When finished, the hide covering was tied to a pole and raised, wrapped around the cone-shaped frame, and pinned together with pencil-sized wooden skewers. Two wing-shaped flaps at the top of the tipi were turned back to make an opening, which could be adjusted to keep out moisture and held pockets of insulating air. With a fire pit in the center of the earthen floor, tipis could be rolled up to let cool breezes in. Cooking was done outside during hot weather. For itinerant people such as the Comanche, tipis were very practical homes. Working together, women could quickly set them up or take them down. An entire Comanche band could be packed and chasing buffalo herds within about twenty minutes. Comanche women were the ones who did most of the work with food processing and preparation.

Food

Initially, the Comanche were hunter-gatherers. When they were living in the Rocky Mountains and during their migration to the Great Plains, both men and women shared the responsibility of gathering and providing foods. When they had reached the Great Plains hunting came to predominate, being considered a male activity and was also a principle source of prestige. For meat, the Comanche hunted buffalo, elk, black bear, pronghorn, and deer. When the game was scarce, the men hunted wild mustangs, sometimes eating their own ponies. In later years, the Comanche raided Texas ranches and stole longhorn cattle. The Comanche did not eat fish or fowl, unless they were starving, then they would virtually eat any creature they could catch including armadillos, skunks, rats, lizards, frogs and grasshoppers. Buffalo and other game was prepared and cooked by the women, who would also gather wild fruits, seeds, nuts, berries, roots and tubers, including plums, grapes, juniper berries, persimmons, mulberries, acorns, pecans, wild onions, radishes, and fruit of the prickly pear cactus.

The Comanche also acquired maize, dried pumpkin, and tobacco through trade and raids. Most meats were roasted over a fire or boiled. To boil fresh or dried meat and vegetables, women dug a pit in the ground. The pit was lined with animal skins or buffalo stomach and then filled with water to make a kind of cooking pot. They then placed heated stones in the water until it had boiled and had cooked their stew. After coming into contact with the Spanish, the Comanche traded for copper pots and iron kettles, which had made cooking easier for them.

Women would also use berries and nuts, as well as honey and tallow to flavor the buffalo meat. They would store tallow in intestine casings or rawhide pouches called parfleches. They had especially liked to make a sweet mush of buffalo marrow mixed with crushed mesquite beans.

The Comanche would sometimes eat raw meat, especially raw liver that they flavored with gall. They also drank the milk from the slashed udders of buffalo, deer and elk. Among their delicacies, curdled milk, from the stomachs of suckling buffalo calves. They had also enjoyed buffalo tripe, or stomachs.

In the morning, the Comanche generally had a light meal, and in the evening they enjoyed a larger meal. During the day, they ate whenever they were hungry or when it was convenient. Like other Plains Indians, the Comanche were very hospitable people. They prepared meals whenever a visitor would arrive in camp, which led to outsiders believing that the Comanche ate at all hours of the day or night. Before calling a public event, the Comanche chief took a morsel of food, held it to the sky, and then buried it as a peace offering to the Great Spirit. Many families would offer thanks as they sat down to eat their meals in their tipis.

Children ate pemmican, but this was primarily for it’s taste. High energy foods were reserved for war parties. Carried in a parfleche pouch, pemmican was eaten only when men didn’t have time to hunt. Similarly, in camp people ate pemmican only when other food was scarce. Traders would eat pemmican sliced and dipped in honey, which they called Indian bread.

Clothing

Clothing of the Comanche Indians was quite simple and easy to wear. Men wore a leather belt with a breechcloth. This was a long piece of buckskin that was brought up between the legs and looped over and under the belt at the front and back. They also might wear loose-fitting deerskin leggings. On their feet they wore moccasins, which had soles made from thick, tough buffalo hide with soft deerskin uppers. Comanche men would wear nothing on their upper body except in the winter time. During this time, they would wear warm, heavy robes made from buffalo hides, or occasionally bear, wolf or coyote skins with knee-length buffalo-hide boots. Young boys would usually go without clothes except in the cold winter. When they reached the age of eight or nine, they started to wear clothing of a Comanche adult. During the 19^th century, men used woven cloth to replace the buckskin breechclothes and began wearing loose-fitting buckskin shirts.

Women decorated their shirts, leggings and moccasins with fringes that were made of deer-skin, animal fur, and human hair. They had also decorated their shirts and leggings with patterns and shapes formed with beads and scraps of material. Women would also wear long deerskin dresses. These dresses had a flared skirt and wide long sleeves, and were trimmed with buckskin fringes along the sleeves and hem. Beads and pieces of metal were attached in geometric patterns. Women would wear buckskin moccasins for their shoes, which had buffalo soles. In the winter they also wore warm buffalo robes and tall, fur-lined buffalo-hide boots. Unlike boys, young girls did not go without clothing. As soon as they were able to walk they were dressed in breechclothes. By the age of twelve or thirteen they would adopt clothes of the Comanche women.

Hair and Headgear

Comanche people took pride in their hair, which was worn long and was rarely cut. They arranged their hair with porcupine quill brushes, greased it and then parted it in the center from the forehead to the back of the neck. They painted their scalp along the parting with yellow, red or white clay, and at times other colors. Hair was worn in two long braids tied with leather thongs and colored cloth, sometimes wrapped with beaver fur. They had also braided a strand of hair from the top of their head. This slender braid, called a scalp lock, was decorated with colored scraps of cloth and beads, and a single feather.

Men rarely wore anything on their heads. It was only after they had moved onto a reservation late in the 19^th century that the Comanche men began to wear the typical Plains headdress. If winter was severely cold, they might wear a brimless, woolly buffalo hide hat. When they had went to war, some warriors would wear headdresses made from a buffalo scalp. Warriors cut away most of the hide and flesh from a buffalo head, leaving only a portion of the woolly hair and the horns. This type of woolly, horned buffalo hat was worn only by the Comanche.

Comanche women didn’t let their hair grow as long as that of the men. Young women may have worn their hair long and braided, but women parted their hair in the middle and kept it short. Like men, they painted their scalp along the parting with bright paints.

Body Decorations

Comanche men usually had pierced ears with hanging earrings made from pieces of shell or loops of brass or silver wire. A female relative would pierce the outer edge of the ear with six or eight holes. Men also would tattoo their face, arms, and chest with geometric designs, and also painted their face and body. Traditionally, men used paints made from berry juice and colored clays of the Comancheria. Later, traders supplied them with vermillion, which was a red pigment, and bright grease paints.

Men also wore bands of leather and strips of metal on their arms. Except for black, which was the color of war, there was no standard color or pattern for the face and body paintings. This was a matter of individual preference. For example, one Comanche may paint one side of his face white and the other side red. Another man may paint one side of his body green and the other with green and black stripes. One Comanche may always paint himself in a particular way, while another may change colors and designs when so inclined. Some designs had special meaning to the individual, and special colors and designs may have been revealed in a dream.

Women may also tattoo their face or arms. They were fond of painting their bodies and were free to paint themselves however they liked.. A popular pattern for women was to paint the inside of their ears with a bright red and then paint great orange and red circles on their cheeks. They usually painted red and yellow around their lips as well.

Arts and Crafts

Due to their frequent traveling, Comanche Indians had to make sure that their household goods and other possessions were unbreakable. They wouldn’t use pottery that could easily be broken on long journeys. Basketry, weaving, wood working, and metal working were also unknown among the Comanche. Instead, they depended on buffalo for most of their tools, household goods and weapons. They made nearly two hundred different articles from the horns, hide, and bones of the buffalo.

By removing the lining of the inner stomach of buffalo, women made the paunch into a water bag. The lining was stretched over four sticks and then filled with water to make a pot for cooking and soups and stews. With wood being scarce on the plains, women relied on buffalo chips (dried dung) to fuel the fires that cooked meals and warmed people through the long winters.

Stiff rawhide was fashioned into saddles, stirrups and cinches, knife cases, buckets, and moccasin soles. Rawhide was also made into rattles and drums. Strips of rawhide were twisted into sturdy ropes that were scraped to resemble white parchment. Rawhide skins were folded to make parfleches in which food, clothing and other personal belongings were kept. Women had also tanned hides to make soft and supple buckskin, which was used for tipi covers, warm robes, blankets, cloths and moccasins. They also relied upon buckskin for bedding, cradles, dolls, bags, pouches, quivers and gun cases.

Sinew was used for bowstrings and sewing thread. Buffalo hooves were turned into glue and rattles. Horns were shaped into cups, spoons and ladles. The tail would make a good whip, a fly-swatter, or a decoration for tipis. Men made tools, scrapers and needles from the bones, as well as a kind of pipe. They also would fashion toys for their children. As warriors, however, men concentrated on making bows and arrows, lances, and shields. The thick neck skin of an old bull was ideal for war shields that deflected arrows as well as bullets. Since most of their day was spent on horseback, they also fashioned leather into saddles, stirrups, and other equipment for their mounts. Buffalo hair was used to fill saddle pads and was also used in ropes and halters. It seems as though the Comanche were good at using most, if not all, of the buffalo for so many different things.

Language

The language spoken by the Comanche people was Comanche. It is one of the Numic languages of the Uto-Aztecan language group, closely related to the language of the Shoshone. The two languages remain closely related, but there are a few low-level sound changes that inhibit the mutual intelligibility. Earliest records of the Comanche from 1786 clearly show a dialect of Shoshone, but by the beginning of the 20^th century, these sound changes had modified the way that the Comanche sounded in subtle, but profound ways. Although there are now efforts being made to ensure the survival of the language, most of the speakers of the Comanche language are elderly, and les than 1% of the Comanche can still speak it.

During the late 19^th century, many Comanche children were placed in boarding schools with children of different tribes. Children would be taught English and were discouraged from speaking their native language. If one was caught speaking Comanche instead of English they were severely punished. Quanah Parker had learned and spoke English and was adamant that his children did the same. His grandchildren then grew up speaking English, since it was believed that it was better for them not to know Comanche.

Throughout World War II, a group of seventeen young men, referred to as “The Comanche Code Talkers” were trained and used by the United States Army to send messages conveying sensitive information that couldn’t be deciphered by the Germans.

The Crow Indians

The Crow Indians, or Apsaalooke in their own Sioun language, or variants including Absaroka, are Native Americans, who in historical times lived in the Yellowstone River Valley. This area extends from what is now Wyoming through Montana and into North Dakota, where it joins the Missouri River. Today, the Crow people are a federally recognized tribe and are known as the Crow Tribe of Montana and have a reservation located in the south central part of the state.

Pressured by the Ojibwe and Cree peoples (the Iron Confederacy), who had earlier and better access to guns through the fur trade. The Crow migrated to this area from the Ohio Eastern Woodland area of present-day Ohio, settling south of Lake Winnipeg. From there they were pushed to the west by the Cheyenne. Both the Crow and Cheyene were pushed farther west by the Lakota (Sioux), who took over the territory west of the Missouri River, reaching past the Black Hills of South Dakota to the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming and Montana. The Cheyenne eventually became allies with the Lakota, as they sought to expel European-Americans from the area. The Crow remained bitter enemies of both the Sioux and the Cheyenne. They generally were friendly with whites and managed to retain a large reservation of more than 9300 square kilometers, despite territorial losses.

Since the 19^th century, the Crow have been mainly on their reservation that is established south of Billings, Montana. They also live in several major, mainly western cities. Their tribal headquarters is located at the Crow Agency in Montana.

