Cheyenne
The Cheyenne are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. The Cheyenne comprise two Native American tribes, the Só'taeo'o or Só'taétaneo'o and the Tsétsėhéstȧhese ; the tribes merged in the early 19th century. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enrolled in the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma, and the Northern Cheyenne, who are enrolled in the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana. The Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family.
Over the past 400 years, the Cheyenne have changed their lifestyles from Great Lakes woodlands to Northern Plains and by the mid-19th century, the US government forced them onto reservations. At the time of their first European contact in the 16th century, the Cheyenne lived in what is now Minnesota. They were close allies of the Arapaho and loosely aligned with the Lakota. By the early 18th century, they were forced west by other tribes across the Missouri River and into North and South Dakota, where they adopted the horse culture. Having settled the Black Hills of South Dakota and the Powder River Country of present-day Montana and Wyoming, they introduced the horse culture to Lakota people around 1730. The main group of Cheyenne, the Tsêhéstáno, was once composed of ten bands that spread across the Great Plains from southern Colorado to the Black Hills in South Dakota. They fought their historic enemies, the Crow and later the United States Army. In the mid-19th century, the bands began to split, with some bands choosing to remain near the Black Hills, while others chose to remain near the Platte Rivers of central Colorado. With the Arapaho, the Cheyenne pushed the Kiowa to the Southern Plains. In turn, they were pushed west by the more numerous Lakota.
The Northern Cheyenne, known in Cheyenne either as Notameohmésėhese, meaning "Northern Eaters", live 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, with 72.8% identifying themselves as Cheyenne. Slightly more than one-quarter of the population five years or older spoke a language other than English. The Southern Cheyenne, known in Cheyenne as Heévâhetaneo'o meaning "Roped People", together with the Southern Arapaho, form the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, in western Oklahoma. Their combined population is 12,130, as of 2008. In 2003, approximately 8,000 of these identified themselves as Cheyenne, although with continuing intermarriage it has become increasingly difficult to separate the tribes.
Name
The Cheyenne called themselves Tsétsêhéstâhese, which translates to "those who are like this". The Suhtai, also called the Só'taeo'o, Só'taétaneo'o, Sutaio traveled with the Tsétsêhéstâhese and merged with them after 1832. The Suhtai had slightly different speech and customs from the Tsétsêhéstâhese.The name "Cheyenne" derives from the Lakota Sioux exonym Šahíyena meaning "little Šahíya". The identity of the Šahíya is not known, but many Great Plains tribes assume that it means Cree or another people who spoke an Algonquian language related to Cree and Cheyenne. The Cheyenne name for Ojibwe is Sáhea'eo'o, a word that sounds similar to the Lakota word Šahíya.
Another of the common etymologies for Cheyenne is "a bit like the alien speech". According to George Bird Grinnell, the Lakota had referred to themselves and fellow Siouan-language bands as "white talkers", and those of other language families, such as the Algonquian Cheyenne, as "red talkers".
The etymology of the name Tsitsistas, which the Cheyenne call themselves, is uncertain. According to the Cheyenne dictionary offered online by Chief Dull Knife College, there is no consensus and various origins and translation of the word have been proposed. Grinnell's record is typical and states, "They call themselves Tsistsistas , which the books commonly give as meaning "people". It most likely means related to one another, similarly bred, like us, our people, or us. The term for the Cheyenne homeland is Tsistano.
Language
The Cheyenne of Montana and Oklahoma speak the Cheyenne language, known as Tsėhésenėstsestȯtse. Approximately 800 people speak Cheyenne in Oklahoma. There are only a handful of vocabulary differences between the two locations. The Cheyenne alphabet contains 14 letters. The Cheyenne language is one of the larger Algonquian-language group. Formerly, the Só'taeo'o or Suhtai bands of Southern and Northern Cheyenne spoke Só'taéka'ėškóne or Só'taenėstsestȯtse, a language so close to Tsėhésenėstsestȯtse, that it is sometimes termed a Cheyenne dialect.History
The earliest written record of the Cheyenne was in the mid-17th century, when a group of Cheyenne visited the French Fort Crevecoeur, near present-day Peoria, Illinois. The Cheyenne at this time lived between the Mississippi River and Mille Lacs Lake in Minnesota. Their economy was based on the collection of wild rice and hunting, especially of bison, which lived in the prairies 70 to 80 miles west of the Cheyenne villages.According to tribal history, during the 17th century, the Cheyenne were driven by the Assiniboine from the Great Lakes region to present-day Minnesota and North Dakota, where they established villages. The most prominent of the ancient Cheyenne villages is Biesterfeldt Village, in eastern North Dakota along the Sheyenne River. They first reached the Missouri River in 1676. A more recent analysis of early records posits that at least some of the Cheyenne remained in the Mille Lac region of Minnesota until about 1765, when the Ojibwe defeated the Dakota with firearms — pushing the Cheyenne, in turn, to the Minnesota River, where they were reported in 1766.
