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The 'Dog Soldiers' or 'Dog Men' (Cheyenne '''Hotamitaneo''') was one of six military societies of the Cheyenne Indians. Beginning in the late 1830s, this society evolved into a separate, militaristic band which played a dominant role in Cheyenne resistance to American expansion in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming, often in opposition to the policies of peace chiefs such as Black Kettle. Today the Dog Soldiers society is making a comeback in such areas as the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana and the Cheyenne-Arapaho Indian Reservation in Oklahoma.

Contents

Cheyenne tribal governance

Council of Forty-Four

Military societies

The Dog Soldiers

Emergence as a separate band

Porcupine Bear

Dog Soldier band

Indian wars

Modern Dog Soldiers

Notes

References

Cheyenne tribal governance

Military societies, also called soldier societies, were one of two central institutions of traditional Cheyenne tribal governance, the other being the Council of Forty-Four.^[1]

Council of Forty-Four

The Council of Forty-Four was the council of chiefs, comprising four chiefs from each of the ten Cheyenne bands plus four principal^[2] or "Old Man" chiefs who had previously served on the council with distinction. Council chiefs were generally older men who commanded wide respect; they were responsible for day-to-day matters affecting the tribe as well as the maintenance of peace both within and without the tribe by force of their moral authority.^[3] While chiefs of individual bands held primary responsibility for decisions affecting their own bands, matters which involved the entire tribe such as treaties and alliances required the discussions by the entire Council of Forty-Four.^[4] Chiefs were not chosen by vote, but rather by the Council of Forty-four, which named its own successors, with chiefs generally chosen for periods of ten years at councils held every four years. Many chiefs were chosen from among the ranks of the military societies, but were required to give up their society memberships upon selection.

Military societies

While chiefs were responsible for overall governance of individual bands and the tribe as a whole, the chiefs or headmen of military societies were in charge of maintaining discipline within the tribe, overseeing tribal hunts and ceremonies, and providing military leadership. Chiefs selected which of the six military societies would assume these duties; after a period of time on-duty, the chiefs would select a different society to take up the duties.^[5]
The six military societies included:

★ Dog Men (''Hotamitaneo''), called Dog Soldiers by the whites

★ Bowstring Men (''Himatanohis'') or Wolf Warriors (''Konianutqio''); among the Southern Cheyenne only.

★ Foolish or Crazy Dogs (''Hotamimasaw''); similar to the Bowstrings, but found only among the Northern Cheyenne.

★ Crooked Lance Society (''Himoiyoqis'') or Bone Scraper Society. This was the society of the famous warrior Roman Nose, and also of the mixed-blood Cheyenne George Bent.

★ Red Shields (''Mahohivas'') or Bull Soldiers

★ Kit Fox Men (''Woksihitaneo'')^[6]

The Dog Soldiers

Dog Soldiers were noted as both highly aggressive and effective combatants. One tradition states that in battle they would "pin" themselves to a "chosen" piece of ground, through an unusually long breech-clout "rear-apron", by use of one of three "Sacred Arrows" they would constantly carry into battle.

Emergence as a separate band

Porcupine Bear

Prior to the peace council held at Bent's Fort in 1840, there was enmity between the Cheyennes and Arapaho on one side and the Comanches, Kiowas, and Plains Apaches on the other. In 1837, while raiding the Kiowa horse herds along the North Fork of the Red River, a party of 48 Cheyenne Bowstring Men were discovered and killed by the Kiowas and Comanches.^[7] Porcupine Bear, chief of the Dog Soldiers, took up the war pipe of the Cheyenne and proceeded to carry it to the various Cheyenne and Arapaho camps in order to drum up support for revenge against the Kiowas. He reached a Northern Cheyenne camp along the South Platte River just after it had traded for liquor from American Fur Company men at Fort Laramie. Porcupine Bear joined in the drinking and soon was sitting alone in a corner, very drunk, singing Dog Soldier war songs to himself. Two of his cousins, Little Creek and Around, became caught up in a drunken fight. Little Creek got on top of Around and held up a knife, ready to stab Around; at that point, Porcupine Bear, aroused by Around's calls for help, leapt up in a rage, tore the knife away from Little Creek, and stabbed him with it several times. He then compelled Around to finish Little Creek off.^[8][9]
By the rules governing military societies, a man who had murdered or even accidentally killed another tribe member was prohibited from joining a society, and a society member who committed such a crime was expelled and outlawed.^[10] Therefore Porcupine Bear for his act of murder was expelled from the Dog Soldiers and, along with all his relatives, was made to camp apart from the rest of the tribe.^[11] The Dog Soldiers were also disgraced by Porcupine Bear's act. They were deprived of their leadership in bringing war against the Kiowas. Yellow Wolf reformed the Bowstring Society, which had been nearly annihilated in the fight with the Kiowas, and the task of leading the effort against the Kiowas was entrusted to them.^[12][11] Though outlawed by the main body of the Cheyenne tribe, Porcupine Bear led the Dog Soldiers as participants into battle against the Kiowas and Comanches at Wolf Creek; they were reportedly the first to strike the enemy.^[14] Due to their outlaw status, however, they were not accorded honors.

