THE NARRATIVE OF A SOUTHERN CHEYENNE 



WOMAN 



By TRUMAN MICHELSON, 



ETHNOLOGIST, BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



The following narrative was obtained for me by Mack Haag near 

 Calumet, Okla., in the summer of 193 1. I have corrected the English 

 slightly, but otherwise the narrative is given as written out by Haag. 

 I hereby express my warmest thanks. 



A few ethnological notes, appearing as footnotes, are added as an 

 aid to the comprehension of the text. These are not exhaustive and 

 are confined for the most part to published Cheyenne sources. Inci- 

 dentally they bear witness to the authenticity of the narrative. 



NARRATIVE 



My mother is 80 years old and is still living in apparently good 

 health. If my father were living he would be about 85 years old. 

 I do not remember in what year he died. My father's sister is also 

 dead. She died when she was 102 years old. This aunt of mine was 

 the person who instructed me in all the ways of courtship.' 



I want to mention an incident that was later told me by my mother. 

 She said that I was taught to ride horseback alone when I was 4 year? 

 old. Of course, I do not remember this. 



Whenever they moved camp I was tied onto the saddle. One day, 

 they say, I, or rather the pony, was lagging behind. My saddle girth 

 became loose, and I and the saddle were under the horse's belly. 

 Luckily the pony was very gentle. 



When I became an older girl I was rather expert in riding horse- 

 back. This was my greatest sport. I even rode untamed ponies. Of 

 course, sometimes I was thrown off by ponies who bucked very badly. 



Ever since I can remember I had a bed of my own in my parents' 

 tipi.^ This bed consisted of willow head and foot uprights.'' My own 

 bags were placed against the wall of the tipi. The wall of the bed also 

 included buffalo hides." My pillows were decorated with porcupine 



' I do not know whether or not instruction in courtship, etc., given by a pater- 

 nal aunt to her niece is institutional. 



* The beds ranged around the walls of a Cheyenne tipi : see Grinnell, George 

 Bird. The Cheyenne Indians, vol. i, p. 225. New Haven, 1923. 



' Compare Grinnell, loc. cit., vol. i, pp. 242, 243, vol. 2, p. 365. 



* See Grinnell, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 225. 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 87, No. 5 



