Arapaho. An important Plains tribe of the great
Algonquian family, closely associated with the Cheyenne for at least a
century past. They call themselves Iņunaina, about equivalent to 'our
people.' The name by which they are commonly known is of uncertain
derivation, but it may possibly be, as Dunbar suggests, from the
Pawnee tirapihu or larapihu, 'trader.' By the Sioux and Cheyenne they
are called " Blue-sky men " or "Cloud men," the reason for which is
unknown.
According to the tradition of the Arapaho they were
once a sedentary, agricultural people, living far to the northeast of
their more recent habitat, apparently about the Red River Valley of
northern Minnesota. From this point they moved southwest across the
Missouri, apparently about the same time that the Cheyenne (q. v.)
moved out from Minnesota, although the date of the formation of the
permanent alliance between the two tribes is uncertain.
The Atsina (q. v.), afterward associated with the
Siksika, appear to have separated from the parent tribe and moved off
toward the north after their emergence into the plains.
The division into Northern and Southern Arapaho is
largely geographic, originating within the last century, and made
permanent by the placing of the two bands on different reservations.
The Northern Arapaho, in Wyoming, are considered the nucleus or mother
tribe and retain the sacred tribal articles, viz, a tubular pipe, one
ear of corn, and a turtle figurine, all of stone.
Since they crossed the Missouri the drift of the
Arapaho, as of the Cheyenne and Sioux, has been west and south, the
Northern Arapaho making lodges on the edge of the mountains about the
head of the North Platte, while the Southern Arapaho continued down
toward the Arkansas. About the year 1840 they made peace with the
Sioux, Kiowa, and Comanche, but were always at war with the Shoshoni,
Ute, and Pawnee until they were confined upon reservations, while
generally maintaining a friendly attitude toward the whites. By the
treaty of Medicine Lodge in 1867 the southern Arapaho, together with
the Southern Cheyenne, were placed upon a reservation in Oklahoma,
which was thrown open to white settlement in 1892, the Indians at the
same time receiving allotments in severalty, with the rights of
American citizenship. The Northern Arapaho were assigned to their
present reservation on Wind River in Wyoming in 1876, after having
made peace with their hereditary enemies, the Shoshoni, living upon
the same reservation. The Atsina division, usually regarded as a
distinct tribe, is associated with the Assiniboin on Ft Belknap
reservation in Montana. They numbered, respectively, 889, 859, and 535
in 1904, a total of 2,283, as against a total of 2,038 ten years
earlier.
As a people the Arapaho are brave, but kindly and
accommodating, and much given to ceremonial observances. The annual
sun dance is their greatest tribal ceremony, and they were active
propagators of the ghost-dance religion (q. v.) a few years ago. In
arts and home life, until within a few years past, they were a typical
plains tribe. They bury their dead in the ground, unlike the Cheyenne
and Sioux, who deposit them upon scaffolds or on the surface of the
ground in boxes. They have the military organization common to most of
the Plains tribes (see Military societies), and have no trace of the
clan system.
