Where to start?

So my little epic journey into the discovery of understanding of a culture foreign to me had begun.  And naturally, the first question to arise is, as the title of this section implies, “Where do I start?”  There are so many tribes, never mind the dizzying topics that arise when trying to learn of another culture.  My respect for the field of anthropology grew rapidly.  I am far from one learned in this field, but a computer programmer by my schooling and profession.  However, I am logical and analytical by nature, and I suspected these qualities would lend themselves greatly to the journey ahead.

Putting these qualities to immediate use, I began to break down my problem.  I needed to find a focus and wind my way outwards from there.  Immediately, various thoughts blazed their way through my mind, various stories told, generalizations heard of, questions that begged answering.  Do I start with an element that makes up a culture and investigate it, could perhaps all Native Americans have the same beliefs and culture or be similar enough to one another?  That rang absurd almost as immediately as I wondered it. 

I then realized that I needed to look closer.  The catalyst that had started me on this journey was my story and the desire that the story be told in truth.  So then, that is where I had to start and I soon mapped out the foundational concepts I had conjured up on that vacation’s drive home.  In doing this, I found something that needed to be settled.  I had two tribes in the story, and quite literally that is what they were listed as “main tribe” and “enemy tribe”; after all, every story has to have an antagonist.  At this point, they were nameless; which to me was a pitiful state for two brave nations.  Here was a path to follow, discover the names of these two tribes.

The only thing I was certain of was where I wanted the story to take place, on the northern central plains of the Americas.  Here again, my ignorance was quickly made evident to me.  You see, while I knew enough to know that tribes like Navajo, Apache, Hopi were all southwestern tribes; Cherokee and Mohican eastern; Paiute close to the area where I grew up; the only plains tribe that I could state with certainty, thank you Hollywood, was the Sioux, and I guessed perhaps the Pawnee as they always seemed to be in the antagonist role for Hollywood that I could recall.  I’ve heard of many other tribes, but I wouldn’t have been able to put them on a map with any amount of accuracy upon which I would wager even a single copper cent; were I the wagering sort.   

Thus I had come upon the next stepping stone on my path of discovery, “who lived on the northern and central plains?”  In researching I soon found familiar names flooding the pages; Arapaho, Cheyenne, Crow, Pawnee, Sioux to name the big guns on the block; the Blackfoot, Comanche, Kiowa, Shoshone, and Ute reached too far away from where I wanted the story to take place and so I could cut my list in half rather quickly.  I narrowed the list further quite easily as I took my own over-familiarity as a clue and guide, I would not use the Sioux or Pawnee as one of the two main tribes.  Researching the remaining tribes, a comfort, familiarity and respect began to grow and I settled into my main choice, the tribe known to most as the Cheyenne.

As with every bend in the road of a journey, something new to discover can lie just behind that bend, and so it did with the identifying what I thought was one tribe.  I soon discovered there are two parts to the Cheyenne nation, the Northern Cheyenne and the Southern Cheyenne.  However, in short I discovered that they are named so simply for the locality of the reservations on which they were forced to live, one in Montana and the other in Oklahoma, respectively.  They are one people though.  However, as anyone can logically infer, the longer people once from the same area stay apart in different areas, the more likely that certain differences will arise amongst them.  While the current reservations are in Montana and Oklahoma, that is by no means their original homeland.  Just as most plains tribes were, so too were the Cheyenne a nomadic group that relied upon the buffalo.  From my research, it seems they roamed primarily the areas of South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Colorado.  That being said and remembering their nomadic nature, there are accounts of ventures outside of this.

While in English they may be referred to as the Cheyenne, it is important to me to show honor and respect for their true name. They are the Tsitsistas and So’taeo’o people; spellings, of the last of these especially, vary.

So then, I had my main tribe, what then of the other; the one I had labeled as the “enemy tribe”?  I made my choice not out of derision or in any way in a manner meaning to degrade a proud and noble people.  I made my choice based upon the historical fact of who was the natural antagonist tribe of the Cheyenne.  That quickly became clear and I found the tribe most know as the Crow, or as they call themselves, the Apsa'alooke.  Interestingly, today the Crow reservation borders the eastern edge of the Cheyenne reservation in Montana, but reaches a bit into Wyoming as well.

I had taken my first steps.  I had found a path to follow and from these early first excursions into unknown territory, I had found my focus, the Cheyenne and Crow peoples.  The next step was a natural one; find reliable accurate information to educate myself about the daily lives, the customs and the experiences of these tribes in the nineteenth century.  As I set off on this next leg of my journey, excited to learn, in the recesses of my mind I knew it would not always be easy, and I expected I would shortly find hurt and heartache.