History of the Crow

Apsaalooke, the name of the tribe, meaning “children of the large-beaked bird,” was given to the Crow by Hidatsa, a neighboring Siouan-speaking tribe. French interpreters translated Apsaalooke to gens du corbeaux, which means “people of [the] crows”. To the English they came to be known as the Crow. Other tribes also referrred to the Apsaalooke as “crow” or “raven” in their own languages.

In 1743, the Absaroka encountered their first people of European descent. The two La Verendrye brothers from New France (eastern Canada) and their explorers called the Apsaalooke, beaux hommes, meaning handsome men. The Crow called the French explorers baashchiile, meaning persons with yellow eyes.

The Northern Plains

The early home of the Crow-Hidatsa ancestral tribe was in the Ohio country, near Lake Erie. They were driven from there by their better armed, aggressive neighbors, settling for a while south of Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada. Later they moved to the Devil’s Lake region of North Dakota, before the Crow split from Hidatsa and moved to the west. The Crow were largely pushed to the west due to intrusion and influx of the Cheyenne Indians, and subsequently the Sioux, also known as the Lakota.

To acquire control of their new territory, the Crow warred against the Shoshone bands and drove them westward. They allied with the local Kiowa and Kiowa Apache bands. The Kiowa and Kiowa Apache bands would later migrate southward, and the Crow remained dominant in their established area through the 18^th and 19^th centuries, which was known as the era of the fur trade.

Their tribal territory had stretched from what is now Yellowstone National Park and the headwaters of the Yellowstone River in the west, north to the Musselshell River, then northeast to the Yellowstone’s mouth at the Missouri River, then southeast to the confluence of the Yellowstone and Powder rivers, south along the South Fork of the Powder River, confined in the Southeast by the Rattlesnake Mountains and westwards in the southwest by the Wind River Range. The Crow’s tribal area included the river valleys of the Judith River, Powder River, Tongue River, Big Horn River and the Wind River, as well as the Bighorn Mountains, Wolf Mountains and Abasaroka Range.

Once established in the Valley of the Yellowstone River and its tributaries on the Northern Plains in Montana and Wyoming, the Crow divided into four groups: The Mountain Crow, River Crow, Kicked in the Bellies, and Beaver Dries its Fur. They formerly were semi-nomad hunters and farmers in the northeastern woodlands. They adapted to the nomadic lifestyle of the Plains Indians as hunters and gatherers and hunted bison. Before 1700, they had used dog travois’ for carrying their goods.

Enemies and Allies of the Crow

From about 1740, the Plains tribes quickly adopted the use of horses, allowing them to move out on the Plains and hunt buffalo more effectively. However, the severe winters in the north kept their herds smaller than those of the Plains tribes in the south. The Crow, Hidatsa, Eastern Shoshone, and Northern Shoshone soon became noted as horse breeders and dealers, and also developed relatively large horse herds. During this time, other eastern and northern tribes were also moving onto the Plains in search of game for the fur trade, bison and more horses. The Crow were subjected to raids and horse thefts by horse-poor tribes, including the powerful Blackfoot Confederacy, Gros Ventre, Assiniboine, Pawnee and Ute. Later, they had to face the Lakota and their allies: the Arapaho and Cheyenne, who also stole horses from their enemies. The Crow’s greatest enemies became the tribes of the Blackfoot Confederacy and Lakota-Cheyenne-Arapaho alliance.

Generally, the Crow were friendly with the other northern Plains tribes of the Flathead, although at times they did have conflicts, the Nez Perce, Kutenai, Shoshone, Kiowa and Kiowa Apache. The powerful Iron Confederacy, an alliance of the northern plains Indian nations based around the fur trade, developed as enemies of the Crow. It was named after the dominating Plains Cree and Assiniboine peoples, and later included the Stoney, Saulteaux, Ojibwe and Metis.

The Gradual Displacement of the Crow from Tribal Lands

When European-Americans began arriving in numbers to the lands of the Crow Indians, they were resisting the pressure from their enemies who had greatly outnumbered them. During the 1850s, a vision by Plenty Coups, who was then just a boy, but who later became their greatest chief, was interpreted by tribal elders as meaning that whites would come to dominate over the entire country. The Crow, if they were to retain any of their lands, would need to remain on good terms with the white man.

By 1851, the more numerous Lakota and Cheyenne were established just to the south and east of the Crow territory in Montana. These enemy tribes coveted the hunting lands of the Crow and warred against them. By right of conqest, they would take over the Crow’s eastern hunting lands including the Powder and Tongue River valleys. They would push less numerous Crow to the west and northwest, upriver on the Yellowstone. After about 1860, the Lakota Sioux had claimed all of their former lands from the Black Hills of South Dakota to the Big Horn Mountains of Montana. They also demanded that the Americans deal with them in regard to any intrusion into these areas.

The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 with the United States had confirmed that the Crow had large areas of land that were centered on the Big Horn Mountains. The area ran from the Big Horn Basin on the west, to the Musselshell River to the north, and the Powder River to the east. It also included the Tongue River basin, but for two centuries the Cheyenne and many bands of the Lakota Sioux had been steadily migrating westward across the plains, and they were still pressing hard on the Crow.

Red Cloud’s War from 1866 until 1868 was a challenge by the Lakota Sioux to the United States military presence of the Bozeman Trail. This was a route along the eastern edge of the Big Horn Mountains to the gold fields of Montana. The war had ended with the victory for the Lakota Sioux. The Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868 with the United States had confirmed that the Lakota had control over all of the high plains from the Black Hills of the Dakotas to the west across the Powder River Basin and to the crest of the Big Horn Mountains. Thereafter, bands of the Lakota Sioux were led by Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Gall and others, along with their Northern Cheyenne allies. They would hunt and raid throughout the length and breadth of eastern Montana and northeastern Wyoming, which had been, for a time, the ancestral territory of the Crow.

On the 25^th of June 1876, the Lakota Sioux and the Cheyenne had achieved a major victory over the

Army forces under command of Colonel George A. Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in the Crow Indian Reservation. However, the Great Sioux War of 1876 to 1877 would end in the defeat of the Sioux and their Cheyenne allies. Crow warriors enlisted with the United States Army for the war and the Sioux and their allies were forced from eastern Montana and Wyoming, some of the band would flee to Canada, while others suffered forced removal to distant reservations, primarily in what is now Montana and Nebraska to the west of the Missouri River.

In 1918, the Crow organized a gathering to display their culture. They would end up inviting members of other tribes to this gathering as well. The Crow Fair is now celebrated every year on the third weekend of August with wide participation from other tribes as well.

1600-1699

After leaving Hidatsa villages of earth lodges in the areas of the Knife River and Heart River (present-day North Dakota), a group of Indians went west between 1675 and 1700. They would select a site for a single earth lodge on the lower Yellowstone River. Most families had lived in tipis or other perishable types of homes at this new place. These Indians had left their Hidatsa villages and adjacent cornfields for good, but had yet to become “real” buffalo hunting Crows, following the herds on the open plains. Archaeologists know this “proto-Crow” site in present-day Montana as the Hagen site.

1700-1799

At some time before 1765, the Crow held a Sun Dance that was attended by a poor Arapaho. A Crow with power gave him a medicine doll, and he quickly earned status and owned horses as no one else had before. During the next Sun Dance, some Crow stole back the figure to keep it in the tribe. Eventually, the Arapaho had made a duplicate. Later in life, this man married a Kiowa woman and brought the doll with him. The Kiowas used it during the Sun Dance and recognized it as one of the most powerful tribal medicines. Today, they still credit the Crow tribe for the origin of their sacred Tai-may figure.

1800-1824

The enmity between the Crow and the Lakota was reassured right before the start of the 19^th century. The Crow had killed a minimum of thirty Lakota in 1800 until 1801, according to two Lakota winter counts. In the following year, the Lakota and their Cheyenne allies would kill all of the men in a Crow camp, destroying thirty tipis as well.

During the summer of 1805, a Crow camp traded at Hidatsa villages on the Knife River in present-day North Dakota. Chiefs Red Calf and Spotted Crow had allowed the fur trader Francois-Antoine Larocque to join them on their way across the plains of the Yellowstone area. Larocque would travel with them to a point west of a place where Billings, Montana is today. The camp that he went to crossed the Little Missouri River and Bighorn River on the way.

In 1806, some Crow discovered a group of whites with horses on the Yellowstone River. By stealth, they captured their mounts before morning. The famous Lewis and Clark Expedition never did see the Crow Indians.

The first trading post in Crow country was constructed in 1807, known as both Fort Raymond and Fort Lisa. Like succeeding forts, Fort Benton and Fort Cass, it was built near the confluence of the Yellowstone and Bighorn Rivers.

Sometime in 1819, a Crow camp had neutralized thirty Cheyenne, bent on capturing their horses. The Cheyenne and warriors from a Lakota camp destroyed a whole camp at Tongue River in the following year. This was likely the most severe attack on a Crow camp in historical times.

1825-1849

In 1825, the Crow put up three hundred tipis near a Mandan village on the Missouri River. Representatives of the United States government waited for them. The Mountain Crow chief, Long Hair (Red Plume at Forehead) and fifteen other Crows signed the first treaty of friendship and trade between the Crow and the United States on the 4^th of August. With the signing of the document, the Crow also recognized the supremacy of the United States, if they actually understood a word of the treaty at all. The River Crow chief Arapooish had left the treaty area in disgust. With the help of the thunderbird he had to send a farewell shower down on the whites and the Mountain Crow.

During the summer of 1834, the Crow (possibly led by Chief Arapooish) tried to shut down Fort McKenzie at the Missouri River in Blackfoot country. The apparent motive was to stop those at the trading post from selling to their Indian enemies. Although later described as a month long siege of the fort, it really only lasted two days. Opponents would exchange a few shots and men in the fort fired a canon, but no real harm had come to anyone. The Crow left four days before the arrival of the Blackfoot band. This episode seems to have been the worst armed conflict between the Crow and a group of white until the Sword Bearer uprising in 1887.

The death of Chief Arapooish was recorded as the 17^th of September 1834. News of his death would reach Fort Clark at the Mandan village of Mitutanka, manager F. A. Chardon wrote he “was killed by Black feet”.

In 1837, the smallpox epidemic spread along the Missouri and “had little impact” on the tribe according to one source. Instead, river Crows grew in number when a group of Hidatsas joined them permanently to escape the scourge that swept through the Hidatsa villages.

River Crows charged a moving Blackfoot camp near Judith Gap in 1845. Father de Smet mourned the destructive attack on the “petite Robe” band. Blackfoot chief, Small Robe, had been mortaly wounded and many others were killed. De Smet had worked out the number of women and children taken as captive to have been one hundred and sixty persons. By and by, and with a fur trader as intermediary, the Crow agreed to let fifty women return to their tribe.

Culture

Subsistence

The main food source of the Crow Indians was the American bison. These animals were hunted in a variety of ways. Before the use of horses, bison were hunted on foot and had required hunters to stalk them closely, often with a wolf-pelt disguise. The Crow would then pursue the animals quickly on foot, before they killed them with arrows or lances. Horses allowed the Crow to hunt the bison more easily, as well as hunt more of them at a time. Riders would panis the herd into a stampede and then shoot the targeted animals with arrows or bullets from horseback. They could also lance them through the heart. In addition to bison the Crow also hunted bighorn sheep, mountain goats, deer, elk, bear, and other game. Buffalo meat was often roasted or boiled in a stew with prairie turnips. The rump, tongue, liver, heart and kidneys all were considered to be delicacies. Dried bison meat would be ground with fat and berries to make pemmican. In addition to meat, wild edibles were gathered and eaten as well, such as elderberries, wild turnips and Saskatoon berries.

