Cheyenne Native American History: Food

Cheyenne Indians loved to eat buffalo and dear meat. However, they are also knowledgeable about the health hazards of eating too much meat which is why they incorporated vegetables into their diet. They consume squash and corn mostly in their diets. Trade existed in Cheyenne society, and they traded fish, fruits, and berries with other Indian tribes. The women were responsible for cooking and adding various flavors and seasoning to the Cheyenne Food.

Cheyenne Food

Cheyenne Food

It is important to know that because the Cheyenne Indians were originally a farming tribe; this is why they focus more on agriculture and farming. This enabled them to continuously supply their families with food to eat. However, they were forced to transfer to the North Dakota region by the Sioux Indians. This prompted them to shift their agricultural lifestyle to a harsher and more challenging hunter-gathering lifestyle.

Through hundreds of years, the men hunted buffalo while the women harvested the crops. This is one of the things in which one can tell that the Cheyenne society is a balanced society where men and women have their own respective responsibilities with regard to supplying the Cheyenne food.

In the start of the 17th century, the Spaniards came to the Americas along with their horses. By the end of the century, there were a lot of wild horses that were roaming the American mainland. The Cheyenne Indians tamed them and eventually learned how to use them. This made them nomadic hunters, instead of farming people. But before the 16th century, the Cheyenne food diet was mostly consisting of fruits and vegetables.

The men and women sometimes helped each other during buffalo hunting sessions. But most of the time, the women are the ones to cook it. Through the passing of years, the buffalo population eventually decreased due to the fact that this was the sole and main source of livelihood of the Cheyennes. When these buffalos became scarce, they resorted to eating fish, deer, fruit, and berries.

The Cheyenne food diet

These Indians were indeed a very versatile people because they were not picky about things to eat. The Cheyenne food diet welcomes anything, to things that they hunted, they gathered, or the ones that they farm. One of the most important things that make the Native Americans, especially the Cheyenne Indians an interesting tribe to understand is that they use and get everything that they can from the animal that they have hunted. They would make various things out of it – food, clothing, shelter, and even decorations and ornaments.

The buffalo skin and any other animal skin are used to make clothes and roofs for their shelters. The animal bones are used to make tools as well as weapons. Hoes and arrows are some of the few examples where these animal bones are used.

The Cheyenne Indians would not only use the animals that they hunted and killed for food, but they also use it for a variety of other things. They made sure that nothing went to waste. They have a strong ideology of utilizing everything from the buffalo because these buffalos are not just animals for them. These are beings and creatures that are part of nature, and that it is a blessing that they should cherish and use properly.

Cheyenne tribe facts, Cheyenne tribe government, Cheyenne tribe religion, Cheyenne tribe art, northern Cheyenne Indian reservation, Cheyenne food, Cheyenne Indian names, Cheyenne tribe traditions