Chapter 9: Indians This chapter is designed to give an overall view of the Indian Tribes in Mid-West America. It is not meant to be a history review. The tribes covered are listed below: Apache Cheyenne Kiowas Pawnee Arapaho Comanche Mandans Sioux Cherokee Crow Navaho Trade Value List 1 ordinary riding horse = 8 buffalo robes = 1 gun and 100 loads of ammunition = 1 carrot of tobacco weighing 3 pounds = 15 eagle feathers = 10 weasel skins = 5 tippee poles = 1 buffalo-hide tippee covers = 1 skin shirt and leggings, decorated with human hair and quills 1 buffalo robe = 3 metal knives = 25 loads of ammunition = 1-gallon metal kettle = 3 dozen iron arrowpoints = 1 « yards of calico 1 fine racing horse = 10 guns 1 fine buffalo horse = several pack animals 3 buffalo robes = 1 white blanket 4 buffalo robes = 1 scarlet Hudson's Bay blanket 5 buffalo robes = 1 bear-claw necklace 30 beaver pelts = 1 keg of rum 10 ermine pelts = 100 elk teeth Typical Indian Brave STR: 10 Damage Points: 31 AGI: 12 Height: 72" CON: 9 Weight: 180 lbs. INT: 6 Age: 24 years CHA: 7 Skills: Roll Modifier: Archery (7) 18 Rifles and Shotguns (3) 15 Indian Customs (6) 12 Tracking (6) 13 Perception (6) 13 Horse Riding (10) 22 Horsemanship (5) 14 Swimming (2) 14 Stealth (7) 17 Hand-to-Hand Combat (5) 15 Apache Loosely organized into bands of hunters and raiders, all Apache tribes or groupings shared a common language. But the cultural traits they came to exhibit varied widely from band to band depending, in large measure, on the particular region each group roamed and the customs they borrowed form the peoples with whom they came into contact. The Jicarilla Apaches, of present- day northern New Mexico, for example, adopted many of the characteristics of the Plains Indians and became buffalo hunters, but they also did some farming, having learned the rudiments of agriculture from the Pueblos. The Lipan Apaches, on the other hand, did little farming, preferring to engage in hunting, gathering, and raiding throughout eastern New Mexico and west Texas. Yet another group joined the plains-dwelling Kiowas to become the Kiowa Apaches. The Mescaleros of south-central New Mexico, so known for their appetite for the mescal plant, lived exclusively by hunting, gathering, and raiding, while the Chiricahuas, who ranged throughout southern Arizona and New Mexico, achieved a reputation as the fiercest of all Apaches. Finally, there were the Western Apaches, of east-central Arizona. These included the White Mountain, Cibecue, San Carlos, and Northern and Southern Tonto subdivisions. They farmed more extensively than the others and were closely linked in language and culture to the Navajos. Apaches had no central tribal government. The bands within each tribe had headmen, whose positions were maintained through their persuasiveness and warlike prowess. Each band was made up of a number of extended families, and together they loosely controlled a region. Yet even within the bands there was little organized government, and warriors were free to carry out raids on their own. Peculiarly, for so militant a people, the Apaches had a horror of death. Enemy scalps had to be purified in smoke to make them safe and, when a band member died, he was quickly buried, his dwelling and possessions burned. Then the mourners purged themselves in sagebrush smoke and moved away from the immediate area to escape harm from the ghost of the deceased. Since 1827, the government has been paying a bounty of 100 pesos for a male Apache scalp, 50 for a woman's, and 25 for a child's. Cochise (Chiricahuas Apache Chief) STR: 12 Damage Points: 36 AGI: 14 Height: 72" CON: 10 Weight: 200 lbs. INT: 6 Age: 36 years CHA: 6 Skills: Roll Modifier: Hand Guns (1) 15 Rifles and Shotguns (8) 22 Hand-to-Hand Combat (8) 20 Archery (14) 27 Horse Riding (10) 24 Survival (6) 12 Stealth (6) 18 Indian Customs (6) 12 Perception (10) 18 Leadership (6) 12 Tracking (6) 12 Agriculture (4) 12 Swimming (4) 18 Climbing (4) 18 Gokhlayeh "One Who Yawns" (Geronimo "Jerome") STR: 12 Damage Points: 32 AGI: 12 Height: 67" CON: 8 Weight: 190 lbs. INT: 8 Age: 25 years CHA: 8 Skills: Roll Modifier: Hand Guns (2) 14 Rifles and Shotguns (10) 22 Hand-to-Hand Combat (12) 24 Archery (12) 24 Horse Riding (8) 20 Survival (8) 16 