2. Crow
The Crow, called the Apsáalooke in their
own Siouan language, or variants
including Absaroka, are Native
Americans, who in historical times lived in
the Yellowstone River valley, which
extends from present-day
Wyoming, through Montana and into
North Dakota, where it joins the Missouri
River. Today, they are enrolled in the
federally recognized Crow Tribe of
Montana.
3. Clothing
The Crow wore clothing distinguished by gender.
Women wore simple clothes - dresses made of deer and
buffalo skins, decorated with elk teeth. They covered
their legs with leggings during winter and their feet with
moccasins. Crow women wore their hair in two
braids, unlike the men. Male clothing usually consisted
of a shirt, trimmed leggings with a belt, a robe, and
moccasins. Their hair was long, in some cases reaching
or dragging the ground, and often part was styled into
a pompadour.
4. Enemies and allies
From about 1740, the Plains tribes rapidly adopted the horse, which allowed
them to move out on to the Plains and hunt buffalo more actively.
However, the severe winters in the North kept their herds smaller than those of
Plains tribes in the South. The Crow, Hidatsa, Eastern Shoshone and Northern
Shoshone soon became noted as horse breeders and dealers, and
developed relatively large horse herds. At the time, other eastern and
northern tribes were also moving on to the Plains, in search of game for the fur
trade, bison, and more horses. The Crow were subject to raids and horse thefts
by horse-poor tribes including the powerful Blackfoot Confederacy, Gros
Ventre, Assiniboine, Pawnee, and Ute.[11][12] Later they had to face the
Lakota and their allies, the Arapaho and Cheyenne, who also stole horses
from their enemies. Their greatest enemies became the tribes of the Blackfoot
Confederacy and the Lakota-Cheyenne-Arapaho alliance.
The Crow were generally friendly with the northern Plains tribes of the Flathead
(although sometimes they had conflicts); Nez
Perce, Kutenai, Shoshone, Kiowa and Kiowa Apache. The mighty Iron
Confederacy (Nehiyaw-Pwat) developed as enemies to the Crow. The Iron
Confederacy was Nehiyaw in Plains Cree, Pwat-sak in Assiniboine. It was
named after the dominating Plains Cree and Assiniboine peoples, with the
latter including the Stoney, Saulteaux, Ojibwe, and Métis as the most
powerful.
5.
6. Language
Crow (native name: Apsáalookěi ˈpsáˈɾòˈgè]) is a
Missouri Valley Siouan language spoken primarily by the
Crow Nation in present-day southeastern Montana. It is one
of the larger populations of American Indian languages
with 4,280 speakers according to the 1990 US Census.
It is closely related to Hidatsa spoken by the Hidatsa tribe of
the Dakotas; the two languages are the only members of
the Missouri Valley Siouan family. The ancestor of Crow-
Hidatsa may have constituted the initial split from Proto-
Siouan. Crow and Hidatsa are not mutually
intelligible, however the two languages share many
phonological features, cognates and have similar
morphologies and syntax. The split between Crow and
Hidatsa may have occurred between 300 and 800 years
ago.
7. Subsistence
Where Buffaloes are Driven Over Cliffs at Long Ridge" was a favorite
spot for meat procurement by the Crow Indians for over a
century, from 1700 to around 1870 when modern weapons were
introduced. The Crow used this place annually in the autumn, a
place of multiple cliffs along a ridge that eventually sloped to the
creek. Early in the morning the day of the jump a medicine man
would stand on the edge of the upper cliff, facing up the ridge. He
would take a pair of bison hindquarters and pointing the feet along
the lines of stones he would sing his sacred songs and call upon the
Great Spirit to make the operation a success. After this invocation
the medicine man would give the two head drivers a pouch of
incense. As the two head drivers and their helpers headed up the
ridge and the long line of stones they would stop and burn incense
on the ground repeating this process four times. The ritual was
intended to make the animals come to the line where the incense
was burned, then bolt back to the ridge area.