Dog Soldier band

The outlawing of Porcupine Bear, his relatives, and his followers led to the transformation of the Dog Soldiers from a military society into a separate division of the tribe.^[15] In the wake of a cholera epidemic in 1849 which greatly reduced the Masikota band of Cheyennes,^[16] the remaining Masikota joined the Dog Soldiers; thereafter when the Cheyenne bands camped together, the Dog Soldier band took the position in the camp circle formerly occupied by the Masikota.^[17] Prominent or ambitious warriors from other bands also gradually joined the Dog Soldier band, and over time as the Dog Soldiers took a prominent leadership role in the wars against the whites, the rest of the tribe began to regard them no longer as outlaws but with great respect.
The Dog Soldiers contributed to the breakdown of the traditional clan system of the Cheyennes. Customarily when a man married, he moved to the camp of his wife's band. The Dog Soldiers dropped this custom, instead bringing their wives to their own camp. Other contributors to the breakdown of the clan system were the 1849 cholera epidemic, which killed perhaps half the Southern Cheyenne population,^[18] particularly devastating the Masikota band and nearly wiping out the Oktoguna; and the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, which especially decimated the Wutapai (Black Kettle's band), killed perhaps half of the Hevhaitaniu under Yellow Wolf and Big Man and the Oivimana under War Bonnet, and causing heavy losses also to the Hisiometanio (Ridge Men) under White Antelope. The Dog Soldiers and the Masikota, who had by that time joined the Dog Soldiers, were not present at Sand Creek.^[19]
The Dog Soldiers band took as its territory the headwaters country of the Republican and Smoky Hill rivers in southern Nebraska, northern Kansas, and the northeast of Colorado Territory.^[20][21]They were friends to the Lakota and Brulé Lakotas, who also frequented that area, and often intermarried with the Lakota. Many Dog Soldiers were half-Lakota, including the Dog Soldier chief Tall Bull.
Due to an increasing polarity between the Dog Soldiers and the council chiefs with respect to policy towards the whites, the Dog Soldiers were somewhat divorced from the other Southern Cheyenne bands.^[22] They effectively became a third division of the Cheyenne people, between the Northern Cheyenne who ranged north of the Platte River and the Southern Cheyennes who occupied the area along the Arkansas River. A strong band numbering perhaps 100 lodges, the Dog Soldiers had a generally antagonistic attitude towards the encroaching whites. By the 1860s, as conflict between Indians and whites intensified, the influence wielded by the militaristic Dog Soldiers, together with that of the military societies within other Cheyenne bands, had become a significant counter to the influence of the traditional Council of Forty-Four chiefs, who were more likely to favor peace with the whites.^[20]

Indian wars

In the late 1860s, the Dog Soldiers were crucial in Cheyenne resistance to American expansion. Dog Soldiers refused to sign treaties that limited their hunting grounds and restricted them to a reservation south of the Arkansas River. They attempted to hold their traditional lands at Smoky Hill, but the campaigns of General Philip Sheridan foiled these efforts; most notably, after the Battle of Beecher's Island, many Dog Soldiers were forced to retreat south of the Arkansas River.
In the spring of 1867, they returned north with the intention of joining Red Cloud in Powder River country. They were attacked by General Eugene Carr, however, and instead began raiding settlements on Smoky Hill in revenge. Eventually, the Dog Soldiers fled west into Colorado, under the guidance of Chief Tall Bull. They were attacked by a force composed of Pawnee mercenaries and American cavalry; almost everyone, including Tall Bull, died in the attack near Summit Springs.

Modern Dog Soldiers

Today the Dog Soldiers society is making a comeback in such areas as the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana and the Cheyenne-Arapaho Indian Reservation in Oklahoma.

Notes

1. Greene 2004, p. 9.
2. Hoig 1980, p. 11.
3. Hoig 1980, p. 8.
4. Hoig 1980, p. 12.
5. Hyde 1968, p. 336.
6. Hyde 1968, p. 337.
7. Hoig 1980, p. 30.
8. Hyde 1968, p. 74.
9. Hoig 1980, pp. 48-49.
10. Hyde 1968, p. 335.
11. Hoig 1980, p. 49.
12. Hyde 1968, p. 75.
13. Hoig 1980, p. 49.
14. Hyde 1968, p. 79.
15. Hyde 1968, p. 338.
16. Hyde 1968, p. 97.
17. Hyde 1968, p. 339.
18. Hyde 1968, p. 96.
19. Hyde 1968, p. 159.
20. Greene 2004, p. 26.
21. Hoig 1980, p. 85.
22. Greene 2004, p. 27.
23. Greene 2004, p. 26.

References

★ Broome, Jeff ''Dog Soldier Justice: The Ordeal of Susanna Alderdice in the Kansas Indian War'', Lincoln, Kansas: Lincoln County Historical Society, 2003. ISBN 0-9742546-1-4

★ Brown, Dee. (1970). ''Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West''. Owl Books. ISBN 0-8050-6669-1.

★ Greene, Jerome A. (2004). ''Washita, The Southern Cheyenne and the U.S. Army.'' Campaigns and Commanders Series, vol. 3. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0806135514.

★ Hoig, Stan. (1980). ''The Peace Chiefs of the Cheyennes''. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-1573-4.

★ Hyde, George E. (1968). ''Life of George Bent Written from His Letters''. Ed. by Savoie Lottinville. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-1577-7.