Cheyenne Tribe Facts
The Cheyenne are a group of indigenous people originally from the Great Plains.
They speak a language from a family of languages called the Algonquian language family.
Two groups, coming together
The Cheyenne are made up of two further groups. These two groups merged together in the nineteenth century.
The first is the S Só’taeo’o or Só’taétaneo’o, which you will see spelt like this: Suhtai or Sutaio.
The second sub-group of people called Cheyenne are called the Tsétsêhéstâhese, which you will see spelt like this: Tsitsistas.
The Cheyenne today are organised into two nations. Nations govern themselves and are recognised by the national governments of Canada and the United States of America as their own countries.
The Cheyenne are made up of the Southern Cheyenne , who are mostly based in Oklahoma and the Northern Cheyenne, who are mostly based in the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana.
The Northern Cheyenne are made up of about 10,840 people and around 4,939 of these people live on the reservation.
The Southern Cheyenne are together with the Arapaho Tribes in western Oklahoma.
Moving around
The Cheyenne lands were not always based in Montana and Oklahoma. Cheyenne peoples once lived in what is now Minnesota.
They have been allies and enemies with the Lakota peoples at different times.
In the eighteenth-century, the Cheyenne people made a big journey across the Mississippi River into North and South Dakota.
They lived in an area called the Black Hills of South Dakota and the Powder River Country, which is in modern-day Montana.
They were allies with the Arapaho peoples. With the Arapaho people, they got together and pushed the Kiowa to the Southern plains.
Oral Traditions
Cheyenne have oral traditions which give the names of cultural heroes. There were two heroes who formed the two tribes and they got their power from the overall creator, M’heo’o, “God”.
The Tsitsistas hero was called Motsé’eóeve, which means “sweet medicine”. He received a bunch of sacred arrows called Mahuts at the sacred hill of Bear Butte, which the Tsistsistas Cheyenne call the Nóávóse.
He was a clever man who organised the Tsistsistas Cheyenne into warriors and also made their laws. He predicted that the horse, cow and the white man would come to the Cheyenne.
Quiz
How many people are in the Northern Cheyenne nation?
Where do the Southern Cheyenne live?
Where do the Northern Cheyenne live?
What is the Tsitsistas hero called?
What did he receive?
