The Cheyenne are classified as part of the Great Plains Culture Area—that is, as PLAINS INDIANS—because of their nomadic lifestyle, their use of horses, their buffalo hunting, and their use of tipis.
As for their particular political organization, the Cheyenne were organized into the Council of Forty-four. Each of the 44 peace chiefs represented a band and was the headman of an extended family. The responsibilities of the chiefs included such matters as settling disputes and deciding on when to move camp. The ideal character traits for these chiefs, and by extension all Cheyenne, were wisdom, calmness, kindliness, fairness, selflessness, generosity, energy, and bravery. The chiefs were concerned with the well-being of the tribe as a whole and also with the well-being of individuals. They readily made sacrifices to help others improve their life.
The Council of Forty-four also made decisions concerning tribal war policy and alliances with other tribes. But they involved themselves little in specific raids or military strategy. These decisions were left to the military societies. The chiefs on the Council of Forty-four had in all likelihood once been members of the soldier societies themselves. But after joining the council, they resigned from their military positions.
The military societies consisted of warriors from different bands, who carried out raids together and fought side by side. Members also met to review military campaigns in addition to discussing plans for future ones. Each society had its own rituals, sacred objects, symbols, and articles of clothing. In the case of the Cheyenne, the military societies were not grouped by age. Some tribes, such as the Arapaho, had age-based societies, with members graduating upward to different societies as they got older.
Cheyenne societies included the Dog Soldiers, Fox, Elk (or Hoof Rattle), Shield, Bowstring (or Contrary), Wolf, and Northern Crazy Dogs societies. The last two came later in Cheyenne history than the others. The most famous of all of these was the Hotamitanio, or the Dog Soldiers, who played an important part in the wars for the Great Plains.
In Cheyenne social organization, the most important unit was the family, then the band, then the tribe as a whole. The Cheyenne had many rules governing behavior inside and outside these groups. For example, Cheyenne women were famous for their chastity. They were desired as wives only if they behaved properly before they were married.
Because of the taboo against relationships before marriage, courting was very complicated and prolonged. Sometimes it took a young man as long as four years to court his bride-to-be. He sometimes waited for hours day after day along a path she traveled daily—from her family’s tipi to the stream where she went for water or the stand of trees where she went for firewood—hoping to have a word with her. He sometimes tugged on her robe as she walked by to get her attention, or whistled to her, or called out to her. If she did not like him, she would never talk to him. But if she liked him, she eventually stopped to make small talk, but never about love. That came later after many meetings, when they finally met outside her tipi. Before the two could join in marriage, however, both families had to be consulted. And the man’s family had to offer gifts to the woman’s family to prove good intentions.
The most important ceremonies of the Cheyenne were the Arrow Renewal, the New Life Lodge, and the Animal Dance. The Arrow Renewal concerned the four Sacred Arrows of the tribe that were supposedly passed to the tribe by its legendary ancestral hero, Sweet Medicine. Sweet Medicine supposedly made a pilgrimage early in the tribe’s history to the Sacred Mountains near the Black Hills where Maiyun, the Great Spirit, gave him four arrows—two for hunting and two for war. The Cheyenne kept the Sacred Arrows (Mahuts) in a medicine bundle with other tribal objects, including the Sacred Buffalo Hat (Isiwun), made from the hide of a female buffalo. The objects symbolized the collective existence of the tribe. After much planning, the 10
Cheyenne backrest of willow rods, lashed together with sinew and supported by a wood tripod
Cheyenne bands camped together once a year or every several years to renew the arrows. They placed their tipis in a circle. At the circle’s center stood three special lodges—the Sacred Arrow Lodge, the Sacred Arrow Keeper’s Lodge, and the Offering Lodge. During a four-day period, the male participants performed a series of rituals to renew the Sacred Arrows and in so doing renew the tribe.
The New Life Lodge, or Sun Dance, also was a renewal ceremony, performed yearly to make the world over again. Many Plains tribes practiced the Sun Dance with varying rituals. For all the tribes it was an eight-day ceremony, involving the building of a special lodge with a sacred pole in the center, rituals performed by medicine men, dancing before the pole, and self-torture. This last was usually carried out with ropes stretching from the center pole to skewers in the chests of men. When the participants danced or leaned backward, the skewers tore at their flesh, eventually ripping through it. This self-torture aspect of the ceremony led to the banning of the Sun Dance by the federal government in 1910.
The Animal Dance was a hunting ceremony supposedly taught to Sweet Medicine at the Sacred Mountain to help Cheyenne hunters provide enough food for their people. This five-day ceremony was held every year as long as there was an individual to organize the event. The first four days were given over to preparations, such as painting a wolf skin to be worn by the pledger and the building of a corral. Women helped prepare for this event, unlike in the Arrow Renewal and Sun Dance. On the fifth day, the celebrating began for everyone. Men dressed up as animals. Members of the Bowstring Society pretended to hunt them and herd them into the corral. During the dance, these warriors did everything backwards. There was much clowning around, to the delight of all the spectators. Because of their silly backwards behavior, the Bowstring Society was also known as the Contrary Society, and the Animal Dance was also known as the Crazy Dance.
World History
