Welcome at my campfire

Tse-tsehese-staestse

Tse-tsehese-staestse is what the Cheyenne call themselves.
The word Cheyenne was believed to come
from the French word chien for dog.
The French traders called these people this because
of the famous dog soldiers of the Cheyenne nation.
This is erroneous. The now accepted etymology
of the word Cheyenne is that it is
the anglicized word Shyhela, which is Sioux.

The Cheyenne people are the most western
branch of the Algonquian people.
They originally came from the great lakes area.
There are many theories about
why the Cheyenne moved from the great lakes area.
Most of them involve competition in the area
with the Ojibwe, Ree, and Mandan.



They originally lived as sedentary farmers in northeastern Minnesota,
from which they began migrating westward in the late 1600s;
they later settled along the Cheyenne River of North Dakota.
Dislodged ca.1770, they gradually moved southwestward;
when encountered (1804) by the Lewis and Clark expedition,
they were living as nomadic buffalo-hunters
in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Religiously,
the Cheyenne were guided to the plains area by MaheÛo.
They also were sent a prophet named Sweet Medicine
who helped organize themselves, and developed a code to live by.
He gave them their first sacred item - the four sacred arrows.
It was at this point the Cheyenne became
a powerful force to be reckoned with.
Their hunting territory extended from the Platte River
to what is now eastern Montana.
A southern group also had hunting grounds
around the Arkansas River.
Another group of people known as
the Sohtaio also joined the Cheyenne.
It is said that these two groups of people
were one day fighting,
when the Cheyenne overheard the Sohtaio speak amongst themselves.
To their surprise, they could understand the people.
Peace was quickly pursued and these people
have lived with the Cheyenne ever since.

AHO