Tribal enrollment figures, as of late 2014, indicate that there are approximately 10,840 members, of which about 4,939 reside on the reservation. The Northern Cheyenne, known in Cheyenne either as Notameohmésêhese, meaning "Northern Eaters" or simply as Ohmésêhese meaning "Eaters", live in southeastern Montana on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation. In the mid-19th century, the bands began to split, with some bands choosing to remain near the Black Hills, while others chose to remain near the Platte Rivers of central Colorado. They fought their historic enemies, the Crow and later (1856–79) the United States Army. The main group of Cheyenne, the Tsêhéstáno, was once composed of ten bands that spread across the Great Plains from southern Colorado to the Black Hills in South Dakota. In turn, they were pushed west by the more numerous Lakota.
With the Arapaho, the Cheyenne pushed the Kiowa to the Southern Plains. Having settled the Black Hills of South Dakota and the Powder River Country of present-day Montana and Wyoming, they introduced the horse culture to Lakota people about 1730. By the early 18th century, they were forced west across the Missouri River and into North and South Dakota, where they adopted the horse culture. They were close allies of the Arapaho and loosely aligned with the Lakota. The tribes merged in the early 19th century.Īt the time of their first European contact, the Cheyenne lived in what is now Minnesota. The Cheyenne comprise two Native American tribes, the Só'taeo'o or Só'taétaneo'o (more commonly spelled as Suhtai or Sutaio) and the Tsétsêhéstâhese (also spelled Tsitsistas, ). Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enrolled in the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma, and the Northern Cheyenne, who are enrolled in the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. The Cheyenne ( / ʃ aɪ ˈ æ n/ shy- AN) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Traditional tribal religion, Native American Church, and ChristianityĪrapaho, Blackfoot, Suhtai, and other Algonquian peoples For other uses, see Cheyenne (disambiguation). For the capital city in Wyoming, see Cheyenne, Wyoming.
This article is about the Native American people.