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Fighting Cheyennes (Civilization of American Indian)
Fighting Cheyennes - Civilization of American Indian Author:George Bird Grinnell The Cheyennes are one of three groups of Indians of the Western plains belonging to the Algonquian family. They are recent immigrants to the region. According to the statement of Black Moccasin, who was long regarded as their most reliable historian---the man with the best memory---some of them reached the Missouri River about 1676, two hundred ... more »and four winters before 1880, when the statement was made. Before this they had lived for a time on the river bearing their name, which runs into the Red River of the North from the west, and on which one of their old village sites still exists.
Earlier still they were in Minnesota. They have traditions of long journeyings before they reached there. For a number of years after coming to the Missouri the Cheyennes lived on its banks, cultivating the ground, and occupying earth lodges not unlike those used up to recent times by the Rees and the Mandans. Gradually they drifted out on the plains, gave up their sedentary habits and began to move about over the prairie, dwelling in skin lodges and following the buffalo. As recently as 1850 they tilled the soil to some extent, and men have described to me their mothers' corn patches on the Little Missouri at about that date. The people whom we know as Cheyennes are made up of two related tribes, Tsis tsis'tas and Suh'tal. The latter have been absorbed by the former, and have left hardly any trace.« less