Arapaho

• CATEGORY: Tribe
• CULTURE AREA: Plains
• LANGUAGE GROUP: Algonquian
• PRIMARY LOCATION: West-central Wyoming, Western Oklahoma
• POPULATION SIZE: Difficult to determine but in the tens of thousands

The Arapaho were Plains Indigenous Americans with a classical buffalo (bison) economy. They are closely related to the Atsina and were close associates of the Cheyenne. The Ute, Shoshone, and Pawnee were their constant enemies. Their relationship with the Sioux, Kiowa, and Comanche varied. The Arapaho were probably pushed west and south by the Sioux in their early days on the Plains, and in turn, they pushed the Comanche and Kiowa south. At other times, they allied with these same groups against other Indigenous Americans and White Americans.

Early History and Traditional Lifestyle

Exactly when the Arapaho moved into the Plains is not clear, but at the end of the eighteenth century, when they first came to the attention of White Americans, they were established in eastern Colorado, southeastern Wyoming, and extreme western Nebraska and Kansas. They may have lived as farmers in western Minnesota until the sixteenth century and then moved west and south into the Plains, probably because of pressure from eastern tribes moving west under pressure from European immigrants. On the Plains, they established a nomadic lifestyle, almost entirely dependent on buffalo. Eventually, northern and southern subdivisions developed.

The Arapaho’s early Plains lifeways are not well known either, but they probably followed buffalo herds, using travois pulled by dogs to move their belongings. They lived in lodges (tepees) made of buffalo hides stretched over a set of poles. Their hunting tactics included driving buffalo into enclosures and killing them with arrows and spears; they also drove groups of bison over cliffs.

Sometime before the middle of the eighteenth century, by raiding or trading, the Arapaho obtained horses from southwestern Indigenous Americans. This acquisition changed their lives dramatically. The travois was adjusted to fit horses so moves could be made rapidly. More important, the horses became their vehicle for hunting and fighting. The Arapaho were not the best-known horse Indigenous Americans of the Plains; nevertheless, they were highly skilled at hunting and fighting from horseback.

Men hunted buffalo by separating the target individual from the herd and killing it with arrows and spears. Alternatively, if a large group of horsemen was available, the buffalo herd was surrounded, and arrows were fired into the herd. Those wounded too seriously to keep up with the escaping herd were killed. Guns became available to the Arapaho shortly after they obtained horses, and buffalo hunting became even more efficient. The men butchered the buffalo at the site of the kill.

In camp, the women cooked some of the meat for immediate use and smoked or dried the rest. Women also scraped and treated the hides for use as tepee covers, clothing, or pouches for carrying various materials. They gathered and preserved berries, roots, and other plant foods. Tools, such as knives, scrapers, and arrowheads, were initially made of flint or buffalo bones. After trade was initiated with White settlers, metal was often used.

The Arapaho lived in groups of twenty to eighty families. Several such groups came together in spring and summer to hunt buffalo and for ceremonial events. The groups separated for winter, each moving to a stream in a protected valley in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The men, often on snowshoes, hunted deer, elk, and small game. The women cooked and made and decorated clothes and other articles.

Ceremonial and Religious Life

The Arapaho were deeply religious, holding ceremonies for each stage of life (the birth of a child, the child’s first steps, selected stages of male maturity) and for every important event (the buffalo hunt, an individual’s pledge of service to—or plea for help from—the Creator). Music and dance were important parts of all these ceremonies. The Flat Pipe, the most sacred symbol of the Arapaho Nation, is kept by an elder of the Northern Arapaho in a sacred bundle and is still used in a number of the nation’s most sacred ceremonies. The Sacred Wheel is maintained and used in the same way by the Southern Arapaho.

Arapaho men were almost all members of age-graded societies or lodges. These were of particular importance in the organization of the tribe and in assigning duties to the various tribal members. The first two were youth societies. Membership in the six adult male lodges was achieved with age and demonstration of responsible behavior, especially generosity. Regular demonstration of generosity was essential for becoming an Arapaho leader. There were specific rituals associated with each lodge, and members of each had certain responsibilities in war and peace. The highest lodge comprised the seven Water Sprinkling Old Men and was attained by a few spiritual leaders. Each was responsible for a medicine bundle that contained items of spiritual importance to the Arapaho.

Arapaho women belonged to the buffalo lodge. There were also Seven Old Women, who, though they did not form a lodge, were the female counterparts to the Water Sprinkling Old Men. Their medicine bags contained the materials needed to teach the skills of making and decorating tepees, clothes, bags, and other tribal materials. The symbolic decorations were of great importance in tribal culture.

A vision quest was a personal religious undertaking. To gain insight into his particular role in life, a man would fast and pray alone in the plains until he received a vision. Often a small animal would be involved in the vision, and the man made his medicine bag from that animal’s skin.

The best-known Arapaho ceremony was the Offerings Lodge, also called the Sun Dance. It was an elaborate, week-long ceremony initiated when an Arapaho, called the lodge builder, vowed to pay for the ceremony. This was done to petition the Creator for success in battle, recovery from sickness, or satisfaction of some other need or desire. Self-torture was the most infamous part of the Offerings Lodge. A man pushed skewers through his chest muscles, tied the skewers to the center pole, and hung suspended until the skewers tore through his flesh. According to one explanation, the man was asking the Creator to forgive and favor the tribe.

