Modern Tsetschestahase (Southern Cheyennes) trace their origins to the "ancient time" when they occupied the upper reaches of the Mississippi River. There they thrived on crops of woodland animals, fish, and fowl. Before 1700 an unknown disease greatly reduced their numbers, and other groups preyed upon them. Shortly after 1700 (the time of the dogs), the Tsetschestahase moved from the woodlands to the prairies of present-day eastern Northern Dakota. There they practiced agriculture and lived in earthen lodges.
———By the mid-1750s the Sioux increased their pressure on the numerically inferior Tsetschestahase, who again headed west. In their flight, so one story goes, they destroyed one of their enemies, an unknown group of Siouan-speaking people. One captive, the wife of a slain chief, explained to the Tsetschestahase her tribe's form of government. The Tsetschestahase respected her and followed her guidance in devising their present-day form of government, a council of chiefs (initially forty-four in number) selected for their bravery, appearance, and wisdom. These chiefs represented the eleven bands of Tsetschestahase, each band electing four representatives. These leaders made important decisions regarding camp locations, intraband disputes, religious ceremonies, and war.
———In the Third Age, the time of the buffalo, the Tsetschestahase adapted to the short-grass plains by hunting bison. However, they suffered more attacks from the Sioux and took refuge near the Black Hills. During the time of trouble, Maheo (Sweet Medicine) climbed Howahwas (Bear Butte), and there Maiyun (A powerful spirit) taught him. Maiyun allowed Maheo to take the Mahuts (four medicine arrows: two man arrows and two buffalo arrows, for success in defense and sustenance), the most sacred possession of the Tsetschestahase to this day. The Mahuts, a gift from Maheo (the ruling spirit of the universe), guided and protected the Tsetschestahase on the high plains. The Mahuts commanded respect, and the Tsetschestahase "renew" the arrows in times of trouble, when in need of support, the Arrow Renewal Ceremony has become something of an annual ritual timed near the summer solstice.
———The Tsetschestahase represented and re-created the great circle of life through their ceremonies. They divided the circle into the four directions of the universe, each representing a spiritual helper of Maheo, and the four great men's societies: initially the Kit Fox Men, the Elk (Horn) Scraper men, the Dog Men, and the Red Shield Men, and now the Bowstrings, the Elk Horns, the Kit Foxes, and the Dog Soldiers. The Tsetschestahase have always formed gender-specific societies — for example, the Medicine Women. They performed their own rituals and ceremonies for making tipis and other medicine. The Societies took their members from all the bands, and when the bands were united, the societies guided tribal affairs.
———The Tsetschestahase symbolized their sense of family in the circular arrangements inside their lodges, in the circle of the ceremonial lodges, and in the great circular setting of a village. Pairs of forces (male and female, life and death, light and darkness, hot and cold) moved in seasonal cycles, and they represented, and still represent these forces in their ceremonies. Time and life moved in great cycles balanced by countervailing forces.
———Around 1800 the Tsetschestahase merged with the Suhtais; the two groups had been enemies until each recognized a common identity in their similar languages. The Suhtais, bison hunters, instructed the Tsetschestahase, who had acquired the horse. The Tsetschestahase, now a horse-borne bison-hunting culture, abandoned nearly all of their agriculture. The Suhtais also taught the Tsetschestahase the Oxheheom (the Sun Dance ceremony), and the rituals and sacred traditions associated with the teachings of Tomsivsi (Erect Horns) about the Issiwum (Buffalo Cap). As the Tsetschestahase moved west they encountered the people who were to become one of their principal allies, the Arapahos. These two peoples, while sharing and maintaining a defensive and trade alliance, retained separate identities, and even pitched their lodgings in different camp circles when occupying the same ground.
———Between 1810 and 1830 the Hevatanui band moved from the Black Hills to the Arkansas River valley, while the Omisi band and the Suhtais remained north of the Plate River. The Hevatanui band became the Southern Cheyennes. Though retaining a strong identification with their northern brothers and sisters, they took on a distinct identity. For example, the northerners kept the Issiwum, while the southerners held the Mahuts, and both practiced the Oxheheom. Between 1830 and 1840, the southerners dominated the central high plains between the South Platte and Arkansas Rivers. They fought the Pawnees to the east, the Utes to the west, and the Comanches, Kiowas, and Plains Apaches to the south. In 1840, the Southern Cheyennes and Arapahos negotiated a peace with their southern foes. The terms established a prolific trade in horses, guns, mules, manufactured goods, furs, and whiskey among themselves, Americans, and the comancheros (New Mexican traders).
———At the conclusion of the Mexican-American war, the Tsetschestahase faced new difficulties. In 1849 a cholera epidemic swept through the population, killing perhaps half of the tribe. Increased traffic on the Santa Fe Trail and in the watersheds of the Smoky and Republican Hill Rivers destroyed winter-camping and hunting grounds. The Tsetschestahase, especially the Dog Soldiers society, fought to save their land, while the peace chiefs desperately tried to reach some means of accommodations with representations of the U.S. government. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1852, known among the Tsetschestahase as the Big Treaty for the Fitzpatrick Treaty, formally recognized the Tsetschestahase's range and promised annuities and army protection from depredations as passage. However, by the 1850s the decline of the bison, the destruction of their winter-camping grounds, and the flourishing whiskey trade had reduced the Tsetschestahase to near starvation.
