WSW's CHEYENNE REPORT
The Cheyenne began as a Midwestern woodlands tribe. They did not live in teepees at that time; they lived in wooden wigwams. The Cheyenne then expanded south and became farmers. In the 1700s, they then pushed west and started a home in the Great Plains.
Buffalo are very important to the Cheyenne. These beasts provide the Cheyenne with teepee covers, food, and clothing.
In the winter months the Cheyenne stay close to bodies of water, but during the rest of the year they are nomadic, and follow the buffalo herds. The Cheyenne lived along the banks of the Missouri and Red rivers which was filled with fresh berries and wild game.
Heammawehio, creator of all things, was at the center of Cheyenne religion. Sweet Medicine was another deity, who gave the Cheyenne four arrows, two with power over men, and two with power over buffalo. Another important Cheyenne ritual was the Sun Dance. In this annual gathering, the Cheyenne honored the strength of the sun, and the renewal of the Earth. For four days, warriors danced around a pole in a special lodge. To fulfill their vows and promises, they slashed themselves at the end of the dance. Others suspended themselves from the main pole, by attaching rawhide thongs through their chest muscles.
The Cheyenne had forty four chiefs, four for each of the tribe’s ten bands and four head chiefs. These men formed a governing council that decided major issues such as waging war, making alliances with neighbors, and moving camp to pursue buffalo. Chiefs were usually picked on the basis of their intelligence, or personal charisma.
The clothing was made mainly of buffalo hides. First, the hides were tanned and dried. Then women then sewed them into garments. Women wore long dresses while the men wore long sleeved shirts, fringed leggings, and breechcloths. Both men and women wore beautiful moccasins.
When the white men came, the Cheyenne began to trade. Whisky had horrific effects on the Cheyenne’s lifestyle; settlers would ride into a settlement and find it completely empty.
When the Gold Rush brought miners and soldiers into their lands, the Cheyenne began to resist. During a battle at Sand Creek, Black Kettle surrendered, but the soldiers were afraid of Indian hostility and massacred more than 200 Cheyenne. Remarkably, Black Kettle managed to escape the massacre. He signed the Treaty of Medicine Lodge in 1867 and retired into a reservation in Indian Territory. However, on November 27, 1868, George Armstrong Custer marched into his encampment. Black Kettle rode out to meet the yellow-haired commander. He hoped to avoid a fight. Instead Custer’s men opened fire, killing Black Kettle, and his wife. This brutality enraged other Cheyenne and Arapaho. Retaliatory raids began immediately, and erupted into a decade of fighting, known as the Sioux Wars.
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, 1876
In late 1875, Sioux and Cheyenne Indians defiantly left their reservations; they were outraged over the continued intrusions of whites in their sacred lands. They gathered in Montana with the great warrior Sitting Bull to battle for their lands. In an attempt to force the large Indian force back into their reservations, the Army deployed three columns, one of which contained Lt. Colonel George Custer and the Seventh Cavalry.
Spotting the encampment about fifteen miles away on the Rosebud River on June 25, Custer also found a nearby group of forty warriors. He decided to attack before they alerted the main party. He did not realize that the number of warriors within the village were three times his number.
Dividing his forces into three, Custer sent troops under Captain Frederick Benteen to cut of the escape route. Major Marcus Reno was to pursue the group cross the river, and attack the Indian camp. Custer hoped to strike northern and southern ends of the camp simultaneously, but made this decision without thinking about terrain.
Reno’s squadron of 175 soldiers struck the northern end of the camp; Reno soon realized the battle was hopeless. He halted his men and then withdrew into the woods. They were hotly pursued by a group of mixed Cheyenne and Sioux. The Indians quickly discovered 210 of Custer’s men coming towards the other end of the village, together the Cheyenne and Sioux slammed into the advancing soldiers forcing them back into a long high ridge to the north. Meanwhile another force, largely Sioux under Crazy Horse’s command, swiftly moved downstream into a sweeping arc that engulfed Custer’s men in a wave of gunfire and arrows. In less than one hour Custer and his men were defeated in one of the worst American military disasters ever. Reno and Benteen’s now united force retreated.
After the battle, the Indians mutilated all the carcasses. The Cheyenne believed that the bodies would be inferior, and could not ascend to the heavens. The Cheyenne were one of the most fascinating tribes of the Southeast.
The Cheyenne eventually settled in the west in an area known as Indian Territory. This land was crowded and barren. The soil was much too poor to yield crops, and the game was all gone. Having waited patiently for government supplies that never came, Cheyenne leader Dull Knife (seen above in the picture on this web page) and his band decided to leave the reservation to hunt. Army Troops hunted down and slaughtered every last one, except for a few that managed to escape into the mountains. There were now approximately 80 Cheyenne left. These lucky survivors were moved to a reservation in Montana, where they still live today. Other members of the Cheyenne live in Oklahoma.
Native American Society
The Battle of Little Bighorn
Little Big Horn Natl Monument Park Service
Sand Creek Massacre Nat. Hist. Site
Friends of the Little Bighorn Battlefield
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