Stealth (8) 18 Indian Customs (8) 16 Perception (8) 16 Leadership (8) 16 Tracking (4) 12 Swimming (4) 16 Climbing (4) 16 Arapaho The Arapahos might have favored peace solely on account of their temperament. They had fought many a battle alongside their Cheyenne allies, but with some reluctance. Observers have described them as friendly, accommodating, religious, generous. Certain of the neighboring tribes called the Arapahos Cloud People, or the Blue Cloud People, a name perhaps referring to their easy dispositions. Little Raven (Arapaho Chief) STR: 8 Damage Points: 26 AGI: 10 Height: 70" CON: 8 Weight: 170 lbs. INT: 6 Age: 32 years CHA: 10 Skills: Roll Modifier: Rifles and Shotguns (5) 15 Hand-to-Hand Combat (5) 13 Indian Customs (6) 12 Tracking (2) 9 Perception (2) 9 Leadership (10) 18 Survival (1) 8 Swimming (1) 11 Climbing (1) 11 Archery (10) 19 Horse Riding (10) 20 Stealth (5) 14 Cherokee In the eastern half of what would become Oklahoma lived Indians known to Whites as the Five Civilized Tribes, recent arrivals from the East. Of these, the Cherokee tribe, numbering about 19,000, was in the process of unifying its factions. During 1839 they drafted a new constitution for the Cherokee Nation. In midsummer 1840, as the warrior Indians of the south and central plains were making peace on the river near Bent's Fort, the Cherokees put their constitution into effect at a meeting in Tahlequah, off the same river but some 500 miles downstream. They would set up a public school system the following year and in three years would have 18 schools in operation. In four years they would begin publishing and printing the Cherokee Advocate, Oklahoma's first newspaper, in English and Cherokee. In 11 years they would open two seminaries for higher learning. The Cherokees considered all men to be brothers, but in worldly matters they may well have thought of themselves as older and wiser brother. Yet their less civilized neighbors on the Great Plains would still be free, proudly fighting - and pitifully dying - three decades after the Cherokee had successfully mastered the ways of reservation life. Ned Christie (Cherokee Outlaw) STR: 10 Damage Points: 31 AGI: 12 Height: 70" CON: 9 Weight: 160 lbs. INT: 10 Age: 34 years CHA: 10 Skills: Roll Modifier: Archery (6) 18 Rifles and Shotguns (12) 24 Hand Guns (6) 18 Hand-to-Hand Combat (6) 16 Leadership (3) 13 Horse Riding (4) 16 Swimming (1) 13 Climbing (1) 13 Tracking (2) 11 Indian Customs (14) 24 Survival (2) 11 Stealth (2) 12 Perception (4) 13 Cheyenne The Cheyennes still remembered that their grandfathers had once farmed in the area of Minnesota and western Wisconsin. They had failed to get trade guns as early as some of the adjacent Indians and had faced the choice of being submissive or moving west; they chose the latter. Somewhere in the course of their migration they had, as they put it, "lost the corn," meaning that they had almost entirely ceased farming. Perhaps they literally had lost their seed in a year of drought along the Missouri River; more likely, they had given up farming deliberately for a more active life of buffalo hunting, of fur trapping, and trading. In the region of the Black Hills, in what would become South Dakota, the Cheyennes became typically nomadic Plains Indians. In time they wandered south into the rich buffalo country. Some went no farther than Wyoming, others pressed clear down to the Arkansas River. Known as men of pride and strong will, they seemed to prefer war to peace. And not long after reaching the Arkansas in their migrations, they came into conflict with the Kiowas. Black Kettle (Cheyenne Chief) STR: 10 Damage Points: 36 AGI: 14 Height: 72" CON: 12 Weight: 180 lbs. INT: 9 Age: 29 years CHA: 7 Skills: Roll Modifier: Hand Guns (4) 14 Rifles and Shotguns (14) 28 Archery (14) 26 Horse Riding (12) 26 Indian Customs (9) 18 Leadership (9) 17 Tracking (6) 16 Perception (6) 16 Swimming (1) 15 Climbing (4) 18 Survival (9) 19 Stealth (14) 27 Hand-to-Hand Combat (10) 20 Agriculture (1) 11 Horsemanship (5) 16 Roman Nose (Cheyenne Chief) STR: 9 Damage Points: 32 AGI: 11 Height: 71" CON: 12 Weight: 190 lbs. INT: 12 Age: 40 years CHA: 10 Skills: Roll Modifier: Hand Guns (2) 13 Rifles and Shotguns (5) 16 Hand-to-Hand Combat (6) 15 Archery (11) 21 