———Some Tsetschestahase, led by Black Kettle and Yellow Wolf, secured federal help to return to farming in the Fort Wine Treaty of 1861. The Civil War resulted in poor effort by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to build an irrigation system and plant crops. Funding evaporated, and the Tsetschestahase never derived any benefit from this operation. As conditions deteriorated on Americans and other tribal peoples. The result was tragedy when on November 29, 1864, Colonel John M. Chivington and his Colorado volunteers needlessly attacked the peaceful Tsetschestahase (led by Black Kettle, Yellow Wolf, and One Eye) and the Southern Arapahos (led by Left Hand) at Sand Creek. No one knows exactly how many Tsetschestahase were massacred; perhaps as many as 160 perished.
———The Tsetschestahase continued to suffer in a pattern of assaults, followed by negotiations. The Little Arkansas River (1867) and Medicine Lodge (1867) treaties were followed by General Winfield Hancock's campaign in 1867 and Custer's attack on Black Kettle's peaceful village encampment on the banks of the Washita River in present-day western Oklahoma in November 1868. By 1869 the U.S. Army had defeated the Dog Soldiers under the leadership of Tall Bull, which ended the confrontations between the army and the Tsetschestahase.
———The Bureau of Indian Affairs placed the Tsetschestahase on what was initially a 5-million acre reservation in present-day Oklahoma. Based at Darlington, the agent John D. Miles attempted to convert the Tsetschestahase to Christianity, ranching, farming, freighting, and American notions of education. Missionaries, too, soon arrived to "save" the "savages." However, educational gains often proved intangible. Tsetschestahase trained in the manual arts lacked job opportunities, and women trained according to middle-class domestic values had little use for such skills in their reservation homes.
———The Tsetschestahase had some success in the freighting business, and despite being poorly supplied by the federal government, they prospered at cattle ranching. However, competition for grazing land led a Texas drover to kill Running Buffalo, an influential Dog Soldier who opposed Texan leasing operations on the Cheyenne Reservation. Only the appearance of federal troops prevented further bloodshed. Tsetschestahase even fought among themselves. Their reservation lands came under assault with the passage of the Dawes Severalty Act in 1887, which allotted 160 acres to each Tsetschestahase. In the early 1890s, the federal government surveyed the reservation, and in April 1892 Anglo-Americans began buying the "surplus" lands. By 1900 "reform" had failed as only 15 to 18 percent of the Tsetschestahase were practicing farming; Chief White Shield's band of 186 people were still living in tipis and tents at the Red Moon district near Hammon.
———The Tsetschestahase had reached their cultural nadir. They no longer practiced their Corn Dance, a ceremony largely conducted by women. In the 1890s a few practiced the Ghost Dance, and others who explored the religious use of peyote encountered frequent arrests and trials. American teachers forced Tsetschestahase children to speak English, and Christian missionaries discouraged traditional religious ceremonies, social practices, and beliefs. In 1927 the Tsetschestahase performed the last Massaum ceremony, an ancient dance perhaps predating their woodland origins.
———Still, in the first half of the twentieth century young Tsetschestahase proved resilient by adapting to a new set of social circumstances. The young received counsel such as "Go to school. Learn to provide for your family." And many attended church-related schools that had ties to the religious mission to the Tsetschestahase. In the 1930s the Tsetschestahase formed a business council in keeping with Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier's reform during the New Deal. The Tsetschestahase served proudly in the U.S. armed forces during both world wars and in Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf War. At the same time, they withstood Bureau of Indian Affairs attempts to terminate their tribe and relocate them to large urban areas.
———In the 1960s, stimulated by the civil rights movement, the Tsetschestahase actively asserted themselves. Today, they proudly celebrate religious ceremonies like the Sun Dance and the Arrow Renewal Ceremony. They also engage in elaborate giveaways and powwows in which the sealing of position and leadership results in people giving away their possessions to those in need while others shower an "honored" one with gifts in recognition of that person's high status. The Tsetschestahase are actively working to recover their culture through community efforts and activities. In the summer of 1992, under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, Tsetschestahase repatriated remains stored at the Smithsonian Institution, some of which belonged to identified victims of the Sand Creek massacre.
———The Tsetschestahase are still working to overcome numerous threats to their identity and culture. Many fail to graduate from high school and often find themselves in legal and economic difficulties. Others face serious drinking and drug problems. Nonetheless, Tsetschestahase show remarkable resilience in the face of nearly overwhelming discrimination and economic obstacles. Youths often excel in public schools, and coleges, and universities and work with adults to maintain the "Cheyenne way." The Tsetschestahase continue to renew themselves, their families, and their ways in the great circle of life.

JAMES E. SHEROW
Kansas State University

SAM HART (Southern Cheyenne)
El Reno, Oklahoma