Cheyenne Indian History

Cheyenne (from Sioux name Sha-hi'yena, Shai-ena, or (Teton) Shai-ela, that "people of alien speech" from sha'ia, 'speak a strange language'). An important Plains tribe of the great Algonquian family. They call themselves Dzǐ'tsǐǐstäs, apparently almost equivalent to "a people," it is our people "from ǐtsǐstau." Even "or" as this '(animate) (ehǐstă,' he is from, or similar '- Peter), by a slight change of accent, it can also mean' gashed them, "or perhaps" tall people. "Tribal Areas form here given is the third person plural.

The popular name has no connection with the French Chien, 'dog,' as has sometimes been erroneously assumed. In sign language, they are marked with a gesture that often has been interpreted as "cutting arms" or "cut fingers' done by dragging the right forefinger several times rapidly across the left, but there really seems to show 'striped arrows' which name they are known by the Hidatsa, Shoshoni, Comanche, Caddo, and probably other tribes, with allusion to their old time preference for turkey feathers for winging arrows.

The earliest confirmed habitat for Cheyenne years before 1700, seems to have been that part of Minnesota bounded hard in Mississippi, Minnesota, and upper Red rivers. Sioux live in this period more directly on the Mississippi, east and south, came into contact with the French as early as 1667, but Cheyenne is first mentioned in 1680, called Chaa, when a batch, strain, describes living on the head of major river ie, Mississippi, visited La Salle's fort on the Illinois River to invite the French to come to their country they represent, which is rich in beaver and other fur animals. Sioux veteran missionary, Williamson says that according to current and reliable Cheyenne Sioux tradition before the Sioux in density in the upper Mississippi region, and found them already established in Minnesota.

In a later period, they moved over to the Cheyenne branch of the Red River, North Dakota, which thus acquired its name, is known to the Sioux as "the place where the Cheyenne facility," indicating that the latter was still an agricultural people (Williamson).

This westward movement was due to pressure from the Sioux, who himself was to retire before the Chippewa, as there already is in possession of weapons from the east. Driven out of the Cheyenne Sioux moved west to Missouri River, where their further progress was against Sutaio-Staitan of the Lewis and Clark, a people who speak a closely related dialect, which had preceded them to the west and was then apparently living between the river and the Black Hills.

After a period of hostilities, the two strains made an alliance for some time after Cheyenne crossed the Missouri below the entrance to the Cannon Ball, and later took refuge in the Black Hills over the head at Cheyenne River in South Dakota, where Lewis and Clark found them in 1804 and since then, their steady drift to the west and south until confined to reservations.

Up to the time when Lewis and Clark, the bar at the desultory war with the Mandan and Hidatsa, who probably helped to drive them from the Missouri River. They seem, however, would be kept on good terms with the Arikara. According to their own history, obsessed with Cheyenne while living in Minnesota and Missouri River, permanent villages, practiced agriculture did and ceramics, but lost the art of being blown off the plains to become roving buffalo hunters.

In Missouri, and perhaps even further east, the occupied land covered log houses. Grinnell, had some Cheyenne cultivated fields on the Little Missouri River as late as in 1850. It was probably a newer solution because they are not mentioned in this village, as Lewis and Clark. At least one man among them still understand the art of making beads and figurines from pounded glass, which was used by the Mandan.

In a sacred tradition recited only by the priestly user, they still tell how they "lost grain" after leaving the eastern part of the country. One of the starting points of this tradition is a large decrease, apparently St. Anthony's falls on the Mississippi, and a stream known as the "river of turtles that may Turtle River tributary of Red River, or possibly in St. Croix, in the mouth of the Mississippi in Minnesota and formerly known by a similar name. Consult early habitats and migrations: Carver, Travels, 1796; Clark, Ind. Sign Lang., 1885; Comfort in Smithson. Rep. for 1871, La Salle in Margry, découvertes, II, 1877, Lewis and Clark, Travels, I, ed. 1842; Mooney in 14th Rep. BAE, 1896; Williamson in Minn. Hist. Soc. Coll., I, 1872.

Although the alliance between Sutaio and Cheyenne comes from the crossing of the Missouri River, as the latter, the actual integration of Sutaio in Cheyenne camp circle probably happened within the last hundred years, when the two strains were considered separate by Lewis and Clark. There is no good reason now Sutaio to have been a loose hand-Siksika slid down directly from the north, which has been proposed as Cheyenne explicitly states that Sutaio talked "a Cheyenne language, a dialect that is somewhat understandable in Cheyenne, and that they lived southwest of the original Cheyenne country.

The linguistic researcher Rev. Rudolph Petter, our best authority on the Cheyenne language, confirms the statement that the difference was only dialectics, which probably helps to explain the full equality of the two strains.

Cheyenne also say that they have received the Sun Dance and Buffalo-head medication from Sutaio but require medicine-arrow ceremony as their own from the start. Up to 1835, and probably until reduced by cholera in 1849, held Sutaio their special dialect, dress, and ceremonies, and encamped apart from Cheyenne. In 1851 they were still to some extent a distinct people, but now only exists as a component of the divisions of the (southern) Cheyenne tribe in no way different than the others. Under the name Staitan (a contraction of Sŭtai-Hitan,. Pl Sŭtai-hitänio, 'Sŭtai men'), they are mentioned by Lewis and Clark in 1804 as a small, roving wild tribe west of the Black Hills.

