Cheyenne are a Native American people of the Great Plains. The Cheyenne Nation is composed of two united tribes, the Só'taa'e (more commonly as Sutai) and the Tsé-tsêhéstâhese (singular: Tsêhéstáno; more commonly as the Tsitsistas), which translates to "those like us". The name Cheyenne derives from Dakota Sioux Šahíyena, meaning "little Šahíya". Though the identity of the Šahíya is not known, many Great Plains tribes assume it means Cree or some...
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Cheyenne are a Native American people of the Great Plains. The Cheyenne Nation is composed of two united tribes, the Só'taa'e (more commonly as Sutai) and the Tsé-tsêhéstâhese (singular: Tsêhéstáno; more commonly as the Tsitsistas), which translates to "those like us". The name Cheyenne derives from Dakota Sioux Šahíyena, meaning "little Šahíya". Though the identity of the Šahíya is not known, many Great Plains tribes assume it means Cree or some other people who spoke an Algonquian language related to Cree and Cheyenne. However, the common folk etymology for Cheyenne is "a bit like the [people of an] alien speech" (literally, "red-talker").
During the pre-reservation era, the Cheyenne were allied with the Arapaho and Lakota (Sioux). They are one of the best known of the Plains tribes. The Cheyenne Nation comprised ten bands, spread across the Great Plains, from southern Colorado to the Black Hills in South Dakota. In the mid-nineteenth century, the bands began to split, with some...
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