Arapaho - A famous raiding tribe of Plains Indians who have been associated with the Cheyenne for more than a century.  They were horse Indians and buffalo hunters when the white man first came across them.  They observed the Sun Dance like the Cheyenne and Sioux and had similar military societies.  The Arapaho are noted for their beadwork.  Each design is supposed to tell a story, unlike most other Indian designs which are merely for decoration.

A brave and warlike people, the Arapaho are believed to have lived originally in what is now northern Minnesota, moving out toward the Plains about the same time or shortly before the Cheyenne did.  Although they lived with the Cheyenne, and members of the two tribes intermarried, they never learned the Cheyenne language, and they kept their own tribal customs.  For example, they buried their dead in the ground, while the Cheyenne placed theirs on rafters.  With the Cheyenne, the Arapaho ranged eastern Wyoming and eastern Colorado.  At one time they split into three groups - the Northern Arapaho, the Southern Arapaho, and the Gros Ventre of the Prairies, or Atsina.

The name Arapaho has been given to a county and a mountain in Colorado; to localities in Nebraska, North Carolina, Colorado, and Wyoming; and to the county seat of Custer County, Oklahoma.

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