Leadership (10) 21 Indian Customs (12) 24 Perception (8) 20 Horse Riding (8) 19 Survival (2) 14 Stealth (1) 12 Swimming (1) 12 Climbing (1) 12 Tracking (1) 13 Comanche Of all Plains Warriors none excelled the Comanches as skilled horsemen. So close were the Comanche and his mount that one observer of Plains life compared them to the mythical centaur: "half horse, half man...so dexterously managed that it appears but one animal, fleet and furious." George Catlin, who painted the Comanches, described them as ungainly and slovenly on foot but said that they were transformed into the personifications of grace once mounted. From the time a Comanche child - boy or girl - was four or five, he or she owned a pony. A boy, in particular, drilled day after day to hone his equestrian skills. Traveling at full speed, he at first picked up small objects from the ground; later, larger and heavier objects. Finally, he could swoop down along the flanks of his mount and sweep up the body of a man, a skill that enabled him to rescue a wounded comrade in battle. If the Comanche was a peerless rider, he owed much to the nature of his horse - an animal noted for agility, alertness, speed, and endurance. These horses responded instantly to touch or word and frequently could even anticipate their riders' commands. Such magnificent animals were partially the result of the Comanches' skill as horse breeders. They used only the most responsive and fleetest stallions as studs. They also owned more mounts than any other tribe. One band of 2,000 Comanches had no fewer than 15,000 horses, and some war chiefs personally possessed more than 1,000. To the Comanches, like other Plains Indians, a horse was not only indispensable for hunting and combat but was also a form of wealth. In addition to breeding their herds, these Indians were expert at capturing and taming wild horses. However, the Comanches generally preferred to steal mounts from enemy tribes. Such raids not only secured already broken horses but burnished the Comanches' reputation as horse thieves, warriors, and the dominant equestrian people of the Plains. Quanah "Fragrant"(Half-Comanche Chief) STR: 10 Damage Points: 30 AGI: 10 Height: 70" CON: 10 Weight: 175 lbs. INT: 6 Age: 32 years CHA: 9 Skills: Roll Modifier: Hand Guns (1) 11 Rifles and Shotguns (10) 20 Archery (10) 20 Hand-to-Hand Combat (10) 20 Horse Riding (10) 20 Horsemanship (10) 18 Leadership (6) 12 Survival (6) 12 Stealth (6) 16 Indian Customs (6) 12 Perception (10) 18 Tracking (4) 10 Swimming (4) 14 Climbing (4) 14 Crow The Plains Indians not only received the horse from the Spaniards but adapted Spanish design for much of the gear their mounts wore. Plains women, for example, rode in heavy wooden saddles reminiscent of the war saddles of the conquistadors. Warriors, on the other hand, generally rode bareback, particularly when hunting or engaging in combat. Sometimes, however, they used small, flexible saddles of hide stuffed with buffalo hair or grass. Bridles were woven of buffalo hair or braided rawhide, and after trade was opened with the whites, steel bits were sometimes used to control and guide the mount. But more often a Plains Indian disdained the bit and achieved the same control with a rawhide thong fastened to his animal's lower jaw. Among the most notable horsemen of the Northern Plains were the Crows. Only the Comanches, whose hunting grounds were far to the south, owned as many mounts. The Crows, a tall and strikingly handsome people, gloried in ornamenting their mounts with richly decorated saddles, bridles, collars, and blankets. Such superbly fashioned trappings were the work of the tribeswomen, whose skill at tanning and embroidering was unrivaled throughout the grasslands. Thanks to the talents of theses women, the horses of the Crows were nearly as richly adorned as the mounts of knights in medieval Europe. Like the Comanches, the Crows were inveterate horse raiders and would take almost any kind of risk to increase the size of their herds. At times they would even swoop far to the south of their accustomed range to raid the much vaunted Comanches and make off with their superbly trained mounts. Medicine Crow (Crow War Chief) STR: 9 Damage Points: 31 AGI: 12 Height: 71" CON: 10 Weight: 