Native American Library CHEYENNE History and Culture Helen Dwyer and D.L. Birchfield Consultant Robert J Conley Sequoyah Distinguished Professor at Western Carolina University Gareth Stevens Publishing
INTRODUCTION The Cheyennes are a people originally from the Great Lakes region They are just one of the many groups of Native Americans who live today in North America There are well over five hundred Native American tribes in the United States and more than six hundred in Canada At least three million people in North America consider themselves to be Native Americans But who are Native Americans and how do the Cheyennes fit into the history of North America’s native peoples Probable extent of dry land during the last ice age SIBERIA CHUKCHI SEA Bering Strait ALASKA BERING SEA Canada Anchorage Siberia Asia and Alaska North America are today separated by an area of ocean named the Bering Strait During the last ice age the green area on this map was at times dry land The Asian ancestors of the Cheyennes walked from one continent to the other THE FIRST IMMIGRANTS Native Americans are people whose ancestors settled in North America thousands of years ago These ancestors probably came from eastern parts of Asia Their migrations probably occurred during cold periods called ice ages At these times sea levels were much lower than they are now The area between northeastern Asia and Alaska was dry land so it was possible to walk between the continents Scientists are not sure when these migrations took place but it must have been more than twelve thousand years ago Around that time water levels rose and covered the land between Asia and the Americas
By around ten thousand years ago the climate had warmed and was similar to conditions today The first peoples in North America moved around the continent in small groups hunting wild animals and collecting a wide variety of plant foods Gradually these groups spread out and lost contact with each other They developed separate cultures and adopted lifestyles that suited their environments The Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde Colorado is the most spectacular example of Native American culture that survives today It consists of more than 150 rooms and pits built around A.D. 1200 from sandstone blocks SETTLING DOWN Although many tribes continued to gather food and hunt or fish some Native Americans began to live in settlements and grow crops Their homes ranged from underground pit houses and huts of mud and thatch to dwellings in cliffs By 3500 B.C. a plentiful supply of fish in the Pacific Ocean and in rivers had enabled people to settle in large coastal villages from Alaska to Washington State In the deserts of Arizona more than two thousand years later farmers constructed hundreds of miles of irrigation canals to carry water to their crops Before 1700 the Cheyennes were living in wooded regions near the Great Lakes in what is present-day Minnesota They survived by hunting fishing and farming In the early 1700s they were driven westward then southward by enemy tribes and became buffalo hunters on the Great Plains
