BULL. 30] 



CHEYENNE 



251 



The popular name has no connection with 

 the French chien, 'dog,' as has some- 

 times erroneously been supposed. In the 

 sign language they are indicated by a 

 gesture which has often been interpreted 

 to mean 'cut arms' or 'cut fingers' — 

 being made by drawing the right index 

 finger several times rapidly across the 

 left — but which appears really to indi- 

 cate 'striped arrows,' by which name 

 they are known to the Hidatsa, Shoshoni, 

 Comanche, Caddo, and probably other 

 tribes, in allusion to their old-time pref- 

 erence for turkey feathers for winging 

 arrows. 



The earliest authenticated habitat of 

 the Cheyenne, before the year 1700, 

 seems to have been that part of Minnesota 

 bounded roughly by the JNIississippi, Min- 

 nesota, and upper Red rs. The Sioux, 

 living at that period more immediately 

 on the Mississippi, to the e. and s. e. , came 

 in contact with the French as early as 

 1667, but theCheyennearefirstmentioned 

 in 1680, under the name of Chaa, when a 

 party of that tribe, described as living on 

 the head of the great river, i. e., the Slis- 

 sissippi, visited La Salle's fort on Illi- 

 nois r. to invite the French to come to 

 their country, which they represented as 

 abounding in beaver and other fur ani- 

 mals. The veteran Sioux missionary, 

 Williamson, says that according to con- 

 current and reliable Sioux tradition the 

 Cheyenne preceded the Sioux in the oc- 

 cupancy of the upper Mississippi region, 

 and were found by them already estal)- 

 lished on the Minnesota. At a later 

 period they moved over to the Cheyenne 

 branch of Red r., N. Dak., which thus 

 acquired its name, being known to the 

 Sioux as "the place where the Cheyenne 

 plant," showing that the latter were still 

 an agricultural people (Williamson). 

 This westward movement was due to 

 pressure from the Sioux, who were them- 

 selves retiring before the Chippewa, 

 then already in possession of guns from 

 the E. Driven out by the Sioux, the 

 Cheyenne moved w. toward Missouri r., 

 where their further progress was opposed 

 by the Sutaio — the Staitan of Lewis and 

 Clark — a people speaking a closely cog- 

 nate dialect, who had preceded them to 

 the w. and were then apparently living 

 between the river and the Black-hills. 

 After a period of hostility the two 

 tribes made an alliance, some time after 

 which the Cheyenne crossed the Mis- 

 souri l)elow the entrance of the Can- 

 nonball, and later took refuge in the 

 Black-hills about the heads of Cheyenne 

 r. of South Dakota, where Lewis and 

 Clark found them in 1804, since which 

 time their drift was constantly w. and s. 

 until confined to reservations. Up to the 

 time of Lewis and Clark they carried on 



desultory war with the Mandan and 

 Hidatsa, who probal)ly helped to drive 

 them from Missouri r. They seem, how- 

 ever, to have kept on good terms with 

 the Arikara. According to their own 

 story, the Cheyenne, while living in 

 Minnesota and on Missouri r., occupied 

 fixed villages, practised agriculture, and 

 made pottery, but lost these arts on being 

 driven out into the plains to become rov- 

 ing buffalo hunters. On the Missouri, 

 and perhaps also farther e., they occu- 

 pied earth-covered log houses. Grinnell 

 states that some Cheyenne had culti- 

 vated fields on Little Missouri r. as late 

 as 1850. This was probably a recent set- 

 tlement, as they are not mentioned in 



CHEYENNE MAN 



that locality by Lewis and Clark. At 

 least one man among them still under- 

 stands the art of making beads and figur- 

 ines from pounded glass, as formerly 

 practised by the Mandan. In a sacred 

 tradition recited only by the priestly 

 keeper, they still tell how they "lost the 

 corn" after leaving the eastern country. 

 One of the starting points in this tradi- 

 tion is a great fall, apparently St An- 

 thony's falls on the Mississippi, and a 

 stream known as the "river of turtles," 



