Arapaho - Native American

Arapaho The Arapaho called themselves Inuna-ina, or Hinono’eno, which might mean “our people,” “sky people,” or “roaming people.” The name Arapaho may have been derived from the Pawnee word tirapihu, meaning “trader”; the Kiowa name for the tribe, Ahyato; or the Crow name for the tribe, Alappaho. In the 1700s the Northern Arapaho occupied the plains of southern Wyoming and northern Colorado. The Southern Arapaho occupied the plains of west-central Oklahoma and southern Kansas. In the mid-2000s the Northern Arapaho shared the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming with the Shoshone. The Southern Arapaho lived on the Cheyenne-Arapaho Reservation in western Oklahoma. The Arapaho population was approximately three thousand in pre-reservation days. By 1861 the numbers had fallen to 750 (Northern) and 1,500 (Southern). In the 1990 U.S. Census, 5,585 people identified themselves as Arapaho. More specifically, 1,319 people said they were Northern Arapaho and 14 people said they were Southern Arapaho. In 2000 the census showed 7,181 Arapaho; of those, 4,579 were Northern Arapaho. Language family Algonquian. The Arapaho probably originated in the Great Lakes region—perhaps in Minnesota or Canada. One group of Arapaho were called Gros Ventre by the French. The reason for the name, which means “Big Bellies,” is unknown, but it has stuck. The Gros Ventre settled on the Fort Belknap Reservation in northern Montana in 1878. The Cheyenne and Arapaho shared a similar language and culture, but were separate tribes; later a portion of both tribes moved onto a reservation together. The Shoshone, historically an enemy of the Arapaho, lived alongside them in 2007 on the Wind River Reservation. The Arapaho were a spiritual, peace-loving people who moved to the Great Plains in the mid-1600s. They gave up their farming lifestyle to roam the plains, hunting buffalo on horseback. When gold seekers and settlers overran the West the Arapaho offered them safe passage, then lost most of their lands—and their livelihood—to them. In the 1800s, after splitting into two groups to search for increasingly elusive herds of buffalo, the Arapaho were permanently divided and moved onto reservations.

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