There is no doubt about when or where the Cheyenne Arapaho first met, with whom they have long been confederated, does not seem to have a clear idea about the (late of the alliance between the two strains remains unbroken to this day. Their the Arapaho is a simple alliance, without assimilation, while Sutaio been incorporated bodily.

Their modern history can be said to begin with the expedition of Lewis and Clarkin1804. Constantly pushed further into the plains of hostile Sioux in the back, they have established themselves on the upper branches of the Platte, driving Kiowa in their journey further south. They made their first treaty with the government in 1825 at the mouth of Teton (Bath) river, Missouri, on the current Pierre, South Dakota. As a result of the construction of Bent's Fort on the upper Arkansas, in Colorado, in 1832, a large part of the tribe decided to go down and make permanent headquarters in Arkansas, while the rest continued to walk around the source in North Platte and Yellowstone rivers.

This separation was made permanent in Ft Laramie Treaty of 1851, the two sections, now known respectively as the Southern and Northern Cheyenne, but the difference is purely geographical, although it has helped to accelerate the destruction of their former tribal compact organization. Southern Cheyenne tribe known as Sówoníă, 'southerners, "while the Northern Cheyenne are commonly known as O'mǐ'sǐs eaters' from the division's most well represented among them.

Their arrival in Arkansas brought them into constant collision with the Kiowa, Comanche who claimed territory in the south. The old men in both strains tell on a wide range of meetings over the next few years, chief among them is a struggle at the upper branch of the Red River in 1837, where Kiowa massacred all the entire lot of 48 Cheyenne warriors bowstring Society for a stout defense and a remarkable match in the following summer of 1838, when Cheyenne and Arapaho Kiowa and Comanche attack at Wolf Creek, northwest Oklahoma, with heavy casualties on both sides.

Around 1840 Cheyenne made peace with the Kiowa in the south, has already made peace with the Sioux in the north, and since then all these strains together with the Arapaho, Kiowa, Kiowa Apache and Comanche usually acted as allies in war with other tribes and with white .

For a long time Cheyenne has interfered much with the western Sioux, from whom they have the pattern in many details of dress and ceremony. They seem not to have suffered much from the small-pox of 1837-39, having been warned in time to flee to the mountains, but like other prairie strains they have suffered terribly from cholera in 1849, several of the bands almost extinct. Culbertson, writing a year later, stated that they had lost about 200 lodges, estimated at 2,000 souls, or about two thirds of their total before the epidemic.

Their peace with the Kiowa enabled them to expand their distribution further south, and in 1853 they made their first raid into Mexico, but with disastrous results, losing all but 3 men in a battle with Mexican freelancers. From 1860 to 1878 they were prominent in the border areas of warfare, dealing with the Sioux in the north and Kiowa and Comanche in the south, and has probably lost more in conflict with the whites than any other tribe in the lowlands, in proportion to their numbers.

In 1864 the southern part of the band suffered a severe blow since the infamous Chivington massacre in Colorado, and again in 1868 at the hands of Custer at the Battle of Washita. They had a leading role in the general outbreak of the southern tribes in 1874-75.

The Northern Cheyenne joined with the Sioux of Sitting Bull war in 1876 and were active participants in the Custer massacre. Later this year, they received such a severe blow from Mackenzie to force their surrender. In the winter of 1878-79 a band of Northern Cheyenne under Dull Knife, Wild Hog, and Little Wolf, who was killed by the prisoners to Fort Reno to be colonized with the southern part of the strain in the present Oklahoma, made a desperate attempt to escape. It is estimated that 89 men and 146 women and children broke out overnight between the 9th around September 75, including Dull Knife and most of the soldiers were killed in the pursuit, which continued to the Dakota border, where about 50 whites died. Thirty-two of those killed Cheyenne was killed in a second break for freedom from Ft Robinson, Nebr. Where they captured the fugitive had been limited. Little Wolf, with about 60 supporters, got through security in the north. In a later period of the Northern Cheyenne were assigned to the present reservation in Montana.

Southern Cheyenne were assigned a reservation in western Oklahoma by treaty in 1867, but refused to postpone it until after the surrender of 1875, where a number of the most prominent enemy were deported to Florida for a period of 3 years. In 1901-02 Southern Cheyenne were assigned in severalty and the Indians are now American citizens.

Those in the north seem to cope with the population, while in the south is steadily decreasing. They numbered in 1904, Southern Cheyenne, 1903, Northern Cheyenne, 1409, a total of 3312. Although originally an agricultural people of wood land, Cheyenne has for generations been a typical prairie tribe, living in skin tipis, after the buffalo over large areas, travel and fight on horseback. They generally buried their dead in trees or on scaffolds, but occasionally in caves or underground. Naturally, they are proud, contentious, and brave to desperation, with an incredibly high standard for the woman. Polygamy was permitted, as usual, with Plains tribes.