The Offerings Lodge was important in social as well as spiritual life, especially in maintaining the unity of the tribe. All Arapaho bands gathered for the ceremony. The other lodges were important in maintaining order and organization in Arapaho life. Tribal history, skills, and customs were passed from generation to generation by way of the age-graded societies and the Buffalo Lodge. Some authorities believe that the organization of the age-graded societies spared the Arapaho the conflicts between generations that other Plains tribes suffered during the transition from buffalo hunting to reservation life.

Transition and Contemporary Life

The Arapaho fought ably against other Indigenous American tribes and, as allies of the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Comanche, against White encroachment. Some raided settlements and wagon trains, stole livestock, and participated in battles with White Americans. They were less aggressive than some other tribes, however, and put more effort into trading than fighting. Friday, a Northern Arapaho, and Left Hand the First, a Southern Arapaho, spoke English and had many White friends. They counseled for peace throughout the White invasion. Northern Arapaho men were important scouts for the United States Army, and relationships between the Arapaho and White people were often friendly.

The Arapaho’s most important encounter with the US Army was at Sand Creek, Colorado, on November 29, 1864. A group of Cheyenne and Arapaho, camped under the flag and protection of the US government, were attacked by troops led by Colonel John Chivington. The chiefs in the camp, Left Hand and Black Kettle, a Cheyenne, were known advocates of peace, and the Indigenous people present were primarily women and children. Chivington probably knew this before the attack. Most of the Indigenous people killed were women and children, and soldiers mutilated their dead bodies. Left Hand died as a result of his wounds from the Sand Creek Massacre.

In response, many Arapaho joined the Cheyenne and Sioux in the Plains Indian wars, which finally ended in 1890, at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Most Arapaho, however, followed chiefs Little Raven, of the southern group, and Medicine Man and Black Coal from the north and pursued peace. In 1869, the Southern Arapaho and Cheyenne were assigned to a reservation in Oklahoma; in 1878, the Northern Arapaho were placed on the Shoshone (Wind River) Reservation in western Wyoming. These areas were a minute fraction of the land that had been promised in the 1851 treaty of Horse Creek.

In response to settlers’ demands for land from the new reservations and because of a determination to assimilate the Indigenous Americans into White society, the General Allotment Act (Dawes Severalty Act) was passed in 1887. It gave a parcel of reservation land to each individual Indigenous American. Not coincidentally, there was reservation land left after all Indigenous individuals had received allotments, and the law allowed White settlers to buy or lease the leftover land. Both Northern and Southern Arapaho were cheated by unfair loan, lease, and sale agreements, but the burden fell most heavily on the southern group.

The Northern Arapaho succeeded in retaining control of most reservation land through a long period of abject poverty. In the 1940s, a tribal business council of six elected representatives, working with the tribal elders and a similar Shoshone council, convinced the federal government to allow payments to individual families from reservation income. The income is derived from oil and gas production, land rental, and tribally owned businesses. In 1961, the Arapaho and Cheyenne won millions of dollars in compensation for broken treaties. As a result of these and other astute political maneuvers, Northern Arapaho economic conditions improved considerably. Many old problems continued, however, especially undereducation, unemployment, and attendant poverty. In 1999, the Northern Arapaho Business Development Corporation (NABDC) was formed to provide opportunities for the Northern Arapaho to develop businesses and stimulate the economy. The reservation had schools from preschool through high school and a community college.

The Southern Arapaho also received individual allotments, but for reasons unique to their situation, they were unable to maintain an intact reservation. Reservation land left after allotment was sold to White ranchers and farmers; in addition, many individual Arapaho sold their allotments. Because of extensive fraud, sale prices were often well below market value. As part of the continuing attempt to assimilate Indigenous Americans into White society, the reservation was abolished in 1890. The Southern Arapaho subsequently scattered around western Oklahoma, and tribal unity, so important to the maintenance of Arapaho culture, was lost. An elected Cheyenne-Arapaho Business Committee now manages tribal resources. Many Arapaho live in the towns of Geary and Canton, Oklahoma, and the tribal offices are in Concho. Many tribal members are undereducated, unemployed, and living in poverty.

The two branches of the tribe maintain contact with each other. The Offerings Lodge is celebrated in Wyoming each year, and some southern members make the trip north to join in the celebration. The Arapaho language is on the verge of extinction, but members of both branches are striving to maintain their heritage while living in the modern world.

In the twenty-first century, the Arapaho people primarily live on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming (Northern Arapaho) and in Oklahoma as part of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. They participate in cultural preservation through language revitalization programs, traditional ceremonies, and educational initiatives. Gaming has become a significant source of economic development, funding services and cultural programs.

Bibliography

Bass, Althea. The Arapaho Way: Nomeir of an Indian Boyhood. Clarkson N. Potter, 1966.

Coel, Margaret. Chief Left Hand: Southern Arapaho. University of Oklahoma Press, 2000.

Fowler, Loretta. The Arapaho. Chelsea House, 2006.

Fowler, Loretta. Arapaho Politics, 1851-1978. University of Nebraska Press, 1982.

“History.” Northern Arapahoe Tribe, northernarapaho.com/157/History. Accessed 20 Jan. 2025.

Shakespeare, Tom. The Sky People. Vantage Press, 1971.

Trenholm, Virginia Cole. The Arapahos: Our People. University of Oklahoma Press, 1986.

“Tsistsistas | Hinono’ei.” The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, www.cheyenneandarapaho-nsn.gov. Accessed 20 Jan. 2025.

Zdenek, Salzmann. The Arapaho Indians: A Research Guide and Bibliography. Greenwood Press, 1988.