On the Missouri River, the Cheyenne came into contact with the neighboring Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara people, adopting many of their cultural characteristics. They were first of the later Plains tribes to move into the Black Hills and Powder River Country. About 1730, they introduced the horse to Lakota bands. Conflict with migrating Lakota and Ojibwe people forced the Cheyenne further west, and they, in turn, pushed the Kiowa to the south.
By 1776, the Lakota had overwhelmed the Cheyenne and taken over much of their territory near the Black Hills. In 1804, Lewis and Clark visited a surviving Cheyenne village in what is now North Dakota. Such European explorers learned many different names for the Cheyenne and did not realize how the different sections were forming a unified tribe.
The Cheyenne tribes today descend from two related tribes, the Tsétsėhéstȧhese / Tsitsistas and Só'taeo'o / Só'taétaneo'o. The latter merged with the Tsétshéstȧhese in the mid-19th century. Their oral history relays that both tribal peoples are characterized, and represented by two cultural heroes or prophets who received divine articles from their god Ma'heo'o, whom the Só'taeo'o called He'emo.
The Tsétsėhéstȧhese / Tsitsistas prophet Motsé'eóeve received the Maahótse at Nóávóse -hill″, name for Bear Butte, northwest of Rapid City, South Dakota, which they carried when they waged tribal-level war and were kept in the maahéome. He organized the structure of Cheyenne society, their military or war societies led by prominent warriors, their system of legal justice, and the Council of Forty-four peace chiefs. The latter was formed from four véhoo'o of the ten principal manaho and an additional four ″Old Man″ meetings to deliberate at regular tribal gatherings, centered around the Sun Dance.
Sweet Medicine is the Cheyenne prophet who predicted the coming of the horse, the cow, the white man, and other new things to the Cheyenne. He was named for motsé'eonȯtse, one of the sacred plant medicines used by many Plains peoples in ceremonies.
The Maahótse are symbols of male power. The Ésevone / Hóhkėha'e is the symbol of female power. The Sacred Buffalo Hat and the Sacred Arrows together form the two great covenants of the Cheyenne Nation. Through these two bundles, Ma'heo'o assures continual life and blessings for the people.
The Só'taeo'o prophet Tomȯsévėséhe received the Ésevone at Tȯhóonévose near the Great Lakes in the present state of Minnesota. The Ésevone / Hóhkėha'e is kept in the vonȧhéome or hóhkėha'éome . Erect Horns gave them the accompanying ceremonies and the Sun Dance. His vision convinced the tribe to abandon their earlier sedentary agricultural traditions to adopt nomadic Plains horse culture. They replaced their earth lodges with portable tipis and 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 Ésevone / Hóhkėha'e is kept among the Northern Cheyenne and Northern Só'taeo'o. The Tséá'enōvȧhtse Hat Keeper″ or ″Keeper of the Sacred must belong to the Só'taeo'o. In the 1870s tribal leaders became disenchanted with the keeper of the bundle demanded 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. In 1908 a Cheyenne named Three Fingers gave the horn back to the Hat. The pipe came into possession of a Cheyenne named Burnt All Over who gave it to Hattie Goit of Poteau, Oklahoma who in 1911 gave the pipe to the Oklahoma Historical Society. In 1997 the Oklahoma Historal Society negotiated with the Northern Cheyenne to return the pipe to the tribal keeper of the Sacred Medicine Hat Bundle James Black Wolf.