175 lbs INT: 8 Age: 27 years CHA: 12 Skills: Roll Modifier: Hand Guns (2) 14 Rifles and Shotguns (12) 24 Archery (12) 22 Hand-to-Hand Combat (9) 18 Leadership (12) 23 Horse Riding (12) 24 Horsemanship (12) 22 Survival (4) 12 Swimming (4) 16 Climbing (4) 16 Tracking (6) 14 Indian Customs (8) 16 Perception (6) 15 Stealth (12) 23 Kiowas The Kiowas had traveled over part of the same migration path as the Cheyennes 50 years earlier. Coming out of the mountains in the upper Missouri River region, they had moved to the Black Hills, had learned the ways of Plains Indian life from the Crows and had turned south. In the late 18th Century they had met the Comanches on the southern plains, fought them and made peace with them. The Kiowas were a smallish tribe, only about a tenth the size of their powerful neighbors, the Comanches, for instance. But they possessed a full measure of the horseback panache and exultant fighting spirit that, in time, would make Plains tribes seem the model of the American Indian. Sitting Bear (Kiowa War Chief) STR: 10 Damage Points: 30 AGI: 10 Height: 72" CON: 10 Weight: 180 lbs. INT: 10 Age: 36 years CHA: 10 Skills: Roll Modifier: Rifles and Shotguns (5) 15 Archery (10) 20 Hand-to-Hand Combat (10) 20 Leadership (10) 20 Survival (5) 15 Swimming (2) 12 Climbing (3) 13 Stealth (5) 15 Tracking (2) 12 Perception (10) 20 Indian Customs (10) 20 Horse Riding (7) 17 Horsemanship (1) 11 Mandans Long before the white man or the horse arrived on the Plains, the Mandans came to live along the Missouri River. From their villages, built atop rises, the men of this tribe conducted religious ceremonies, honed their martial skills, and formed hunting parties in summer to pursue the buffalo across the grasslands. Women descended from the villages onto the rich riverbank lands to cultivate corn, squash, sunflowers, and beans. When the land was exhausted and supplies of wood used up, these people moved on, up the Missouri. In the 400 years before white traders appeared, this tribe slowly migrated from the middle reaches of the Missouri into the North Dakota heartland. From the earliest days along the Missouri the Mandans prospered, their surplus crops providing produce with which to trade with other tribes. When the first white man, French explorer and trader Sieur de la Verendrye, arrived in 1738, the Mandans numbered about 9,000. By 1750 the Mandans were using both guns and horses, but they remained primarily a farming people. Two chiefs, one a warrior, the other a civil leader, led each village. Though the Mandans were able fighters, both preferred peaceful relations with their neighbors, the better to carry on trade. After the Europeans arrived, the Mandans, in particular, maneuvered shrewdly to become intermediaries between the whites and the tribes farther west. Hide shirts and buffalo robes from the Plains changed hands for European cloth in barter sessions often held in Mandan villages. But if the whites brought new prosperity, they also brought disease. La Verendrye had hardly departed before smallpox struck the Mandans, the first of several epidemics. In the great epidemic of 1837 the tribesmen succumbed by the hundreds; only 125 survived. Among the victims was the Mandan chief Four Bears. As he lay dying, he gave voice to his bitterness at the whites; "Four Bears never saw a White Man hungry, but what he have him to eat...and how have they repaid it!...I do not fear Death...but to die with my face rotten, that even the Wolves will shrink...at seeing Me, and say to themselves, that is Four Bears, the Friend of the Whites." Four Bears (Mandan Chief) STR: 10 Damage Points: 34 AGI: 12 Height: 72" CON: 12 Weight: 165 lbs. INT: 9 Age: 43 years CHA: 10 Skills: Roll Modifier: Hand Guns (1) 13 Rifles and Shotguns (6) 18 Archery (10) 21 Hand-to-Hand Combat (8) 18 Leadership (6) 15 Indian Customs (9) 18 Horse Riding (10) 22 Survival (2) 12 Climbing (2) 14 Swimming (2) 14 Tracking (2) 11 Perception (6) 16 Stealth (2) 14 Navaho From birth to death the Navajo people walk along a tortuous path laid out for them by supernatural beings, the Holy People. That path is both perilous and rewarding, for to stray from its narrow confines is to invite the wrath of the spirits, while to maintain a steady course is to