The Crow would often hunt bison by utilizing buffalo jumps, “where buffaloes are driven over cliffs at long ridge,” was a favorite sport for meat procurement by the Crow Indians for over a century, from 1700 to around 1870, at which time modern weapons were introduced. The cliffs that the Crow would drive the buffalo over were used annually in the autumn. There were multiple cliffs along a ridge that would eventually slope down to a creek. Early in the morning on the day of the jump, a medicine man would stand on the edge of the upper cliff, facing up the ridge. He would take a pair of bison hindquarters and point the feet along the lines of stones, singing his sacred songs and calling upon the Great Spirit to make the operation a success. After this innovation, the medicine man would give the two head drivers a pouch of incense. As the two head drivers and their helpers headed up the ridge, and the long line of stones they would stop and burn incense on the ground, repeating this process four times. This ritual was intended to make the animals come to the line where the incense was burned, then bolt back to the ridge area.

Habitation and Transportation

The traditional Crow shelter is the tipi or skin lodge. These were made of bison hides that would be stretched over wooden poles. Historically, the Crow are known to have constructed some of the largest tipis. Tipi poles were harvested from the lodgepole pine, which acquired its name from its use as support for tipis. Within the tipi were mattresses and buffalo-hide seats that were arranged around the edge, with a fireplace in the center. The smoke from the fire would escape through a hole or smoke-flap in the top of the tipi. At least one entrance hole with a collapsible flap allowed for entry into the tipi. Hide paintings would often adorn the outside and inside of the home with specific meanings attached to the images. There were often specific tipi designs unique to an individual owner, family or society that resided inside the tipi. These homes are easily raised and collapsed and are lightweight, which is ideal for the nomadic people like the Crow, who would move frequently and quickly. Once a tipi was collapsed, its’ poles were used to create a travois. This was a horse-pulled frame structure that was used by the plains Indians, so that they could carry and pull their belongings, as well as small children. Many Crow families still own and use the tipi today, especially when they travel. The annual Crow Fair has been described as the largest gathering of tipis in the world.

The most widely used form of transportation that was used by the Crow was the horse. Horses were acquired through raiding and trading with other Plains nations. People of the northern plains, like the Crow, had mostly acquired their horses from people from the southern plains, such as the Comanche and Kiowa, who had originally acquired their horses from the Spanish and southwestern Indians, such as the various Pueblo people. The Crow had large horse herds, which were among the largest owned by the Plains Indians. In 1914, the Crow had approximately thirty to forty thousand horses. During 1921, a number of mounts had dwindled to just one thousand. Like other Plains people the horse was central to the Crow economy and were highly valuable trade items and were frequently stolen from other tribes to gain wealth and prestige as warriors. Horses would allow the Crow to become powerful and skilled mounted warriors, being able to perform daring maneuvers during battle, including hanging underneath a galloping horse and shooting arrows by holding onto the horses mane. They also had many dogs, one source counted five to six hundred. Dogs were used as guards and pack animals to carry the belongings of the Crow and pull travois. With the introduction of horses into Crow society, they were able to pull heavier loads faster, which greatly reduced the number of dogs used as pack animals.

Clothing and Beadwork

The clothing of the Crow was distinguished by gender. Women would wear dresses that were made of deer and buffalo hide and was decorated with elk teeth or shells. They would cover their legs with leggings during the winter and their feet with moccasins. They would also wear their hair in two braids.

Mens clothing usually consisted of a shirt, trimmed leggings with a belt, a long breechcloth, and moccasins. Robes were made from the furred hide of a bison and were often worn in the winter months. Leggings were either made of animal hide, which the Crow made for themselves, or of wool, which were a highly valued trade item, made specifically for Indians in Europe. The men would wear their hair long, in some cases reaching to the ground. They were famous for often wearing their hair in a pompadour, which was often colored white with paint. The Crow men were notable for wearing two hair pipes that were made from beads on both sides of their hair. Often, they would wear their hair in two braids that were wrapped in the fur of beavers or otters. Bear grease was used to give shine to their hair and stuffed birds were often worn in the hair of warriors and medicine men.

Like other Plains Indians, the Crow wore feathers from eagles, crows, owls, and other birds in their hair for symbolic reasons. The Crow would wear a variety of headdresses, including famous eagle feather headdresses, bison scalp headdresses with horns and a beaded rim, and a split horn headdress that was made from a single bison horn that was split in half and polished into two nearly identical horns that were attached to a leather cap and decorated with feathers and beadwork. Traditional clothing that was worn by the Crow is still worn today, with varying degrees of regularity.

The Crow people are well known for their intercut beadwork. They had adorned, basically every aspect of their lives with these beads, giving special attention to ceremonial and ornamental items. Their clothing, horses, cradles, ornamental and ceremonial gear, in addition to leather cases of all shapes, sizes and uses that were decorated with beadwork. They had given reverence to the animals that they ate by using as much of it as they could. The leather for their clothing, robes and pouches were created from the skin of buffalo, deer and elk. Beadwork was done by the tribeswomen, with some being considered experts and

Crow Beadwork — ***An example of the Crow’s beadwork***

were often sought by the younger, less experienced women for design and symbolic advice. The Crow are an innovative people and are credited with developing their own style of stitch-work for adhering beads. This stitch, which is called the over-lay and is still used today, known as the “Crow Stitch”. In their beadwork, geometric shapes were primarily used with triangles, diamonds and hour-glass structures being the most prevalent. A wide range of colors were used by the Crow, but blues and various shades of pink were the most dominantly used. In order to intensify or draw out a certain color or shape, they would surround the figure or color in a white outline.

Colors that were chosen were not just merely used to be aesthetically pleasing, but rather had a deeper symbolic meaning. Pink would represent various shades of the rising sun, with yellow being the East origin of the sun’s arrival. Blues were symbolic of the sky. Representing the setting sun or the West was red. Green symbolized mother earth and black the slaying of an enemy. White represented clouds, rain, or sleet. Although most colors had a common symbolism, each piece’s symbolic significance was fairly subjective to its creator, especially when in reference to individual shapes. The triangle of one person may symbolize tipi, but to another person it could symbolize a spear head, or a range of mountains to yet another. Regardless of the individual significance of each piece, the Crow people give reverence to the land and sky with symbolic references found in various colors and shapes found on their ornamental gear and even clothing.

Some clothing that the Crow would decorate with beads included robes, vests, pants, shirts, moccasins and various forms of celebratory and ceremonial gear. In addition to creating a connection with the land, from which they are a part, various shapes and colors reflected one’s standing and achievements. For example, if a warrior were to slay, wound, or disarm an enemy, he would return with a blackened face. The black color would then be incorporated into the clothing of that man, mostly into his war attire.

A beaded robe, which was often given to a bride to be, could take over a year to make and would usually be created by the bride’s mother-in-law or another female relative-in-law. These robes were often characterized by a series of parallel horizontal lines that usually consisted of light blue. The lines represented the young woman’s new role as a wife and mother. The new bride would also be encouraged to wear the robe at the next ceremonial gathering to symbolize her addition and welcoming to a new family.

Today, the Crow still often decorate their clothing with intricate bead designs for powwows and everyday clothing.

Gender and Kinship System

The Crow had a matrilineal system. After marriage, the couple was matrilocal, with the husband moving into the wife’s mother’s house upon their marriage. Women held a significant role within the tribe.

Crow kinship is a system that is used to describe and define family members. Identified by Lewis Henry Morgan in his 1871 work “Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family”, the Crow system is one of six major types. He goes on to describe these as Eskimo, Hawaiian, Iroquois, Crow, Omaha and Sudanese.

Like other tribes on the Plains, the Crow historically had three defined gender roles, male, female and bate, which was trans-female or “two spirit”.

The Cheyenne Indians

Another group of Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains are the Cheyenne Indians. Their language is one of the Algonquian language family. They compromise two Native American tribes, the Suhtai and Tsitsistas, which had merged together in the early 19^th century. Today, the Cheyenne are split into two federally recognized Nations. The Southern Cheyenne are enrolled in the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma, and the Northern Cheyenne are enrolled in the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana.

At the time of their first contact with Europeans, the Cheyenne were living in the area of what is now Minnesota. Their allies, at times, were the Lakota and Arapaho, and at other times the Lakota were their enemies. During the early part of the 18^th century, they had migrated west across the Mississippi River and into North and South Dakota where they adopted the horse culture. After settling in the Black Hills of South Dakota and the Powder River Country of present-day Montana, the Cheyenne would introduce their horse culture to the Lakota bands in about 1730. Allied with the Arapaho, the Cheyenne had pushed the Kiowa to the Southern Plains. In turn, they were then pushed west by the more numerous Lakota.

The Cheyenne Nation of Tsehestano was, at one time, compromised of ten bands that were spread across the Great Plains, from southern Colorado to the Black Hills of South Dakota. They would fight their traditional enemies, the Crow and later the United States Army forces. In the middle of the 19^th century, the bands began to split. Some of the bands chose to remain near the Black Hills, while others chose to remain near the Platte Rivers of central Colorado.

The Northern Cheyenne, known in the Cheyenne language either as Notameohmesehese, meaning “Northern Eaters”, or simply as Ohmesehese, meaning “Eaters”, lived in southeastern Montana on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation. Tribal enrollment figures, as of late 2014, indicate that there are approximately 10,840 members, of which about 4,939 reside on the reservation. Approximately 91% of the population are Native Americans in full or partially, with 72.8% of these identifying as Cheyenne. Slightly more than one quarter of the Northern Cheyenne population, five years or older, also spoke a language other than English during this time as well.

The Southern Cheyenne, known in the Cheyenne language as Heevahetaneo’o, meaning “Roped People”, together with the Southern Arapaho, form the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of western Oklahoma. Their combined population, as of 2008, is 12,130. In 2003, approximately 8,000 of these identify themselves as Cheyenne. With continuing intermarriage it has become increasingly difficult to separate the tribes.

The Cheyenne Name

The Cheyenne call themselves Tsitsistas, translating to “those who are like this”. The etymology of this name is uncertain. According to the Cheyenne dictionary, which is offered online by Chief Dull Knife College, there is no definitive consense and various studies of the origins and translation of the word has been suggested. George Bird Grinnell’s record is typical, with him stating that “they call themselves Tsistsistas, which the books commonly give as meaning “people”. It most likely means: to relate to one another, similarly bred, like us, our people, or us. The term for the Cheyenne homeland is Tsiihistano”.

Though the identity of the Sahiya is not known either, many of the Great Plains tribes assume it means Cree, or some other people who spoke an Algonquian language related to Cree and Cheyenne. The Cheyenne word for Ojibwe is “Sahea’eo’o”, a word that sounds similar to the Dakota word Sahiya.

Another common etymology for the Cheyenne is “a bit like the [people of an] alien speech”. According to Grinnell, the Dakota had referred to themselves and fellow Siouan-language bands as “white talkers”. Those that spoke from other language families, such as the Algonquian Cheyenne were known as the “red talkers”.

