Social Traditions
Source: Omaha Public Library
The marriage traditions of the Arapaho are very interesting when compared to traditional western marriage practices. After men could prove their hunting skills and that they were ready and able to provide for a family they were able to marry. This usually occurred in the man’s late 20’s or early 30’s. When it came time to marry for a woman, she was in typically in her late teens. The most interesting aspect to the marital traditions is that the marriages were arranged. Usually the woman’s older brother, father or uncle made the arrangement. The man was typically a friend of the brother. However, sometimes if a man of the tribe noticed a woman that he wished to marry he would often make contact with the brother, uncle or father of the woman. Although the marriages were arranged, the woman had the right to refuse the arrangement, however this was very uncommon because of the pressures put on the woman by her family to marry whom they chose. One Arapaho woman who was married in 1868 said:
“It was almost sundown…I pulled my shawl over my head and face and cried, but kept on running…It was getting dark. The owls were already hooting. I was “wild”! While I was still running, a horse passed me and circled around me…A woman grabbed me, landed me on the horse, and took me back to camp…I still insisted that I wasn’t going to be married to him…In the morning my unlces talked to me, and then I was willing to be married.” (Fowler 30)
Another interesting aspect to marital practices of the Arapaho is that they practiced polygamy. Only men were able to have more than one wife. Usually the number of wives depended on the “wealth” or accomplishment of the man (men typically had two wives). The two women lived in separate tepees. The first wife would act as “head housekeeper and would often delegate the housekeeping tasks to the other wife or wives. The man would often marry one of the sisters of his first wife. This happened because the man had already gained the respect of the family and the two women would find it easy to get along since they were sisters. Although a man would marry two or more women from the same family, interbreeding was strictly avoided from within the family.
“On the day of the wedding, the groom’s family brought horses and other gifts to the bride’s family, and the bride’s family responded by giving an equivalent amount of property. After this exchange, the bride’s family set up a tipi and furnished it, then invited the groom and his family there for a feast. At this feast the bride and groom sat together publicly for the first tiem, the marriage was announced, and elders prayed for the couple and instructed them on how to live a proper married life. The two families again exchanged presents, competing the marriage ceremony. Men gave horses and sometimes quivers (a case for carrying arrows), bows and arrows, and saddles. Women gave robes, clothing, and other household goods. Throughout the marriage, a woman retained her own property; she owned horses and the tipi and its furnishings.” (Fowler 30)
The above text is adapted from author Loretta Fowler in her book Arapaho
(ISBN #079100371X)
The Arapaho society was very well socially organized. From the time boys were about 10 to 12 years in age they were separted from the girls and joined the first of many lodges that they would join in their lifetime. This lodge was known as the Kit Fox Lodge. While working with elders and learning the ways of life the boys would gain skills and slowly progress to the next lodge. With each lodge came a different set of ceremonies and rituals for the boys to learn. As they attained greater skills they were able to move on to the next highest lodge.
8 Lodges total
-2 for youths, five for men and one for women.
Youth
Kit Fox Lodge
Skill and Bravery
Star Lodge
Men
Tomahawk
Spear
Crazy
Dog
Men moved from lodge to lodge as they attained greater experience and skills.
Women
Seven old Women (Medicine Women)
Taught embroidery and other handiwork
The Arapaho believed that humans were endowed by the Creator with the ability to think, and that thought itself could cause things to happen. All Arapaho traveled thru four stages, or "hills of life", childhood, youth, adulthood and old age. The duties, responsibilities, and privileges changed at each stage. The Arapaho equated the life stages with the movement of the sun, the four cardinal directions and the progress of the seasons.
The shape, quality, and phasing of life were constituted through ritual practices that activated social relations and interconnected meanings on different levels. This section will outline the life movement of the arapaho - from birth to death.
Role of Men
Social and Political Functions
| Age Grade | Function |
| Kit Foxes and Stars | Servants for the other lodges |
| Clubboards and Spears | Use of physical force |
| Crazy Men | Rituals and medicine |
| Dogs | Chiefship |
| Old Men | Learning sacred knowledge |
| Seven Old Men | Painting, guiding |
Role of Women
Women's personhood and associated social functions were less precisely phased through age grading but nonetheless evolved with life movement along paths parallel to those of the men. Throughout a women's life, her roles, as expressed in ritual, stressed childbearing and child rearing, life transitions within kinship relations, the transformation of raw materials into cultural forms, the provision of items for exchange and cooperative work for the men's age grades and other lodges.
The Four Hills
All the elements that make up a man and a women's life are brought together in a synthesis which is known as the four hills model.
The Four Hills and Men's and Women's Rituals
Men | Women | |
| First Hill | Childhood rituals Kit Foxes and Stars | Childhood rituals |
| Second Hill | Clubboard and Spear | Buffalo Lodge |
| Third Hill | Crazy Men Dogs | Quillwork |
| Fourth Hill | Old Men Seven Old Men | Seven Old Women |
For both genders and all ages, the ceremonies were not clear and distinct in elements and meanings. Ritualized life movement combined both continuities and transitions. Each ceremony expressed values, relations, and types of activities appropriate to its particular stage, but also repeated some others from previous stages and included others that were transitional or that anticipated subsequent stages.
Information from The Four Hills of Life by Jeffrey Anderson,
University of Nebraska Press, 2001.
Natives of different groups have their own special ways to play the Hoop and Pole game, but in all the games a person tosses a long dart of some kind at a circular hoop. In this version of the game the hoop is rolled along the ground, set into motion by a third player, while the two other players throw their pole as the hoop rolls in front of them. The score depends on how or if the pole falls on or through the hoop.
Some hoops are made by bending a branch into a circle and tying the ends with rawhide. Other hoops are made from bundled corn husks, cedar bark or other plants and are wrapped with rawhide or colored yarn, and some with beads attached to the inside to divide up the ring. Some hoops use rawhide lacing stretched across the hoop to divide it in two halves or into quarters. And many hoops have a web of string woven onto them, which divides up the hoop into different sections and shapes like squares, rectangles and triangles. These different shapes in the web can then be used to determine the score when the dart lands in them.
Traditionally, the Arapaho use a net of buckskin lacing. The holes of the web vary in shape and each has it’s own name and value. The large square in the center is the heart; the rectangles coming out in four directions are the buffalo bulls; the last rectangle at the edges of the hoop are buffalo cows; the four groups of small triangles in between the rectangles are the buffalo calves; the large pentagonal holes along the edge of the ring are the wolves; the small holes at the edge of the ring are the coyotes (on either side of the rectangles called cows). This game ends when the first player reaches a certain number of points decided before hand. Other ways of keeping score would be to reach a certain number of total points or for one player to try and acquire all the poles of the other player. Using this method, each player in turn throws one pole. If one player’s pole pierces the hoop while the other misses, the player who hit the hoop takes the pole of the player that misses. If both players miss, or both players hit the hoop, they pick up their own poles and each take another turn. This game ends when one player has captured all the other poles. Different kinds of darts were made by Native Americans of different groups too. Some poles were simply a pointed stick; some sticks were only a few inches long while other sticks were several feet long and looked more like spears. Sometimes the sticks were painted or carved, or had feathers tied to one end. Some poles have forked ends, or hooks or barbs, to catch on the hoop so that it would not pass all the way through.