ensure one's harmony with the universe and its supernatural forces. Good health, contentment, and a measure of prosperity are the rewards for following the Holy People's way. Sickness, death, bad luck, and grief are the punishments that the spirits exact for the slightest wayward action or expression. To ease their passage down this difficult way of life, the Navajos sing. Good-luck songs ward off danger while the people work in the fields or in the family dwelling place, which is called the hogan. There are ceremonial chants to cure the sick and restore their harmony with the universe, and other hymns to mark important milestones between an infant's first laugh and the ripeness of age. The songs of the Navajos express their vision of the world and the traditions that guide them through their lives. The Navajos are a people who live in an awareness of the catastrophe that will befall them should any of the hundreds of strictures on day-to-day living be ignored or violated. As the Navajos settled down in the Southwest, they opened their eyes and ears to the wonders around them and adopted many Pueblo practices, beliefs, and a large part of their mythology, molding them to their own uses. In later years, when the Pueblo peoples were battling with the Spaniards, many of the Pueblos fled to Navajo lands to live among these less sophisticated Indians and teach them such crafts as weaving and pottery-making. Soon the people were wearing blankets they had made and growing their own corn. Although village life held no appeal for the Navajos, they needed permanent settlements now that they were tillers of the soil and well as huntsmen. Acknowledging neither central authority nor tribal community, they built their homes in small, family-sized groups, each cluster miles away from its neighbors. If Pueblo influence added much to the people's culture, so too did that of the Spaniards. The Navajos watched, fascinated, as the 16th-century Spanish colonists moved into the Pueblo lands with their impressive train of goods-laden carts and herds of sheep, cattle, and horses. In lightning raids upon the fledgling Spanish settlements, the Navajos made off with fresh spoils: knee breeches, silver baubles, and - best of all - numerous sheep and horses. With considerable foresight the Navajos refrained from eating the sheep they stole, unlike the neighboring Comanches and Apaches, who also delighted in raids on Spanish holdings. Instead, the Navajos used the sheep to build up herds for future meals and a self-perpetuating supply of wool. Their women learned to shear, spin, and dye this new material, and wove it into blankets and breechcloths. But sheep require grazing land. As the herds grew over the decades, Navajo families drifted westward in search of grass, and Navajo dwellings grew farther apart. Many families built two or more hogans, and moved from one to another as weather and the needs of the herds dictated. The Navajos, cousins of the Apaches, were fighters, but had learned small-scale farming, sheep raising and weaving from the Pueblo Indians and the Spaniards. Che (Navajo Clan Father) STR: 6 Damage Points: 24 AGI: 8 Height: 68" CON: 10 Weight: 155 lbs INT: 12 Age: 64 years CHA: 10 Skills: Roll Modifier: Rifles and Shotguns (2) 10 Archery (8) 14 Leadership (10) 21 Tracking (2) 14 Agriculture (12) 23 Perception (10) 21 Survival (8) 19 Swimming (1) 9 Climbing (1) 9 Stealth (3) 12 Indian Customs (12) 24 Horse Riding (4) 12 Horsemanship (10) 20 Hand-to-Hand Combat (2) 8 Pawnee The Pawnees had moved from present-day east Texas sometime about the 13th century. On their ancestral land they had been chiefly a farming people, and in their new homes they maintained their old ways. Probably drought, combined with population pressure, had forced the Pawnees from their ancient and once-fertile homeland onto the rich riverbanks of the Platte and its tributaries more than 300 miles away. When the Pawnees moved north they found the Plains sparsely populated, for many of the nomadic bands had long since been driven from the central grasslands by drought. But the rivers began flowing again, at least in the eastern realm of the grasslands, and the earth offered promise of ample harvests. There the Indians planted corn, squash, and