Language

The Cheyenne from Montana and Oklahoma both speak the Cheyenne language, commonly spelled Tsisinstsistots. Approximately eight hundred people speak Cheyenne in Oklahoma. There are only a handful of vocabulary differences between the two locations. The alphabet of the Cheyenne language contains only fourteen letters. Of the languages in the Algonquian-language group, Cheyenne is one of the largest. Formerly, the So’taeo’o or Suhtai bands of Southern and Northern Cheyenne spoke So’taeka’ekone or So’taenestsestotse, a language so close to Tsehesenestsestotse (Cheyenne language), that is still, at times, termed a Cheyenne dialect.

Cheyenne Early History

The earliest known written historical record of the Cheyenne is from the mid-17^th century, when a group of Cheyenne had visited the French Fort, Crevecoeur, which is near present-day Peoria, Illinois. At this time, the Cheyenne were living between the Mississippi River and Mille Lacs Lake in what is now Minnesota. Their economywas based on the collection of wild rice and hunting, especially bison, which had lived in the prairies, seventy to eighty miles west of the Cheyenne villages.

According to the tribal history, during the 17^th century, the Cheyenne had been driven by the Assiniboine from the Great Lakes region to what is now Minnesota and North Dakota, where they established their villages. The most prominent of the ancient Cheyenne villages is Biesterfeldt Village in eastern North Dakota along the Sheyenne River. The tribal history also tells of how they had first reached the Missouri River in 1676. A more recent analysis of early records points out that at least some of the Cheyenne had remained in the Mille Lac region of Minnesota until about 1765 when the Ojibwe had defeated the Dakota with firearms, pushing the Cheyenne, in turn, to the Minnesota River, where they were reported to have been in 1766.

While on the Missouri River, the Cheyenne would come into contact with the neighboring Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara people, adopting many of their cultural characteristics. The Cheyenne were the first of the later Plains tribes into the Black Hills and Powder River Country. In about 1730, they would introduce the horse to the Lakota bands, however, conflict with the migrating Lakota and Ojibwe people had forced the Cheyenne further to the west. In turn, they would push the Kiowa to the south.

By 1776, the Lakota had overwhelmed the Cheyenne and took over most of their territory near the Black Hills. In 1804, Lewis and Clark had visited a surviving Cheyenne village in North Dakota. Such European explorers would learn many different names for the Cheyenne, and didn’t realize how the different sections were forming one unified tribe.

The Cheyenne Nation is described as being from two related tribes, the Tsitsistas and the Suhtai or Sutaio, the latter of which may have joined the Tsetsehestahese in the early 18^th century. Their oral history relays that both of these tribal peoples are characterized and represented by two cultural heroes or prophets who had received divine articles from their god, Ma’heo’o (“Sacred Being, God”, commonly in English Maheo, Mahiu, this is a post-missionary term, formerly the plural Ma’heono was used). The Sotaeo’o had called this being He’emo (“Goddess, Female Sacred Being, God”, the equivalent to Ma’heo’o in the Tsetsehestahese dialect).

The Tsitsistas prophet, Motse’eoeve (Sweet Medicine) had received the Maahotse (in English known as Mahuts, a bundle of (Sacred) Arrows at Noavose (“medicine (sacred)-hill”, name for Bear Butte, northwest of Rapid City, South Dakota), which they had carried when they waged tribal-level war and were kept in the maaheome (Arrow Lodge or Arrow Tepee). Motse’eoeve had organized the structure of the Cheyenne society. Their military or war societies were led by prominent warriors, their system of legal justice, and the Council of Forty-four peace chiefs. The latter was formed from four vehoo’o (chiefs or leaders) of the ten principal manaho (bands) and an additional four “Old Man” that met to deliberate at regular tribal gatherings, centered around the Sun Dance.

Sweet Medicine is the Cheyenne prophet who had predicted the coming of the horse, cow, whiteman, etc, to the Cheyenne. He was given his name from sweetgrass, one of the sacred plant medicines used by many Plains peoples in their ceremonies.

The Sotaeo’o prophet Tomosevesehe (“Erect Horns”), had received the Esevone (“Sacred (Buffalo) Hat Bundle”) at Toh’nihvoos (“Stone Hammer Mountain”) near the Great Lakes in what is now the state of Minnesota. The Sacred Buffalo Hat is kept in the vonaheome (an old term) or hohkeha’eome (the new term), meaning “Sacred Hat Lodge” or “Sacred Hat Tepee”). His vision convinced the tribe to abandon their earlier sedentary agricultural traditions to adopt the nomadic Plains horse culture. They had placed their earth lodges with portable tipis and also switched their diet from fish and agricultural produce, to mainly bison and wild fruits and vegetables. Their lands ranged from the upper Missouri River into what is now Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, and South Dakota.

The “Sacred Buffalo Hat” is kept among the Northern Cheyenne and Northern So’taeo’o. The “Sacred Buffalo Hat Keeper” or “Keeper of the Sacred Buffalo Hat must belong to the SO’taeo’o (Northern or Southern alike). During the 1870s, tribal leaders became disenchanted with the keeper of the bundle and demanded that the keeper Broken Dish give up the bundle. He agreed, but his wife did not and desecrated the Sacred Hat and its contents, a ceremonial pipe and a buffalo horn were lost. Then, in 1908, a Cheyenne by the name Three Fingers gave the horn back to the Hat. The pipe would resurface as well in the possession of a Cheyenne named Burnt All Over, who gave it to Hattie Goit of Poteau, Oklahoma, who in 1911 gave it to the Oklahoma Historical Society. In 1997, the Oklahoma Historical Society negotiated with the Northern Cheyenne to return the pipe to the tribal keeper of the Sacred Medicine Hat Bundle, James Black Wolf.

The Sacred Arrows (Maahotse) are symbols of male power, and the power of the Esevone (Sacred Buffalo Hat) is female. The Hat and Arrows together form the two great covenants of the Cheyenne Nation. Through these two bundles, Ma’heo’o assures the continual life and blessings for the people.

Expanding onto the Plains

After they were pushed south and westward by the Lakota, the unified Cheyenne people started to create and expand a new territory of their own. Sometime around 1811, they made a formal alliance with the Arapaho people, who would remain strong throughout their history and into modern times. This alliance had helped the Cheyenne in expanding their territory, which stretched from southern Montana through most of Wyoming, the eastern half of Colorado, far western Nebraska and far western Kansas. In as early as 1820, traders and explorers reported contact with the Cheyenne at present-day Denver, Colorado and on the Arkansas River. They had probably been hunting and trading in that area earlier than this, and may have migrated to the south for the winter. The Hairy Rope band is reputed to have been the first band to move south, capturing wild horses as far south as the Cimarron River Valley. In response to the construction of Bent’s Fort by Charles Bent, a friend of the Cheyenne, a large portion of the tribe had moved further south and stayed around the area. The other part of the tribe would continue living along the headwaters of the North Platte and Yellowstone Rivers. These groups became the Southern Cheyenne (Southerners) and the Northern Cheyenne (Eaters). The separation of the tribe was only a geographic one and the two divisions had regular and close contact.

In the southern portion of their territory, the Cheyenne and Arapaho warred with the allied Comanche, Kiowa and Plains Apache. Numerous battles would be fought, including a notable fight along the Washita River in 1836 with the Kiowa. These battles resulted in the death of forty-eight Cheyenne warriors of the Bowstring society. In the summer of 1838, many Cheyenne and Arapaho attacked a camp of the Kiowa and Comanche along the Wolf Creek in Oklahoma, resulting in heavy losses on both sides. In 1840, conflicts with the Comanche, Kiowa and Plains Apache ended when the tribes made an alliance with one another. The new alliance had allowed the Cheyenne to enter the Llano Estacado in Texas and Oklahoma panhandles and northeastern New Mexico to hunt bison and trade. Their expansion into the south and the alliance with the Kiowa led to their first raid into Mexico in 1853. This raid ended in disaster with heavy resistance from Mexican lancers, resulting in all but three of the war party being killed. To the north, the Cheyenne made a strong alliance with the Lakota Sioux, which allowed for them to expand their territory into part of their former lands around the Black Hills. They managed to escape the smallpox epidemics that swept across the plains from white settlements in 1837 until 1839 by heading into the Rocky Mountains. However, in 1849, they were greatly affected by the Cholera epidemic. Contact with Euro-Americans was mostly light, which saved them from the smallpox epidemic, most contact with anyone that may have been ill had involved mountain men, traders, explorers, treaty makers and painters.

Enemies and Warrior Culture

Like many other plains Indian nations, the Cheyenne were a horse and warrior tribe, who had developed to be skilled and powerful mounted warriors. A warrior was viewed by the people not as a maker of war, but as a protector, provider, and leader. Warriors would gain rank in Cheyenne society by performing and accumulating various acts of bravery in battle known as coups. The title of war chief would be earned by any warrior who performed enough of the specific coups required to become a war chief. Specific warrior societies had developed among the Cheyenne, as with other plains nations. Each society would select leaders who would invite those that they saw worthy enough to their society lodge for initiation into it. Often times, societies would have minor rivalries, however, they may work together as a unit when warring with an enemy. Military societies played an important role in the Cheyenne government. Society leaders were often in charge of organizing hunts and raids, as well as ensuring proper discipline and the enforcement of laws within the nation.

Each of the six distinct warrior societies of the Cheyenne would take turns assuming the leadership role within the nation. The four original military societies of the Cheyenne were: the Swift Fox Society, Elk Horn Scrapper or Crooked Lance Society, Shield Society and the Bowstring Men Society. The fifth society was split between the Crazy Dog Society and the famous Dog Soldiers. The sixth society is the Contrary Warrior Society, most notable for riding backwards into battle, as a sign of bravery. All six societies and their various branches exist among the Southern and Northern Cheyenne Nations in present times. Warriors used a combination of traditional weapons, such as various types of war clubs, tomahawks, bows and arrows and lances. They would also use non-traditional weapons like revolvers, rifles and shotguns that they had acquired through raids and trades.

The Cheyenne had a great deal of enemies. To the north and the west of their territory their enemies included the Crow, Shoshone, Blackfeet, Flathead, Nez Perce, Arikara, Gros Ventre, Assiniboine, and Plains Cree tribes. To the east they fought against the Sioux, Pawnee, Ponca, Kaw, Iowa, Ho-Chunk, and Omaha. In the south they would fight against the Kiowa, Ute, Comanche, Plains Apache, Osage, the Wichita people, various Apache tribes, and the Navajo.

Many of these enemies were only encountered on occasion, such as on a long distance raid or a hunt. Some of the Cheyenne’s enemies, particularly Indian peoples of the eastern great plains, such as the Pawnee and Osage, would act as Indian Scouts of the United States Army. They would provide valuable tracking skills and information regarding the Cheyenne habits and fighting strategies to the United States’ soldiers. Some enemies, such as the Lakota, would later in their history become strong allies, helping the Cheyenne fight against the United States Army during Red Cloud’s War and the Great Sioux War of 1876. The Comanche, Kiowa, and Plains Apache became allies of the Cheyenne towards the end of the Indian wars on the southern plains. They would fight together during conflicts such as the Red River War.

