Description
The Arapaho are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota. By the 1850s, Arapaho bands formed two tribes, namely the Northern Arapaho and Southern Arapaho. Since 1878, the Northern Arapaho have lived with the Eastern Shoshone on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and are federally recognized as the Arapahoe Tribe of the Wind River Reservation. The Southern Arapaho live with the Southern Cheyenne in Oklahoma. Together, their members are enrolled as the federally recognized Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. The name Arapaho is derived from the Crow tribe’s name for the group meaning “People with Many Tattoos.” The Arapaho made circular tattoos using cactus needles and charcoal powder to make a blue hue.
Language
The Arapaho (Arapahoe) language is one of the Plains Algonquian languages, closely related to Gros Ventre and other Arapahoan languages. It is spoken by the Arapaho of Wyoming and Oklahoma.
Culture
Traditionally, men are responsible for hunting. After horses were introduced, buffalo became the main food source—the meat, organs, and the blood all being consumed. Blood was drunk or made into pudding. Women are traditionally in charge of food preparation and dressing hides to make clothing and bedding, saddles, and housing materials. On the Plains, women historically wore moccasins, leggings, and ankle-length buckskin-fringed dresses, ornamented with porcupine quills, paint, elk teeth, and beads. Men have also worn moccasins, leggings, buckskin breechclothes, and sometimes shirts; warriors have often worn necklaces.