beans, gathered and hunted in the woods along the river's edge and, during the summer and early fall, roamed the Plains in pursuit of buffalo. For the Pawnees life in their new homes was secure, almost rich. The tribe grew prosperous, its numbers increased to such an extent that their few villages along the eastern Platte grew too crowed and new settlements to the west were created. Within these villages the Pawnees lived in lodges built of logs and covered by layers of dirt and grass. But wherever a village might be located, Pawnee life was governed by the cultivation of crops, particularly corn, and the herding habits of the buffalo on the nearby grasslands. Before the late 1600's, when the Pawnees first secured horses, hunting was done on foot. So numerous were the buffalo that the Pawnees could usually pick and choose among the animals. When the bands returned to the villages after the summer hunt, the corn, squash, and beans were nearly ready for harvest. This was a period of relaxation, of gossiping, and of games of chance and skill. Men were the usual players of these games in which skins, dogs, stored food, and clothing were wagered. Although the scattered settlements of the Pawnees constituted a tribe, there was little important contact among the communities. Each village was basically autonomous, governed by several chiefs as well as by priests who directed religious observances, shamans who cured the ill and prophesied the future, and notable warriors whose bravery had given them high status. There were, of course, many who fit into none of these categories. But an ordinary man could rise in the esteem of his fellow villagers and assume, by common consent, the roll of a leader. In large measure a Pawnee leader owed his status to the possession of a sacred bundle, a buffalo skin containing such items with supernatural powers as a pipe, pigments, tobacco, and corn. Although a bundle could be purchased, it was usually passed on from father to son. Its powers were derived from a star, under whose direction the bundle was assembled. Because the heavenly bodies played a dominant role in Pawnee religion, these gifts from above were held in awe. Although Pawnee customs differed in detail from those of other river peoples of the Plains, in general the pattern of life was quite similar, revolving around farming and the hunt. Sky Chief (Pawnee Chief) STR: 8 Damage Points: 26 AGI: 10 Height: 70" CON: 8 Weight: 175 lbs. INT: 10 Age: 28 years CHA: 8 Skills: Roll Modifier: Hand Guns (2) 12 Rifles and Shotguns (6) 16 Archery (6) 15 Tracking (10) 19 Leadership (9) 18 Stealth (2) 11 Survival (2) 11 Indian Customs (10) 20 Perception (10) 19 Hand-to-Hand Combat (4) 12 Swimming (4) 14 Climbing (2) 12 Agriculture (10) 19 Horse Riding (5) 15 Sioux The Sioux were the most powerful Indians on the northern plains, about 20,000 strong, well equipped with firearms, and imbued with the spirit of conquest. For more than a century they had been moving steadily west from the headwaters of the Mississippi River. First they drive the Omahas and the Iowas from the coveted hunting lands in present-day South Dakota; then they swept inexorably on toward the Black Hills, where they confronted and overcame the Kiowas and the Cheyennes, compelling them to flee southward. In 1822, still on the move, they won a victory over the Crows and established their dominance over much of eastern Wyoming. Sitting Bull (Sioux War Chief) STR: 10 Damage Points: 36 AGI: 14 Height: 72" CON: 12 Weight: 175 lbs INT: 8 Age: 45 years CHA: 10 Skills: Roll Modifier: Hand Guns (4) 18 Rifles and Shotguns (12) 26 Archery (14) 26 Leadership (10) 19 Indian Customs (8) 16 Horse Riding (10) 24 Horsemanship (6) 16 Tracking (6) 16 Survival (6) 16 Hand-to-Hand Combat (10) 20 Perception (8) 18 Swimming (1) 15 Climbing (1) 15 Stealth (6) 19 Crazy Horse (Sioux War Chief) STR: 12 Damage Points: 38 AGI: 12 Height: 70" CON: 14 Weight: 185 lbs. INT: 11 Age: 35 years CHA: 9 Skills: Roll Modifier: Hand Guns (6) 18 Rifles and Shotguns (10) 22 Archery (12) 24 Hand-to-Hand Combat (12) 24 Leadership (10) 20 Indian Customs (10) 21 Survival (6) 18 Stealth (8) 21 Tracking (8) 20 Swimming (2) 14 Climbing (4) 16 Perception (10) 22 Horse Riding (10) 22 Horsemanship (5) 16 First Aid (1) 12