The Relationship of the Cheyenne and the Arapaho

The Arapaho people had formed an alliance with the Cheyenne around 1811, helping them expand their territories and strengthen their presence on the plains. Like the Cheyenne, the Arapaho language is part of the Algonquian group, though the two languages are not mutually intelligible. The Arapaho remained a strong ally with the Cheyenne and helped them fight alongside the Sioux during Red Cloud’s War and the Great Sioux War of 1876, also known more commonly as the Black Hills War. Along with the Arapaho being allies with the Cheyenne, and the Cheyenne with the Arapaho, they also allied with the Comanche, Kiowa, and Plains Apache, in order to fight invading settlers and United States soldiers.

The Arapaho were present with the Cheyenne at the Sand Creek Massacre when a peaceful encampment of mostly women, children, and elderly people were attacked and massacred by United States soldiers. Both major divisions of the Cheyenne, the Northern and Southern Cheyenne, were allies to the Arapaho, who like them are split into northern and southern divisions. The Southern Cheyenne and Southern Arapaho were assigned to the same reservation in the Oklahoma Indian Territory and had remained together as the federally recognized Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes after the reservation was opened to American settlement and into modern times. The Northern Arapaho were assigned to a reservation of their own or they would share one with the Cheyenne, however, the government failed to provide them with either and placed them on the already established Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, with their former enemies the Shoshone.

The Treaty of 1825

In the summer of 1825, the Cheyenne were visited on the upper Missouri River by a United States treaty commission, consisting of General Henry Atkinson and Indian agent Benjamin O’Fallon, accompanied by a military escort of 476 men. General Atkinson and his fellow commissioner would leave Fort Atkinson on the 16^th of May 1825. Ascending the Missouri River, they negotiated treaties of friendship and trade with tribes of the upper Missouri including: the Arikara, the Cheyenne, the Crow, the Mandian, and the Ponca, as well as several bands of the Sioux. At this time, the United States had competition on the upper Missouri from British traders who had come down from Canada.

The treaties acknowledged that the tribes were living within the United States, vowed perpetual friendship between the United States and the tribes, and also recognized the right of the United States to regulate trade. The tribes would promise to deal only with licensed traders instead. They also agreed to forswear private retaliation for injuries, and to return or indemnify the owner of stolen horses or other goods. The commissioner’s efforts to contact the Blackfoot and Assiniboine were unsuccessful. During their return to Fort Atkinson at the Council Bluff in Nebraska, the commission had successful negotiations with the Ota, Pawnee and the Omaha.

Effects of the Emigrant Trail

Increased traffic of emigrants along the related Oregon, Mormon and California Trails, starting in the 1840s, heightened the competition with Native Americans for scarce resources of water and game in arid areas. With resources being depleted along the trails, the Cheyenne became increasingly divided into the Northern Cheyenne and the Southern Cheyenne, where they could have adequate territory for substenance.

At the time of the California Gold Rush, emigrants brought in cholera. It would spread in mining camps and waterways due to their poor sanitation. The disease was generally a major cause of death for emigrants, about one tenth of whom would die during their journeys.

Perhaps for traders, the cholera epidemic reached the Plains Indians in 1849, resulting in a severe loss of life during the summer of that year. It is estimated, by historians, that about 2,000 Cheyenne died, about one half to two-thirds of their population. There were significant losses among other tribes as well, weakening their social structures. Perhaps because of the severe loss of trade in the 1849 season, Bent’s Fort was abandoned and burned.

The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851

In 1846, Thomas Fitzpatrick had been appointed as the United States Indian Agent for the upper Arkansas and Platte River. His efforts to negotiate with the Northern Cheyenne, the Arapaho and other tribes led to a great council at Fort Laramie in 1851. Treaties were negotiated by a commission consisting of Fitzpatrick and David Dawson Mitchell, the United States Superintendent of Indian Affairs, with Indians of the Northern Plains.

To reduce inter-tribal warfare on the Plains, government officials “assigned” territories to each tribe and had them pledge a mutual peace. In addition, the government secured permission to build and maintain roads for European-American travelers and traders through the Indian country on the Plains, such as the Emigrant Trail and Santa Fe Trail, and to maintain forts to guard them. The tribes were compensated with annuities of cash and supplies for such encroachment on their territories. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 had affirmed the Cheyenne and Arapaho territory on the Great Plains between the North Platte River and the Arkansas. This territory had included what is today Colorado, east of the Front Range of the Rockies, and north of the Arkansas River, Wyoming, and Nebraska, south of the North Platte River and the extreme western part of Kansas.

Punitive United States Expedition of 1857

During April of 1856, an incident at the Platte River Bridge, now near present-day Casper, Wyoming, resulted in the wounding of a Cheyenne warrior, he would, however, return to the Cheyenne on the Plains. In the summer of that year, Indians attacked travelers along the Emigrant Trail near Fort Kearny. In retaliation, the United States cavalry attacked a Cheyenne camp on the Grand Island in Nebraska, killing ten Cheyenne warriors and wounding eight or more.

Cheyenne parties would attack at least three emigrant settler parties before they returned to the Republican River. The Indian agent at Fort Laramie negotiated with the Cheyene to reduce the hostilities that had been occurring, but the Secretary of War ordered the 1^st Cavalry Regiment (1855) to carry out a punitive expedition under the command of Colonel Edwin V. Sumner. He went against the Cheyenne in the spring of 1857. Major John Sedgwick led part of the expedition up the Arkansas River and via the Fountain Creek to the South Platte River. Sumner’s command went west along the North Platte to Fort Laramie, then down along the Front Range to the South Platte. They would combine their forces, consisting of four hundred troops and then went to the east through the plains in search of the Cheyenne.

Under the influence of the medicine man, White Bull (also known as Ice), and Grey Beard (also called Dark), the Cheyenne went into battle believing that strong spirtual medicine would keep the soldiers’ guns from firing upon them. They were told that if they dipped their hands in a nearby spring, they then would only need to raise their hands to repel the army bullets. With hands raised, the Cheyenne surrounded the advancing troops as they advanced near the Solomon River. Sumner ordered a cavalry charge and troops charged with drawn sabers. The Cheyenne ended up fleeing. With tired horses after their long marches, the cavalry could not engage more than a few Cheyenne, as their horses were much more fresh.

This battle was the first that the Cheyenne had fought against the United States Army. Casualties were few on each side. J. E. B. Stuart, then a young lieutenant, was shot in the chest while attacking a Cheyenne warrior with a saber. Troops would continue on, then two days later they hastily burned an abandoned Cheyenne camp, destroying lodges and winter supplies of buffalo meat.

Sumner continued to Bent’s Fort. To punish the Cheyenne, he distributed their annuities to Arapaho. He intended further punitive actions, but the Army ordered him to go to Utah, since an outbreak of trouble with the Mormons had occurred there, this would be known as the Utah War. The Cheyenne moved below the Arkansas into the Kiowa and Comanche country. During the fall, the Northern Cheyenne returned to their country north of the Platte River.

Pike’s Peak Gold Rush

With the start of the California Gold Rush, European-American settlers moved into lands reserved for the Cheyenne and other Plains Indians. Travel had greatly increased along the Emigrant Trail along the South Platte River, and some emigrants stopped before going on to California. For several years there was peace between the settlers and Indians. The only conflicts were related to endemic warfare between the Cheyenne and Arapaho of the plains and the Utes of the mountains.

The United States negotiations with Black Kettle and other Cheyenne that favored peace had resulted in the Treaty of Fort Wise. It had established a small reservation for the Cheyenne in southeastern Colorado in exchange for territory that was agreed to in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. Many Cheyenne hadn’t signed the treaty and continued to live and hunt on their territorial grounds in Smokey Hill and the Republican basins, between the Arkansas and South Platte, where there were plentiful amounts of buffalo.

Efforts to make a wider peace had continued, but in the spring of 1864, John Evans, the governor of the Colorado Territory, and John Chivington, the commander of the Colorado Volunteers, a citizens militia, began a series of attacks on Indians that were camping or hunting on the plains. They killed any Indian on sight and initiated the Colorado War. General warfare broke out and Indians made many raids on the trail along South Platte, which Denver had depended on for its supplies. The United States Army closed the road from the 15^th of August until the 24^th of September of 1864.

On the 29^th of November 1864, the Colorado Militia attacked a Cheyenne and Arapaho encampment under Chief Black Kettle, although it flew a flag of truce and indicated its allegiance to the United States government. The Sand Creek Massacre, as it became known, resulted in the deaths of between one

hundred and fifty and two hundred Cheyenne, mostly of which were unarmed women and children. Survivors of the massacre fled to the northeast and joined camps of the Cheyenne on Smokey Hill and the Republican rivers. It was here that warriors smoked the war pipe, passing it from camp to camp among the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho.

They had planned and carried out an attack in January of 1865, with about one thousand warriors on Camp Rankin, a stage station and fort at Julesburg. The Indians made numerous raids along the Southe Platte, both east and west of Julesburg, and raided the fort again in the early part of February. They captured a large amount of loot and killed many European-Americans. Most of the Indians had moved north into Nebraska on their way to the Black Hills and Powder River.

Chief Black Kettle continued to want peace and thus did not join in the second raid or in the plan to go north to the Powder River country. He left the large camp and returned with eighty lodges of his tribesmen to the Arkansas River, where he intended to seek peace with the United States.

The Battle of the Washita River

Four years later, on the 27^th of November 1868, George Armstrong Custer and his troops had attacked Black Kettle’s band at the Battle of the Washita River. Although his band was camped on a defined reservation, complying with the government’s orders, some of its members had been linked to raiding into Kansas by the bands operating out of the Indian Territory. Custer’s troops would claim one hundred and three Cheyenne “warriors” and an unspecified number of women and children. Whereas, different Cheyenne informants named between eleven and eighteen men, mostly ten Cheyenne, two Arapaho, and one Mexican trader; and between seventeen and twenty-five women and children were killed in the village.

There are conflicting claims as to whether the band was hostile or friendly. Historians believe that Chief Black Kettle, the head of this band, was not part of the war party, but the peace party with the Cheyenne Nation. However, he did not command absolute authority over members of his band, which the European-Americans didn’t understand. When younger members of the band took part in raiding parties, European-Americans had blamed the entire band for the incidents and casualties.

The Battle of the Little Bighorn

The Northern Cheyenne took part in fighting at the Little Bighorn, which took place on the 25^th of June 1876. The Cheyenne, together with the Lakota, other Sioux warriors and a small band of the Arapaho, killed General George Armstrong Custer and most of his 7^th Cavalry contingent of soldiers. Historians have estimated that the population of the Cheyenne, Lakota and Arapaho encampment along the Little Bighorn River was about ten thousand. This made the Battle of the Little Bighorn one of the largest gatherings of Native Americans in North America in the pre-reservation times. News of the event had traveled across the United States and reached the District of Columbia (Washington D.C.), just as the nation was celebrating its Centennial. The news of the battle caused an outrage against the Cheyenne among the European-American population.

The Northern Cheyenne Exodus

Following the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the United States Army had increased their attempts to capture the Cheyenne. During 1879, after the Dull Knife Fight, when Crazy Horse had surrendered at Fort Robinson, a few Cheyenne chiefs and their people surrendered as well. These included Dull Knife, Standing Elk and Wild Hog, along with around one hundred and thirty other Cheyenne. Later in the same year, Two Moons surrendered at Fort Keogh along with three hundred Cheyenne. The Cheyenne wanted and expected to live on the reservation with the Sioux in accordance to a 29^th of April 1868 treaty at Fort Laramie, which both Dull Knife and Little Wolf had signed.

