INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



The following brief and imperfect account of the Cheyenne social 

 organization was obtained as part of my studies of the Cheyenne 

 Sun-Dance, which, in turn, are part of a comparative study on this 

 ceremony among the Plains Tribes I began in 1901. The Cheyenne 

 Sun-Dance will form the subject of Part II. of this volume. These 

 notes on the organization of the Cheyenne are given in this form 

 because opportunity for further and more extended observation does 

 not now seem possible. 



The Cheyenne, while considered in many ways the most conser- 

 vative of the tribes of the plains, are rapidly losing their social organi- 

 zation, and the time will soon arrive when it will cease to have 

 any meaning to the tribe as a whole. This organization was not 

 unlike that of the Arapaho, and was formerly strictly adhered to. 



The accounts of the societies, the myths of the origin of the same, 



and the story of the medicine-arrows are given, with but slight changes, 



as they were obtained through Richard Davis, a full -blood Cheyenne, 



as interpreter The colored illustrations were made direct from 



drawings made by Richard Davis or other Cheyenne artists; the pen 



drawings were made from diagrams drawn by Richard Davis. 



George A. Dorsey. 

 March, 1905. 



