Arapaho facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Arapaho

Hinono'eino
Total population
10,861
Regions with significant populations
United States (Colorado, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Wyoming)
Languages
English, Arapaho, Plains Sign Language
Religion
Christianity, Peyotism, Traditional religions
Related ethnic groups
Algonquian people, Cheyenne people, Gros Ventre people

The Arapaho ( French: Arapahos, Gens de Vache) are a tribe of Native Americans. They used to live on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close friends of the Cheyenne tribe. They were barely friends with the Lakota and Dakota.

History

Early history

Around 3,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Arapaho-speaking people (Heeteinono'eino') lived in the western Great Lakes region. They lived there along the Red River Valley. This would be in what is present-day Manitoba, Canada and Minnesota, United States. The Arapaho were an agricultural people. They grew crops, including maize.

Language

The Arapaho language is currently spoken in two different dialects. It is considered to be a part the Algonquian language family. There are only about 250 fluent speakers of Northern Arapaho. Most of them live on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. There are even fewer fluent Southern Arapaho speakers. All of them are very old.

Images for kids

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  Pouch, Arapaho (Native American), Late 19th or early 20th century, Brooklyn Museum

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  Painting of Black Man, an Arapaho warrior with face paint and feathers. By E. A. Burbank, 1899.

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  Ledger drawing of a mounted Arapaho warrior fighting a group of Navajo or Pueblo warriors, c. 1880

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  Southern Arapaho women's leggings and moccasins, c. 1910, Oklahoma History Center

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  Chief Black Coal, among the most influential Arapaho chiefs of his time. Chief Black Coal was able to largely keep the Arapaho at peace with the United States and out of the Great Sioux war of 1876.

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  Ledger drawing of an Arapaho warrior riding down a U.S. soldier (1880)

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  Ledger drawing of an Arapaho warrior with headdress, counting coup with rifle butt on a U.S. soldier.

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  Ledger drawing of an Arapaho warrior in battle with a U.S. soldier on horseback.

See also

In Spanish: Arapajó para niños