As part of the United States’ increase in troops after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the Army reassigned

Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie and his Fourth Cavalry to the Department of the Platte. Initially stationed at Camp Robinson, the Fourth Cavalry formed the core of the Powder River Expedition. The expedition departed in October of 1876 to locate Northern Cheyenne villages. On the 25^th of November of the same year, Mackenzie’s column discovered and defeated a village of Northern Cheyenne in the Dull Knife Fight in the Wyoming Territory. Once the soldiers destroyed the lodges and supplies, and confiscated the horses, the Northern Cheyenne soon surrendered. They had hoped to remain with the Sioux in the North, but the United States pressured them into locating with the Southern Cheyenne on their reservation in the Indian Territory. After a difficult council, the Northern Cheyenne had eventually agreed to go South.

When the Northern Cheyenne had arrived at the Indian Territory, conditions were very dificult for them. Rations were inadequate, there were no buffalo close to the reservation, and according to several sources, there was malaria among the people. On the 9^th of September of 1878, a portion of the Northern Cheyenne, led by Little Wolf and Dull Knife had started their trek back to the North. Upon reaching the northern area, they split into two bands. Those that were led by Dull Knife (mostly women, children and elders), had surrendered and were taken to Fort Robinson, where subsequent events became known as the Fort Robinson tragedy. Dull Knife’s group was first offered food and firewood, then after a week and a half, they were told to go back to the Indian Territory. When they said no, they were then locked in the wooden barracks with no food, water or firewood for heat for four days. Most of these people escaped in a forty degree below zero temperature, on the 9^th of January 1879, but all were recaptured or killed after. Eventually, the United States had forced the Northern Cheyenne onto a reservation in southern Montana.

The Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation

The Cheyenne who had traveled to Fort Keogh, present-day Miles City, Montana, including Little Wolf, who settled near the fort. Many of the Cheyenne had worked with the army as scouts. These scouts were pivotal in helping the Army find Chief Joseph and his band of Nez Perce in Northern Montana. Fort Keogh became a staging and gathering point for the Northern Cheyenne. Many families began to migrate south to the Tongue River watershed area, where they established homesteads.

The United States established the Tongue River Indian Reservation. This reservation is now known as the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation. Of 371,200 acres by the executive order of President Chester A. Arthur on the 16^th of November 1884, it had excluded the Cheyenne, who had homesteaded further east near the Tongue River.

Northern Cheyenne who were sharing the Lakota land at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation were finally allowed to return to the Tongue River on their own reservation. Along with the Lakota and Apache, the Cheyenne were the last nations to be subdued and placed onto a reservation. The Seminole tribe of Florida had never made a treaty with the United States government. The Northern Cheyenne were given the right to remain in the north, near the Black Hills, which they had considered sacred. They also managed to retain their own culture, religion and language. Today, the Northern Cheyenne Nation is one of the few American Indian nations to still have control over the majority of its land base, currently they hold about 98% of their land in this area.

Cheyenne Culture

Over the past four hundred years, the Cheyenne have changed their lifestyle. During the 16^th century, they had lived in the regions near the Great Lakes. They would farm corn, squash, and beans and also harvested wild rice like other indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. They migrated to the west in the 18^th century, hunting bison on the Great Plains. By the middle of the 19^th century, the United States had forced them onto reservations, their lifestyle that they now live.

The traditional Cheyenne government system is a politically unified system. At the center of this traditional government system is the Arrow Keeper, followed by the Council of Forty-Four. Early in the Cheyenne history, three related tribes, known as the Heviqsnipahis, the So’taeo’o and the Masikota. They would unify themselves to form the Tse-tsehestahese or the “Like Hearted People”, today known as the Cheyenne. The unified tribes were then divided into ten principal bands.

Each of the ten bands would have four seated chief delegates, the reaminging four chiefs were the principal advisors of the other delegates. Smaller bands or sub-bands had no right to send delegates to the council. This sytem had also regulated the Cheyenne military societies that had developed for planning warfare, enforcing rules and conducting ceremonies.

Anthropologists debate about the Cheyenne society organization. On the plains, it appears that they had a bilateral band kinship system. However, some anthropologists reported that they had a matrilineal band system. Studies into whether, and if so, how much the Cheyenne developed a matrilineal clan system are ongoing.

The Traditional Cheyenne Plains Culture

While they participated in the nomadic Plains horse culture, men hunted and occasionally fought with and raided other tribes. The women would tan and dress hides for clothing, shelter and other uses. They had also gathered roots, berries and other useful plants. From their products of hunting and gathering, women also built lodges, clothes and other equipment, their lives were quite active and physically demanding. The Cheyenne had first lived in the area in and near the Black Hills, but later all of the Great Plains from Dakota to the Arkansas River was occupied by them.

Role Models

A Cheyenne woman would have a higher status if she was part of an extended family with distinguished ancestors. If she was also friendly and compatible with her female relatives and does not have members in her extended family who are alcoholic or otherwise in disrepute, she would also have a higher status. It was and still is expected for all Cheyenne women to be hardworking, chaste, modest, skilled in traditional crafts, knowledgeable about Cheyenne culture and the history of the tribe, and speak Cheyenne fluently. Tribal powwow princesses are expected to have all of these characteristics.

The Arapaho Indians

The Arapaho are a tribe of Native Americans in the midwest as well, historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota as well. The Arapaho language is known as Heenetiit and is an Algonquian language, closely related to Gros Ventre, whose people had been considered to have separated from the Arapaho at an earlier time. The Blackfeet and Cheyenne also speak Algonquian languages, but theirs are quite different from that of the Arapaho.

By the 1850s, the Arapaho band had formed into two tribes. The Northern Arapaho, since 1878, had lived with the Eastern Shoshone on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. They are federally recognized as the Arapaho Tribe of the Wind River Reservation. The Southern Arapaho live with the Southern Cheyenne in Oklahoma. Together, their members are enrolled as the federally recognized Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.

The Arapaho Names

It is unclear where the word “Arapahoe” came from. Europeans may have derived it from the Pawnee word for “trader”, or it may have been a corruption of a Crow word for “tattoo”. The Arapahoe autonym is Hinono’eino or Inun-ina, meaning “our people” or “people of our own kind”. They refer to their tribe as Hinono’eiteen, which means “Arapahoe Nation”.

Historic, Political, and Dialect Arapaho Divisions and Bands

The Arapaho recognize five main divisions among their people. Each speak a different dialect and apparently represent as many originally distinct but cognate tribes. Through much of the Arapho history, each tribal nation maintained a separate ethnic identity, although occassionally came together and acted as political allies.

Each spoke mutually intelligible dialects, which was different from the Arapaho proper. Dialectically, the Haa’ninin, Beesowuunenno’ and Hinono’eino were closely related. The Arapaho elders claimed that the Hanahawuuena dialect was the most difficult to comprehend of all the Arapaho dialects.

Arapaho History

Early History

About three thousand years ago, the ancestral Arapaho-speaking people lived in the western Great Lakes region along the Red River Valley. Today the area is classified as Manitoba, Canada and Minnesota, United States. It was there that the Arapaho were an agricultural people who would grow crops, including maize. After European colonization in eastern Canada, together with the Cheyenne people, the Arapaho were pushed westward onto the eastern Great Plains by the Ojibwe. They were quite numerous and powerful, having obtained guns from their French trading allies.

Ancestors of the Arapaho people had entered the Great Plains from the western Great Lakes region, sometime before 1700. During their early history in this area, the Arapaho had lived on the northern plains from the South Saskatchewan River in Canada, south to Montana, Wyoming, and the western portion of South Dakota. Before the Arapaho had acquired horses, they had used domestic dogs as pack animals to pull their travois. They had acquired horses in the early part of the 1700s from other tribes, changing their way of life. The Arapaho became a nomadic people, using horses as pack and riding animals. They could transport greater loads and traveled more easily by horseback to hunt more easily and widely, increasing their success in hunting on the Plains.

Gradually, the Arapaho had moved farther to the south. They split into the closely allied Northern and Southern Arapaho. Thus, they established a large joint territory, spanning land in Southern Montana, most of Wyoming, the Nebraska Panhandle, central and eastern Colorado, western Oklahoma and the extreme western part of Kansas. A large group of the Arapaho split from the main tribe and became an independent people, commonly known as the Gros Ventre (their French name) or Atsina. The French name of Gros Ventre means “Big Bellies”, and was a misinterpretation of the sign language between an Indian guide and French explorers. The Gros Ventre spoke an Algonquian language, similar to the Arapaho after their division. They would identify as A’aninin, meaning “White Clay People”. The Arapaho had often viewed them as inferior and referred to them as Hitunena or Hitouuteen, which means “beggars”.

Expanding onto the Plains

Once they were established, the Arapaho began to expand on the plains through trade, warfare, and alliances with other plains tribes. In about 1811, the Arapaho made an alliance with the Cheyenne. This strong alliance allowed the Arapaho the opportunity to greatly expand their hunting territory. By 1826, the Lakota, Dakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho pushed the Kiowa and the invading Comanche to the south. Conflict with the allied Comanche and Kiowa had ended in 1840, when two large tribes had made peace with the Arapaho and the Southern Cheyenne, becoming their allies instead.

Chief Little Raven was the most notable of the Arapaho chiefs. He had helped to mediate peace among the nomadic southern plains tribes and retained his reputation as a peace chief throughout the Indian Wars and the reservation period. The alliance with the Comanche and Kiowa had made the most southern Arapaho bands strong enough to enter the Llano Estacado in the Texas Panhandle. One band of the Southern Arapaho became so closely allied with the Comanche language that they became a band of the Comanche known as the Saria Tuhka, or Dog-Eaters band.

Along the upper Missouri River, the Arapaho actively traded with the farming villages of the Arikara, Mandan and Hidatsa. They would trade meat and hides for corn, squash and beans. The Arikara referred to the Arapaho as the “Colored Stone Village (People)”, possibly because of gemstones from the Southwest that were among their trade items. The Hidatsa called them E-tah-leh or Ita-Iddi (“Bison-Path People”), referring to their hunting of bison.

Conflict with the Euro-American traders and explorers was limited at the time. The Arapaho had freely entered various trading posts and trade fairs to exchange mostly bison hides and beaver furs for European goods, such as firearms. The Arapaho had frequently met with fur traders in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and the headwaters of the Platte and Arkansas. They became well-known traders on the plains and the bordering Rocky Mountains. The Arapaho name might have came from the Pawnee word: Tirapihu, meaning “he buys or trades” or “traders”. The Arapaho were a prominent trading group in the Great Plains region. The term may also have come from the European-American traders referring to them by their Crow name of Alappaho’. This meant “People with many tattoos”. By custom the Arapaho had tattooed small circles on their body. The name became widespread among the white traders.

Enemies and Arapaho Warrior Culture

A large part of the Arapaho society had been based around the warrior. Most young men had worked to qualify for the warrior rank. After the Arapaho adopted the use of the horse, they quickly became master horsemen and were highly skilled at fighting from horseback. Warriors had larger roles than combat in their society. They were expected to keep peace among the camps, provide food, wealth for their families, and guard camps from being attacked.

