Crow Tribe

2 Key excerpts on "Crow Tribe"

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  Crow Indian Rock Art

  Indigenous Perspectives and Interpretations

  • Timothy P McCleary(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 4 Historic Crow Culture and the Warrior Ethic

  DOI: 10.4324/9781315431130-4

  The rock art that Crow people categorize as human produced and call baáhpawaalaatuua, or rock writing, was primarily created by warriors during the protohistoric and historic periods and is a component of the classic Plains Indian horse culture and its ranking of war honors (Keyser 1979 ; Keyser and Klassen 2001 ; Klassen 1995 ). Indeed, most rock art images that can be read as texts depict biographic warrior achievements, actions that were associated with social status. War honor ranking, more commonly called the coup system, undoubtedly developed in the midwestern United States in the prehistoric period (Kinietz 1965 : 196–202; Radin 1990 : 108–115). Recent studies completed at Bear Gulch and Atherton Canyon, rock art sites in central Montana, show prehistoric and protohistoric, as well as historic, coup-counting images (Keyser et al. 2012 : 342–344). This chapter explores the historic Crow culture and the place of the warrior ethic within it in order to elucidate how the war honor system relates to the production of rock art.

  Historic Crow social and political structure was intimately tied to the military prowess of individuals. Crow chiefs did not inherit their position, nor were they elected or appointed. Male status was based on a man’s martial accomplishments. Although other qualities were deemed admirable, without warrior credentials a man had no standing (Lowie 1917 : 82–85). Ultimately, then, political leadership was based on military achievement.

  The first step in becoming a chief was to attain four requisite ashkápe/war honors, commonly called coups in English. These were (1) touch a live enemy in battle (dáakse), (2) capture a picketed horse of an enemy (bapáshkuo), (3) take an enemy’s weapons in battle, and (4) lead a successful war party (Bernardis 1986 : 7–8; Lowie 1912 : 230; Old Horn and McCleary 1995 : 20). Other war honors, though not counted toward chiefly status, were deemed important, especially the saving of a comrade in battle (Lowie 1912

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  A Sovereign People

  Indigenous Nationhood, Traditional Law, and the Covenants of the Cheyenne Nation

  • Leo K. Killsback(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Texas Tech University Press

    (Publisher)

  Because of the small population of the Cheyenne Nation, it was beneficial for them to make alliances with much larger nations like the Lakota. The Cheyennes had already proven themselves a worthy nation, holding their own territory and military presence despite small numbers. As the history of the West unfolded, the Cheyenne-Lakota proved to be one of the strongest intertribal coalitions in American Indian history. By 1800 this coalition was a military and geopolitical powerhouse, whose territory covered much of the Great Plains. And by 1870 the united Indigenous nations of the Cheyenne-Arapaho-Lakota alliance constituted one of the last forces standing in the way of US expansion.

  According to inter-Indigenous national law, all Plains Indian nations, even enemies, were potential allies to the Cheyennes. Not only did these nations share the Great Plains as a permanent and aboriginal homeland but they relied on the sacred buffalo for sustenance. Peacemaking and making alliances were essential to the survival of these nations, while warfare was employed primarily for national defense. History reveals that while the Cheyennes and their allies continued to engage in sporadic warfare with their neighboring nations, they continued to make long-lasting peace agreements.

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