Tribe: The Arapaho. There are currently two Arapaho tribes: the Northern Arapaho and the Southern Arapaho. The Arapaho also splintered into the Gros Ventre tribe and the Blackfoot tribe, and many Arapaho became part of the Comanche tribe.
Meaning of Name: They call themselves the "Hinono-eino" or "Inun-ina" meaning "our people" or "people of our own kind." There are also many other names for them, depending on who is talking and how they choose to describe them. The term "Arapaho" comes from "Alappaho," which is a Crow term for "People of many tattoos."
Location: Three thousand years ago, the Arapaho were a settled agricultural people who lived in the Red River Valley section of the Great Lakes region. Sometime in the 1600's or early 1700's, they and the Cheyenne were forced southward to the Colorado and Wyoming plains and into the nomadic life by the Ojibwe who had acquired guns and horses. They are now in Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Nebraska.
Original Language: Algonquin
Tribal Affiliations: The Cheyenne, the Shoshone, the Lakota and the Dakota, and also, later, the Comanche. They also traded with the Hidatsa, the Arikara and the Mandan tribes who traded their home-grown produce for excess meat and precious or semi-precious stones.
Traditional Enemies: The Ojibwe/Chippewa (who had the horses and guns), the Comanche, the Pawnee, the Osage, the Pawnee, the Omaha, the Ho-chunk, the Ponca, the Kaw, the Crow, the Blackfoot, the Gros Ventre, the Flathead, the Arikara, the Assiniboine, the Cree, the Saulteaux, the Nakota, the Shoshone, the Ute, the Navajo, the Apache, the Pueblo, the Cheyenne, the Sioux, the Kiowa and white people. Many of these tribes later became their allies.
Traditional Style of Housing: Tee-pees which were probably made, set up and owned by the women.
Traditional Attire: The men very brightly and intricately-beaded buckskin and buffalo-skin tunics, leggings, breechcloths with long fringes, moccasins and long feathered head-dresses for the chiefs. They were particularly fond of big blue beads which they used for earrings, necklaces and in beadwork. The women wore long fringed buckskin dresses or skirts and poncho-like blouse adorned with quill-work, beading, elk's teeth, cowrie shells, bird-bone necklaces, and yellow ochre paint, with knee-length leggings and beaded moccasins.
Traditional Foods: The Arapaho men hunted bison, deer, elk, and fished. About 90% of the Arapaho diet was comprised of meat, and they were particularly partial to bison humps, brains, kidneys tongues and blood. They traded bison, deer and elk skins and precious and semi-precious stones for corn, squash, beans, coffee, sugar, bacon and bleached flour. The Arapaho women gathered pine nuts, pinion, acorns, sunflower seeds, cranberries, blueberries, raspberries, grapes, service berries, chokecherries, currants, cherries, plums, blackberries, blueberries, elderberries, gooseberries, celery root, wild green beans, morels, wild onions, wild turnips, wild potatoes, wild pumpkins, strawberries, wild turkey peas, wild tomatoes and whatever else they could find growing on the Plains that was edible.
Position of Women: Low. Very male-dominant culture, probably dating from when they went from being agricultural-based and settled society to being forced into a nomadic and war-like lifestyle. The power-base was male, but the majority of work was done by the women: literal home-making, cooking, cleaning, butchering and preparing meat, preparing hides, sewing, doing beading and quillwork, making baskets, raising children, making bison jerky, making pemmican, fetching, carrying...
Arapaho Courtship: The Arapaho men sang love and courtship songs and played the flute in order to attract the women of their dreams. If she returned his interest, then he had to meet the bride-price demanded by her father. If he could not come up with the bride-price, usually horses, there was a long engagement or there was no wedding. This sometimes resulted in the suicide of the heartsick young man, in which case, his grieving next-of-kin might seek revenge against the bride's father. On the other hand, engagements could last for years until the would-be groom had gathered enough horses or war trophies in order to be considered acceptable to the bride's father.
Interesting Tidbits: The Arapaho have eight age-based military societies who were not only responsible for winning wars, but keeping the peace, and providing for their families.... Arapaho warriors painted their faces and bodies, as well as their horses, with individual and distinctive war-paint.... Every year, around June 21, the Arapaho gather for eight days to celebrate the Sun Dance Festival....The Arapaho were a tall, stately, attractive tribe, and believed that their enemies the (shorter, fatter) Utes likes to steal their women in order to improve their own genetic stock.... The Arapaho kept ledger books in pictograph of their accomplishments and history. Only a few of these books have managed to survive....The Arapaho Way is to be generous, dignified, respectful, loyal and courageous....The eagle is seen as a mediator between people and the Creator.
Traditional Religion: The Native American Church.
Slavery and the Arapaho: The Arapaho took slaves in raids and wars.
Current Population: There are more than 10,000 registered Arapaho.
Current Sources of Tribal Revenue: Casinos, cigarette shops, oil leases (oil companies lease Arapaho land.)
Famous Arapahos: Hiawatha was said by some to have been Arapaho, dating from the time that they lived in the Great Lakes region.
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