As had other plains Indians, including their Cheyenne allies, the Arapaho have a number of distinct military societies. Each of the eight Arapaho military societies had their own unique initiation rites including pre-battle and post-battle ceremonies and songs, regalia, and style of combat. Unlike their Cheyenne, Lakota and Dakota allies, the Arapaho military socities were age based. Each age level had its own society for prestigious or promising warriors of the matching age. As a warrior had aged, they may graduate to the next group of society.

Warriors often painted their face and bodies with war paint, along with their horses for spiritual empowerment. Each warrior created a unique design for the war paint that they often would wear into battle. These designs would include feathers from birds, particularly eagle feathers, and were also worn into battle as symbols of their prestige, and for reasons similar to their war paint.

Prior to setting out for war, the warriors would organize into war parties. These war parties were made up of individual warriors and a selected war chief. The title of war chief had to be earned through a specific number of acts of bravery in battle, known as Counting coup. Coups might have included the stealing of horses while undetected, touching a living enemy, or stealing a gun from an enemy’s grasp.

The Arapaho warriors had used a variety of weapons, including war clubs, lances, knives, tomahawks, shotguns, rifles and pistols. Arapaho would acquire guns through trade at trading posts or at trade fairs, in addition to raiding soldiers or other tribes.

They had fought the Pawnee, Omaha, Ho-chunk, Osage, Ponca and Kaw in the eastern part of the Arapaho’s territory. In the northern part of their territory they fought against the Crow, Blackfoot Confederacy, Gros Ventre, Flatheads, Arikara, Iron Confederacy, the Plains and Woods Cree, Saulteaux, and Nakoda. In the west they fought with the eastern Shoshone and Ute and to the south of Arapaho territory they occasionally had run ins with the Navajo, Apache, and various Pueblo peoples. The Cheyenne, Sioux, Kiowa, Plains Apache and Comanche were initially enemies of the Arapaho but later they became their allies. Together with their allies, the Arapaho had also fought with invading United States soldiers, miners and settlers across the Arapaho territory and the territory of their allies.

The Sand Creek Massacre

In November of 1864, a small village of Cheyenne and Arapaho became the victims of the Colorado Militia, led by Colonel John Chivington in what would be known as the Sand Creek Massacre. According to a historical narrative on the event, entitled “Chief Left Hand”, by Margaret Coel, contributing factors

that led to the massacre were Governor Evans’ desire to hold the title to the resource rich Denver-Boulder area, the government trust officials’ avoided Chief Left Hand, who was a linguistically gifted Southern Arapaho chief, when they executed a legal treaty that transferred the title of the area away from Indian Trust. The local cavalry were stretched thin by the demands of the United States’ Civil War and hijacking of their supplies by a few stray Indian warriors who had lost respect for their chiefs and followers of Chief Left Hand, including a group of Cheyenne and Arapaho elders, a few well behaved warriors, and mostly women and children, who had received a message to report to Fort Lyon with promises of safety and food at the Fort or they would risk being considered “hostile” and then killed by the cavalry. The tribe had also been deprived of their normal wintering grounds in the Boulder, Colorado area.

Upon their arrival at Lyon, Chief Left Hand and his followeres were accused of violence by Colonel Chivington. Left Hand and his people got the message that only those that had reported to Fort Lyon would be considered peaceful and all others would be considered hostile and were then ordered to be killed. Confused by this, Chief Left Hand and his followers turned away and traveled a safe distance away from Fort Lyon to camp. A traitor among them gave Colonel Chivington

directions to their camp. He and his battalion stalked and attacked the camp early in the next morning. Rather than heroic, Colonel Chivington’s efforts were considered a gross embarrassment to the Cavalry, as he had attacked peaceful elders, women and children. As a result of his war efforts, instead of receiving a promotion, to which he had aspired, he was relieved of his duties.

Eugene Ridgely, a Cheyenne-Northern Arapaho artist was credited with bringing to light the fact that the Arapaho were among the victims of the massacre. His children, Gail, Benjamin and Eugene “Snowball” Ridgely, were instrumental in having the massacre site designated as a National Historical Site. In 1999, Benjamin and Gail organized a group of Northern Arapaho runners to run from Limon, Colorado to Ethete, Wyoming as a way of remembering their ancestors who were forced to run for their lives after they were attacked and pursued by Colonel Chivington and his battalion. Together, their efforts will be recognized and remembered by the “Sand Creek Massacre” signs that appear along the roadways from Limon to Casper, Wyoming, and then to Ethete.

Indian Wars on the Southern Plains

Events at Sand Creek had sparked an outrage among the Arapaho and Cheyenne, which resulted in three decades of war between them and the United States. The majority of hostilities took place in Colorado, which then led to many of the events being referred to as part of the so-called Colorado War. Battles and hostilities elsewhere in the Southern Plains. Kansas and Texas are often included as part of the “Comanche Wars”. During these wars, the Arapaho and Cheyenne were allies with the Kiowa, Comanche, and Plains Apache, and participated in some of the battles alongside them. The Lakota from the north came down into northern Colorado to assist the Arapaho and the Cheyenne that were there. The Battle of Julesburg resulted from a force of about one thousand allies including the Northern Arapaho, Cheyenne; mostly from the Dog Soldiers warrior society, the Lakota; from the Brule, and the Oglala sub-tribes. The point of the raid was for retaliation for the events at the Sand Creek Massacre, just months earlier. Allied Indian forces had attacked the settlers and the United States Army forces around the valley of the South Platte River, near Julesburg, Colorado.

This battle was a decisive Indian victory, having resulted in fourteen soldiers and four civilians being dead and probably no Indian casualties. A forces of around three thousand Southern Arapaho, Northern Cheyenne, and the Lakota attacked soldiers and civilians at the bridge that crossed the North Platte River. This resulted in the Battle of Platte Bridge, another victory for the Indians as well. It was here that twenty-nine soldiers were killed, and at least eight Indians.

The Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa, and Plains Apaches were sought for a peace offering known as the Medicine Lodge Treaty in October of 1867. The Treaty had allotted the Southern Arapaho a reservation with the Southern Cheyenne between the Arkansas and Cimarron rivers in the Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. Among those that had signed the treaty was Chief Little Raven. Those that didn’t sign the treaty were called “hostile” and were continually pursued by the United States Army and their Indian scouts.

The final major battle between the Arapaho and the United States on the southern plains was the Battle of Summit Springs in the northern most part of Colorado. The battle involved a force of about four hundred and fifty Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Lakota warriors and two hundred and forty-four United States soldiers and around fifty Pawnee scouts under Frank North. The most prominent of Indian leaders at the battle was Tall Bull, a leader of the Dog Soldiers warrior society of the Cheyenne. The battle was a victory for the United States, having resulted in around thirty-five warriors being killed, including Tall Bull, his death being a major loss for the Dog Soldiers; a further seventy were captured. The United States soldiers only suffered a single casualty.

The Powder River Expedition

After the Sand Creek Massacre and a number of other skirmished the Northern Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Lakota moved many of their bands to the remote Powder River country in Wyoming and southern Montana. Along the way they had participated in the Battle of Mud Springs. Though this was a minor incident in the Nebraska Panhandle, it did involve a force of between five hundred and a thousand Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Lakota warriors and two hundred and thirty United States soldiers. The battle had resulted in the capture of some army horses and a herd of several hundred cattle, with only one United States casualty. An attempt had been made by the army to recapture the stolen livestock and attack the Indians, but it resulted in the Battle of Rush Creek.

This battle was inconclusive, resulting in only one Indian casualty and three United States soldiers, with a further eight wounded. Lieutenant Colonel, William O. Collins, commander of the army forces stated that pursuing the Indian forces any further through the dry Sand Hills area would be “injudicious and useless”. Once in the area of the Powder River, the Arapaho noted an increase in travelers moving along the established Bozeman trail, leading to the Montana gold fields. Settlers and miners traveling on the Bozeman Trail through the Powder River country were viewed as threats by the Indians, as they were numerous and often violent towards encountered Indians, and competed for food along the trail.

Hostilities in the Powder River area led to Major General Grenville M. Dodge ordering the Powder River Expedition, as a punitive campaign against the Arapaho, Lakota and Cheyenne. The Expedition was inconclusive with neither side gaining a definitive victory. Allied Indian forces mostly evaded the soldiers, except for raids on their supplies, leaving most soldiers to be desperately under-equipped.

Battle of the Tongue River

The most significant battle was the Battle of the Tongue River. Brigadier General, Patrick Edward Connor had ordered Frank North and his Pawnee Scouts to find a camp of Arapaho Indians, under the leadership of Chief Black Bear. Once located, Connor sent in two hundred soldiers, with two howitzers and forty Omaha and Winnebago, and thirty Pawnee scouts. They marched through that night towards the village. The Indian warriors, acting as scouts for the United States Army came from the Pawnee, Omaha, and Winnebago tribes who were traditional enemies of the Arapaho and their Cheyenne and Lakota allies. Jim Bridger, a mountain man, led the charge on the camp. Most of the Arapaho warriors were gone on a raid against the Crow and the battle was a United States victory that resulted in sixty-three Arapaho dead, mostly women and children. The few warriors present at the camp had put up a strong defense, covering the women and children as most had escaped beyond the reach of the soldiers and Indians scouts.

After the battle, the soldiers burned and looted the abandoned tipis. Connor singled out four Winnebago, including Chief Little Priest, North and fifteen Pawnee for their bravery. The Pawnee made off with five hundred horses from the camp’s herd as payback for the previous raids by the Arapaho. However, they were not intimidated by the attack and launched a counterattack, resulting in the Sawyers Fight, where the Arapaho warriors attacked a group of surveyors, resulting in three dead and no Arapaho losses.

Red Cloud’s War

Red Cloud’s War was fought between the soldiers of the United States and the allied Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Northern Arapaho between 1866 and 1868. The war was named after the prominent Oglala Lakota chief, Red Cloud, who had led many followers into the battle with invading soldiers. The war was a response to the large number of miners and settlers passing through the Bozeman Trail, which was the quickest and easiest trail from Fort Laramie to the Montana gold fields. The Bozeman Trail had passed through the Powder River Country, which was near the center of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Lakota and Dakota territory in Wyoming and southern Montana. The large number of miners and settlers competed directly with the Indians for their resources, such as food, along the trail.

The most significant battle during Red Cloud’s War was the Fetterman Fight, also known as the Battle of the Hundred, or in the Hand to the Indian forces, and was fought on the 21^st of December 1866. The Battle had involved Captain William J. Fetterman, who led a force of seventy-nine soldiers and two civilians after a group of ten Indian decoys planning on the luring of Fetterman’s forces into an ambush. The ten decoys consisted of two Arapaho, two Cheyenne and six Lakota. Fetterman was well known for his boastful nature and inexperience fighting Indian warriors. Despite orders to not pursue the Indians, the decoys did so anyway. Famous Mountain Man and a guide to the soldiers stationed at Fort Laramie, Jim Bridger, commented on how the soldiers “don’t know anything about fighting Indians.”

After a half mile pursuit, the decoys signaled the hidden warriors to ambush Fetterman and his forces. Warriors from both sides of the trail charged Fetterman, forcing them into nearby rocks where the battle had soon become hand-to-hand combat, giving the Indians the upper hand due to their skill in fighting with hand-held weapons, such as tomahawks and war-clubs. Indian forces killed all of Ftterman’s infantry, as well as the following cavalry with a total of eighty-one killed.

