The Arapaho are a tribe of Native Americans historically living on the plains of Colorado & Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe & loosely aligned with the Lakota & Dakota. The Arapaho language, Hinónoʼeitíít, is an Algonquian language closely related to Gros Ventre (Ahe/A'ananin), whose people are considered to have separated from the Arapaho at an early time. The Blackfeet & Cheyenne also speak Algonquian languages, but theirs are quite different from Arapaho.
Around 3,000 years ago, the ancestral Arapaho-speaking people (Heeteinono'eino') lived in the western Great Lakes region along the Red River Valley in what is classified as present-day Manitoba, Canada & Minnesota, United States. There the Arapaho were an agricultural people who grew crops, including maize. Following European colonization in eastern Canada, together with the early Cheyenne people, the Arapaho were pushed westward onto the eastern Great Plains by the Ojibwe. They were numerous & powerful, having obtained guns from their French trading allies.
Traditionally, men were responsible for hunting. After horses were introduced, buffalo became the main food source - the meat, organs, & the blood all being consumed. Blood by drinking it or making it into pudding. Women are traditionally in charge of food preparation & dressing hides to make clothing & bedding, saddles, & housing materials.
On the Plains, women historically wore moccasins, leggings, & ankle-length buckskin-fringed dresses, ornamented with porcupine quills, paint, elk teeth, & beads. Men have also worn moccasins, leggings, buckskin breechclothes (drawn between the legs, tied around the waist), & sometimes shirts; warriors have often worn necklaces.
The ancestors of the Arapaho people entered the Great Plains from the western Great Lakes region sometime before 1700. During their early history on the plains, the Arapaho lived on the northern plains from the South Saskatchewan River in Canada south to Montana, Wyoming, & western South Dakota. Before the Arapaho acquired horses, they used domestic dogs as pack animals to pull their travois. The Arapaho acquired horses in the early 1700s from other tribes, which changed their way of life. They became a nomadic people, using the horses as pack & riding animals. They could transport greater loads, & travel more easily by horseback to hunt more easily & widely, increasing their success in hunting on the Plains.
Gradually, the Arapaho moved farther south, split into the closely allied Northern & Southern Arapaho, & established a large joint territory spanning land in southern Montana, most of Wyoming, the Nebraska Panhandle, central & eastern Colorado, western Oklahoma, & extreme western Kansas. A large group of Arapaho split from the main tribe & became an independent people, commonly known as the Gros Ventre (as named by the French) or Atsina. The Gros Ventre spoke an Algonquian language similar to Arapaho after the division; they identified as A'aninin meaning ″White Clay people″. The Arapaho often viewed the Gros Ventre as inferior & referred to them as Hitúnĕna or Hitouuteen, meaning "beggars."
Once established, the Arapaho began to expand on the plains through trade, warfare, & alliances with other plains tribes. Around 1811, the Arapaho made an alliance with the Cheyenne. Their strong alliance with the Cheyenne allowed the Arapaho to greatly expand their hunting territory. By 1826, the Lakota, Dakota, Cheyenne, & Arapaho pushed the Kiowa & invading Comanche to the south. Conflict with the allied Comanche & Kiowa ended in 1840 when the two large tribes made peace with the Arapaho & Southern Cheyenne & became their allies.
Chief Little Raven was the most notable Arapaho chief; he helped mediate peace among the nomadic southern plains tribes & would retain his reputation as a peace chief throughout the Indian Wars & reservation period. The alliance with the Comanche & Kiowa made the most southern Arapaho bands powerful enough to enter the Llano Estacado in the Texas Panhandle. One band of Southern Arapaho became so closely allied with the Comanche that they were absorbed into the tribe, adopted the Comanche language, & became a band of Comanche known as the Dog-Eaters band.
Along the upper Missouri River, the Arapaho actively traded with the farming villages of the Arikara, Mandan, & Hidatsa, trading meat & hides for corn, squash, & beans. Conflict with Euro-American traders & explorers was limited at the time. The Arapaho freely entered various trading posts & trade fairs to exchange mostly bison hides & beaver furs for European goods such as firearms. The Arapaho frequently encountered fur traders in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, & the headwaters of the Platte & Arkansas. They became well-known traders on the plains & bordering Rocky Mountains. The Arapaho were a prominent trading group in the Great Plains region. The term may also have come from European-American traders referring to them by their Crow name of Alappaho', which meant "People with many tattoos". By custom the Arapaho tattooed small circles on their bodies. The name Arapaho became widespread among the white traders.
Like other plains Indians, including their Cheyenne allies, the Arapaho have a number of distinct military societies. Each of the 8 Arapaho military societies had their own unique initiation rites, pre- & post- battle ceremonies & songs, regalia, & style of combat. Unlike their Cheyenne, Lakota, & Dakota allies, the Arapaho military societies were age based. Each age level had its own society for prestigious or promising warriors of the matching age. As the warriors aged, they may graduate to the next society.
Warriors often painted their face & bodies with war paint, as well as their horses, for spiritual empowerment. Each warrior created a unique design for the war paint which they often wore into battle. Feathers from birds, particularly eagle feathers, were also worn in battle as symbols of prestige & for reasons similar to war paint. Before setting out for war, the warriors organized into war parties. War parties were made up of individual warriors & a selected war chief. The title of war chief must be earned through a specific number of acts of bravery in battle known as counting coup. Coups may include stealing horses while undetected, touching a living enemy, or stealing a gun from an enemy's grasp. Arapaho warriors used a variety of weapons, including war-clubs, lances, knives, tomahawks, bows, shotguns, rifles, & pistols. They acquired guns through trade at trading posts or trade fairs, in addition to raiding soldiers or other tribes. Together with their allies, the Arapaho also fought with invading US soldiers, miners, & settlers across Arapaho territory & the territory of their allies.
