CHAPTER 1 Homelands The Cheyenne are made up of two groups These are the Tsistsistas jis-jis-tus and the Sutaio suh-TYE-oh They got the name Cheyenne from their Lakota friends The Cheyenne originally lived north of the Missouri River in present-day Minnesota They were fishermen and farmers Their language is part of the Algonquian language family In the early 1600s the Cheyenne moved west along the Missouri River to the Black Hills They first got horses from the Kiowa around 1770 The horses allowed them to hunt buffalo on the Great Plains Soon after the Cheyenne separated into northern and southern groups The Northern Cheyenne went to present-day Montana Wyoming and North and South Dakota The Southern Cheyenne went into present-day Oklahoma Colorado Nebraska and Kansas 4
The site of a former Cheyenne village in western Oklahoma
CHAPTER 2 Society Historically the Cheyenne lived in small bands of related families Several times a year the Northern and Southern bands gathered for religious and seasonal festivals During these special gatherings tepees were arranged in a circle The east end of the circle was left open to greet the morning sun Sometimes there were one thousand tepees in the circle Cheyenne people still gather for festivals today and arrange their camps the same way The Cheyenne also had six military societies that still exist today Any man of any age could join a military society These societies were the Elk Soldiers Fox Soldiers Dog Soldiers Shields Soldiers Bowstrings and Northern Crazy Dogs 6
THE CHEYENNE HOMELANDS WASHINGTON MAINE NORTH DAKOTA OREGON MONTANA Northern Cheyenne Reservation MINNESOTA Great P VERMONT NEW HAMPSHIRE MASSACHUSETTS IDAHO SOUTH DAKOTA WISCONSIN NEW YORK WYOMING MICHIGAN RHODE ISLAND CONNECTICUT NEW JERSEY IOWA PENNSYLVANIA NEVADA Great Plains NEBRASKA OHIO UTAH ILLINOIS INDIANA DELAWARE MARYLAND WASHINGTON DC WEST VIRGINIA COLORADO KANSAS Get Plains VIRGINIA MISSOURI KENTUCKY CALIFORNIA NORTH CAROLINA TENNESSEE ARIZONA NEW MEXICO OKLAHOMA Cheyenne Arapaho Reservation ARKANSAS SOUTH CAROLINA MISSISSIPPI ALABAMA GEORGIA TEXAS ALASKA LOUISIANA FLORIDA THE CHEYENNE HOMELANDS HAWAII
