The Arapaho's lived in eastern Colorado and Southeastern Wyoming. They traveled the plains following the buffalo. Between 1810 and 1820, the Arapaho ranged between the North Platte and Arkansas rivers and westward to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
The Arapaho and Cheyenne had formed a strong alliance before 1810, and those two tribes occupied most of eastern Colorado when groups of White settlers began to arrive. They fought for decades with their enemies, the Ute. Battles over hunting grounds were very common.
The name "Arapaho" originates in the Pawnee term "tirapihu," meaning "he buys or trades." The Arapaho became a great trading tribe on the Great Plains. In 1835, the Arapaho tribe divided into the Southern and Northern groups. Oklahoma members are the Southern Arapaho (the largest group). Northern Arapaho live in Wyoming. A treaty with the Arapaho and the Cheyenne in 1867 provided the two tribes with a reservation bounded on the north and east by the Kansas state line and Arkansas River. The Arapaho did not settle on the reservation assigned to them, but instead located their villages south along the North Canadian River. A presidential proclamation in 1869 assigned a new reservation to the Arapaho's, in an area along the North Canadian and the upper Washita Rivers.
The Arapaho's originated near the headwaters of the Mississippi River as far as western Lake Superior. They lived in villages and raised abundant corn crops. Later the tribe migrated and "lost the corn," meaning they ceased to plant corn. They became nomadic buffalo hunters who lived in tipis.
The Arapaho's were master horsemen, buffalo hunters, and raiders. Traders found that the Arapaho were friendly and willing to trade. The Arapaho men would hunt during the day and attend Lodges in the evening. The women put up the tipis, and children gathered firewood. In the morning, the women would gather turnips, berries, and potatoes. During the day, they scraped and stretched the buffalo hides, and in the evening they prepared the meat form the hunt.
The Arapaho's ate dried meat, or pemmican. Pemmican is a mixture of dried meat and berries, blended with tallow. Tallow is fat from buffalo. They also ate stew made from meat and wild roots like turnips or potatoes. Berries and herbal tea were also served.
The Arapaho had many special celebrations. They had feasts when a child was born and when he or she learned to walk and talk. Young boys did the Kit Fox Ceremony, which made them into a group or club. Girls learned how to keep house in support of their husbands. As the boys grew, ceremonies were held to celebrate each achievement, like when they killed their first animal or went on their first buffalo hunt. The more important ceremonies like the Sun Dance and the Lodge Dances were only held once a year.
The clothes they wore were made of animal skins. Men wore buckskin shirts, leggings that covered their legs from ankle to hip, breechcloths, and moccasins. In winter they wore robes of buffalo skin. Women wore dresses almost to their ankles and moccasins with attached leggings that reached the knee and were tied with garters. In the winter, they wore blankets.
The Arapaho's sought the supernatural by fasting, but unlike the other tribes, this was not undertaken until after maturity. This fasting lasted anywhere from one to seven days. After awakening from their trance, they would put together whatever was demanded in the vision for affecting cures; and this constituted the contents of their medicine bag. One of these items was a flat pipe which was used at special events.