The battle was the greatest military defeat by the United States on the Great Plains until the Battle of Little Bighorn, ten years later. Red Cloud’s War ended in victory for the Arapho, Cheyenne, Lakota, and Dakota. The Treaty of Fort Laramie guaranteed the legal control of the Powder River country to the Indians.

The Great Sioux War of 1876-77

Also known as the Black Hills War or Great Cheyenne War was the Great Sioux War of 1876-1877. It was a major conflict that was fought between the Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, as allies, and the United States Army, as an enemy.

The war was started after miners and settlers traveled into the Black Hills area and found gold. This had resulted in an increased number of non-Indians illegally entering the designated Indian lands. A large part of the Cheyenne and Arapaho territory and most of the Sioux territory, known as the Great Sioux Reservation, was guaranteed legally to the tribes by the Treaty of Fort Laramie after they had defeated the United States during Red Cloud’s War in 1868.

The Black Hills, in particular, are viewed as sacred to the Lakota and Dakota peoples, and with the presence of settlers illegally occupying the area, a period of great unrest started within the tribes. Instead of evicting settlers, the United States Army had broke the treaty and invaded the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho territory in order to protect the American settlers, putting allied tribes on smaller reservations or wiping them out altogether.

After Red Cloud’s War, many Northern Arapaho had moved to the Red Cloud Agency in Dakota Territory, living among the Lakota as well as many Cheyenne. Among the most influential and respected of the Arapaho chiefs living on the Agency was Chief Black Coal, who had gained prominence as a warrior and leader against white settlers in the Powder River country.

Other important Arapaho chiefs living in the area had included Medicine Man, Black Bear, Sorrel Horse, Little Shield, Sharp Nose, Little Wolf, Plenty Bear, and Friday. The Arapaho Chief, Friday, which was unlikely his real name, was well regarded for his intelligence and served as an interpreter between the tribe and the Americans. Black Coal had guaranteed the Americans that he and his people would remain peaceful during times of tension, when settlers were illegally entering Indian land in hopes of securing recognized territory of their own in Wyoming.

Many warriors and their families that had disagreed with Black Coal’s ideals had drifted towards the south, to join up with the southern division of the Arapaho. Many of the Arapaho, particularly those in Chief Medicine Man’s band didn’t wish to reside among the Sioux “for fear of mixing themselves up with other tribes”. Their peaceful stance and willingness to help American soldiers strained once strong relations between them and the Lakota and Cheyenne who took an aggressive stance and they had to flee the reservation. Attitudes towards the Arapaho from the “hostile” Lakota and Cheyenne had a similar peaceful stance and they had remained as “reservation Indians”. Despite their unwillingness to take up the war path, the Arapaho were unwilling to cede their territory, particularly the Black Hills area. It was here that they have a strong spiritual attachment similar to the Lakota.

“You have come here to speak with us about the Black Hills, and, without discussing anything that we say, and without changing anything that we say, we wish to tell the Great father [President of the United States] when you get back that this is the country in which we were brought up, and it has also been given to us by treaty by the great father. And I am here to take care of the country, and therefore, not only the Dakota [Sioux] Indians, but my people have an interest in the Black Hills that we have come to speak about today.”~Chief Medicine Man

It was during this time of great unrest that the tribe had found itself deteriorating in leadership with many chiefs holding little sway among their bands. In order to regain strength as leaders and further negotiations for the land in Wyoming, many chiefs and their warriors had enlisted as Army scouts for the United States and also campaigned against their allies. Chief Sharp Nose, who was considered influential and equal to Black Coal, was noted as “the inspiration of the battlefield, he handled men with rare judgment and coolness, and was as modest as he was brave.” Despite the overall stance as allies for Americans, some Arapaho warriors had fought against the United States in key battles during the war.

As in previous wars, the United States recruited Indian warriors from tribes that were enemies with the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Lakota, Dakota alliance to act as Indian scouts; most notably from the Crow, Arikara, and Shoshone, unlike in previous conflicts involving the Lakota-Dakota-Cheyenne-Arapaho alliance and the United States. The bison herds which were the center of life for the Indians were considered smaller, due to the government supporting the whole scale slaughter to prevent collisions with railroads, conflict with ranch cattle, and to force nomadic Plains Indians to adopt the reservation life, living off of government handouts. With the decreased resources and starvation being a major reason for surrendering of individual bands, the Great Sioux War had ended.

The Battle of the Little Bighorn

The most significant battle of the Great Sioux War, was the Battle of the Little Bighorn, which took place on the 25^th until the 26^th of June in 1876. This battle was fought between the warriors from the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho; as well as individual Dakota warriors, and the 7^th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. It had been fought along the Little Bighorn River, located in eastern Montana. The soldiers had tried to ambush a large camp of the Indians along the river bottom, despite warnings from Crow Scouts, who had known that Custer had severely underestimated the number of warriors in the camp.

The 7^th Cavalry, including George Armstrong Custer’s Battalion, a force of seven hundred men, had suffered a severe defeat. Five of the 7^th Cavalry’s companies were annihilated, a total United States casualty count, including their scouts, was two hundred and sixty-eight, including Custer, and fifty-five were injured. There were only five Arapaho present at the battle and their presence was only by chance. Four Arapaho warriors that were present were Yellow Eagle, Yellow Fly, Left Hand and Water Man, all Northern Arapaho warriors. The fifth Arapaho was a Southern Arapaho by the name of Well-Knowing One (Sage), but also known as Green Grass.

It was these five Arapaho that set out as a war party from close to Fort Robinson, so as to raid the Shoshone. However, they had came across a small party of young Sioux warriors. The Sioux had thought that the Arapaho were United States Army Indian Scouts and invited them back to their camp along the Little Bighorn River. Here they were captured and had their guns taken from them.

The Lakota and Dakota had threatened to kill the Arapaho, but the Cheyenne chief: Two Moons, had recognized the men as Arapaho and ordered for them to be released. The following day was the battle, and despite being viewed with suspicion, the five Arapaho actively fought in the battle. Water Man had claimed to kill one soldier while charging up the steep river banks, but didn’t take his scalp because most of the Arapaho refused to take a scalp from someone with short hair. He claimed to have watched Custer die as well:

“When I reached the top of the hill I saw Custer. He was dressed in buckskin, coat and pants, and was on his hands and knees. He had been shot through the side and there was blood coming from his mouth. He seemed to be watching the Indians moving around him. Four soldiers were sitting up around him, but they were all badly wounded. All the other soldiers were down. Then the Indians closed in around him, and I did not see any more. Most of the dead soldiers had been killed by arrows sticking in them. The next time I saw Custer he was dead, and some Indians were taking his buckskin clothes.”–Water Man

The Arapaho warrior Left Hand, had accidentally killed a Lakota warrior that he had mistaken for an Arikara scout. Despite further anger from the Lakota, he left the battle alive along with four other Arapaho. After the battle, the Arapaho quietly slipped away and headed back to the Fort Robinson area.

Economic Development

In July 2005, the Northern Arapaho had won a contentious court battle with the State of Wyoming to get into the gaming or casino industry. The 10^th Circuit Court had ruled that the State of Wyoming was acting in bad faith when it wouldn’t negotiate with the Arapaho for gaming. The Northern Arapaho Tribe had opened their first casino in Wyoming.

Today, the Arapaho Tribe owns and operates high-stakes, Class III gaming, at the Wind River Casino, the Little Wind Casino and the 789 Smoke Shop and Casino. In 2012, the Wind River Hotel, attached to the Wind River Casino, features a cultural room called the Northern Arapaho Experience.

These casinos are regulated by a Gaming Commission composed of three tribal members. Meanwhile, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes operate three casinos together. These include the Lucky Star Casino in Clinton, the Feather Warrior Casino in Watonga and the Feather Warrior Casino of Canton.

3 thoughts on “North America’s Midwest Native American Tribes”

beetleypete says:

10/12/2018 at 3:01 AM

Up to your usual academic standard, Christina, and historically informative too.
The treatment of the Native Americans was harsh in the extreme, and the loss of their culture has never been fully restored to them. (Much like many shameful excesses of the British Empire around the world.)
Best wishes, Pete.

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1. csiceloff85 says:
  
  10/12/2018 at 5:05 PM
  
  Thank you beetleypete for the kind comments. I agree they have never been able to restore their culture, and I think with this world we live in now they will never be able to. I also agree that they were treated horribly, and from my own visits to Native American lands, though not in the Midwest, but Southwest (coming next post), they are distant from us. In this area, if you are not a Native American they refer to you as an Anglo. I went to a carpet sale they had at a reservation school out there one time and my mother and I sat next to some Native Americans and they looked at us with disgust and got up and moved. I don’t think all of them are like that though, as I went to the northern New Mexico earlier this year and held a door open for an older Native American man at a gas station and he looked at me, smiled, and said thank you. I told my mom about the encounter and she said that for a non-Native American to hold a door open for him would have been a big deal, not in a bad way but just not expected. I didn’t think I did anything wrong as he was my elder, it didn’t matter to me at all that he was different than me, I only looked at him as I do anyone else lol. Anyhow, the Native Americans are still treated much different, many of the homes I’ve seen of theirs on reservations are not as nice as living in a trailer park, and it’s not by their own choice, though maybe some of them to choose that life, but that’s what our government gives them. I don’t think that they should be treated any differently than anyone else. They were here first and we took their homes, their lands and their way of life from them, at least our ancestors did, why should we not try and make things better for them after what our people did? Then again maybe by this time they don’t want our help anymore, just want to be left alone.
  
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The Sioux Indians

History of the Sioux Indians

Radisson and Groseilliers

Chief Crazy Horse

The Crazy Horse Memorial

The Sioux and Pawnees

The Arikara War of 1823

The Dakota War of 1862

Red Cloud’s War

Chief Red Cloud

The Great Sioux War of 1876

The Wounded Knee Massacre

Reservations and Reserves

Twentieth Century Activism

The Wounded Knee Incident

The Republic of Lakotah

Current Activism

Protesting Against the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline

Protesting Against the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline

Political Organization

Sioux Linguistics

Modern Geographic Divisions

The Santee (Isanyathi or Eastern Dakota)

Santee Earthwork Mound

The Ihankthunwan-Ihanjkthunwanna (Yankton-Yanktonai or Western Dakota)

The Lakota (Teton or Thithunwan)

Sioux Ethnic Divisions

The Pawnee Indians

Pawnee Government

Economic Development

The Pawnee Culture

Pawnee Earth Lodge

Political Structure

Agriculture

Hunting

Religion

The History of the Pawnee

Recent History

The Comanche Indians

Comanche Government, Economic Development, and Cultural Institutions

Comanche History

Comanche Divisions

The Comanche and the Settlers

Sam Houston

The Cherokee Commission

Other Comanche Treaties

Captive Herman Lehmann

Herman Lehmann

The Comanche’s Recent History

Comanche Culture

Social Order

Childbirth

A Comanche Cradleboard

Children

Death

Transportation and Habitation

Comanche Tipis

Food

Clothing

Hair and Headgear

Body Decorations

Arts and Crafts

Language

The Crow Indians

History of the Crow

The Northern Plains

Enemies and Allies of the Crow

The Gradual Displacement of the Crow from Tribal Lands

George A. Custer

1600-1699

1700-1799

1800-1824

1825-1849

Culture

Subsistence

Habitation and Transportation

Clothing and Beadwork

An example of the Crow’s beadwork

Gender and Kinship System

The Cheyenne Indians