Social life of the Crow Indians / by Robert H. Lowie.

  • Robert Lowie
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Social life of the Crow Indians / by Robert H. Lowie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/72 page 185
    “The statement regarding the separation of the Mountain and River Crow is from Agent Pease (Indian Affairs Report for 1871, p. 420, 1872), who says: ‘They separated some twelve years since’ |i. e. about 1859]. Hayden (p. 394), writing about 1860, gives them three bands, two of which roved in the Wind River moun- tains, the Bighorn mountains and on the upper Platte, while the third ranged, ‘along the valley of the Yellowstone, from mouth to source.’ The Mountain and River Crows are mentioned separately in the Indian Commissioner’s Report for 1866 (p. 175). Clark (Indian Sign Language, 134, 1885) says the separation was due to the attacks of the Cheyenne and Arapaho, by whom a part of the Crow were forced north of the Missouri River ‘and joining the Grosventres of the Prairie [Atsinal, remained there for some years and became known as the River Crows.’ The facts of Cheyenne and Arapaho history would seem to make this considerably earlier than 1859, if true at all, but as the Atsina are allies of the Blackfeet. the hereditary enemies of the Crow, I incline to doubt Clark’s story.” Major Pease is thus made to figure as the authority for the statement in the Handbook. However, in the summer of 1912 I had occasion to meet this gentleman and bring the matter to his personal notice, and he assured me that he had been misinterpreted as he was convinced that the division into River and Mountain Crow went back at least several decades before the date cited. This view is corroborated by my Indian informants, the oldest of whom declare that the separation took place before their time. There is also documentary evidence. Thus, Leonard (1834) writes that the Crow “are divided into two divisions of an equal number in each — there being too great a number to travel together, as they could not. get game in many places to supply such a force. Each division is headed by a separate chief.”’ Unfortunately, Leonard does not localize his two divisions, but according to Mr. Curtis, Mountain Crow and River Crow figured as separate bands in a” treaty with the Government in 1825.2. The same writer, on the basis of traditional evidence, seems to incline to the view that the dual ?® division of the Crow may date back even to the period of their separation from the Hidatsa, though the tendency towards definite segregation set in only in the early part of the nineteenth century.’ The present grouping of the tribe on the Crow Reservation in south- eastern Montana does not correspond to the older local divisions. There’ are five, or six,° districts, viz., Black Lodge, Reno, Lodge Grass, Bighorn, and Pryor. Of these Pryor, owing to its geographical position and the difficulty of crossing the Bighorn River during certain parts of the year, is Sela Cee 20D. 2 IV, p. 41. 3 The third division mentioned above is regarded by Mr. Curtis as having been merely in an incipient stage. 4 Ibid., pp. 42-43, 47. 5 The Bighorn District is divided into an Upper and a Lower District.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3