Reminiscences of a Cheyenne Indian. - article ; n°1 ; vol.27, pg 129-143

Biren Bonnerjea

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Journal de la Société des Américanistes - Année 1935 - Volume 27 - Numéro 1 - Pages 129-143
15 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique

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• Publié par: JOURNAL_DE_LA_SOCIETE_DES_AMERICANISTES
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1935
• Nombre de lectures: 79
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

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Biren Bonnerjea
Reminiscences of a Cheyenne Indian.
In: Journal de la Société des Américanistes. Tome 27 n°1, 1935. pp. 129-143.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Bonnerjea Biren. Reminiscences of a Cheyenne Indian. In: Journal de la Société des Américanistes. Tome 27 n°1, 1935. pp.
129-143.
doi : 10.3406/jsa.1935.1920
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/jsa_0037-9174_1935_num_27_1_1920REMINISCENCES OF A CHEYENNE INDIAN
By Biren BONNERJEA,
D. Litt. Paris), F. R. A. Í.
The following notes -were collected during the latter part of May and
the beginning of June 1934 in Washington, D. G. My informant was
Thomas Otterby, a Cheyenne Indian, son of Michael Otterby (a half-blood
Cheyenne [?], whose father was a Frenchman and mother a Blackfoot
Indian woman) and Picking Bones (a full blood Cheyenne woman). The
Cheyenne name of Thomas Otterby is Ma"i Nits'a, « Red Eagle ».
Otterby spoke only Cheyenne until he was iifteen years of age. He was
born in 1871 in Colorado, and is therefore 63 years of age. In 1886, at
the age of fifteen, he went to the Cheyenne School at Darlington, Okla.
(then Indian Territory), where he learned to read, write and speak English.
At the present time he speaks English fairly fluently. He came to
Washington in September 1931 when a « show » with which he was
touring the country went bankrupt. Formerly he had served in the Uni
ted States army as an Indian scout, hence his present domicile in the
Soldiers' Home in the northeastern section of Washington. Physically
Otterby shows traces of European admixture. He is over 6 ft. tall and of
good physique, but inclined to be stout ; he is partly bald — a rare
occurrence among Indians. He is a very intelligent and sympathetic info
rmant, and seems to be genuinely interested in his own people. Many of
his statements I have checked up with available data, and I find that
although he has forgotten many things, and his being a Christian has
made him sceptical of purely Cheyenne ideas, yet his informations are
quite reliable.
I could not get any connected narrative from him, but only scraps of
informations relating to his childhood and matters and incidents connect
ed with it. These notes were obtained during conversations with him
in his room in the Home, and were recorded immediately. Afterwards
with a considerable amount of editing I tried to give his narrative in a
connected form, keeping however to his phraseology as nearly as pos
sible. After I had made a rough narrative of his disconnected scraps of
Société des Américanisles, 1935. О 130 SOCIÉTÉ DES AMÉRICAN1STES
information I read it aloud to Otterby, and he has corrected mistakes I had
made or statements I had misunderstood. In some instances I had pur
posely made a wrong statement, and these were duly corrected. Thus in
one place I had written " The mother takes a sweat bath " ; Otterby
corrected this by saying- : " You are wrong. The mother does not take a
sweat bath, but the doctor does ".
The Cheyenne are an important Plains tribe of the Algonquian family.
Their own name for themselves is D^i'tsustas, " our people "or " the
gashed ones " (compare na tsï'stài, " I am a Cheyenne "). They are first
mentioned in 1680 under the name Chaa1, and their earliest known
habitat before 1700 was in Minnesota. At the present moment they are
mostly in reservations in Montana and in Oklahoma . Originally they
were an agricultural people, but for generations they have been a typi
cally prairie people. They lived in skin tipis which they moved from time
to time ; hunted buffaloes over a wide area ; and travelled and fought on
horseback. In character they are proud, contientious and brave to des
peration, with an exceptionally high standard for women. Their common
method of disposal of the dead was by tree or scait'old burial, and occa
sionally by burial in caves or in the ground.
Dr. Truman Michelson of the Bureau of American Ethnology who at
my request came with me to see Otterby tells me that Otterby, although
he possesses a good command of the Cheyenne language, has probably
lost some of the characteristic pronunciation. I have therefore not tried
to get much linguistic material from him but only ethnographical. Besides
I was working under a great handicap . I met Otterby only a few weeks
before my departure from the United States, and it being summer, he
would give me only very little of folklore material "-. In this connection I
1. P. Margry, Découvertes et établissements des Français (Paris, 1877), II. 54.
2. The prohibition against telling stories at daytime or in summer seems to be
universal among the American Indians. Compare E. W. Giiïord, " The Northfork
" University of California Publications in American Archeology and Ethnology, XXXI Mono,
(1932), p. 53 [Western Mono] ; E. Sapir, " Religious Ideas of the Takelma Indians of
Southwestern Oregon, " Journal of American Folk- Lore, XX (1907), p. 49 [Takelma] ;
F. D. Bergen, " Some Customs and Beliefs of the Winnebago Indians, " ibid., IX
(1896), p. 54 ; ibid., XIII (1900), p. 147 [Winnebago] ; F. G. Speck, " Reptile Lore of
the Northern Indians, " ibid., XXXVI (1923), p. 278 [N. A. Indians (in general)] ;
Id., Myths and Folklore of the Timiskaming Algonkian and Timagami Ojibwa [Memoirs of the
Geological Survey of Canada, vol. 71] (Ottawa, 1915), p. 78 [Timagami] ; R. A. Lowie,
" The Northern Shoshone ", American Museum of Natural History, Anthropological Publicat
ions, II (1909), p. 233 [Shoshone] ; Id., " Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians", OF A CHEYENNE IISDIAN 131 KEMÍiNISCENCES
may mention that Michelson has a large amount of linguistic material
which he expects to publish shortly.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
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— Calendar History of the Kiowa. Ibid., 17 (1898), Part I, pp. 129-445
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Association, I (1907), pp. 361-442.
[A good bibliography is given here