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Beyond The Violence Indian Agriculture, White Removal, And The Unlikely Construction Of The Northern Cheyenne Reservation, 1876-1900, James R. Allison Iii

Great Plains Quarterly

Upon first glance, a specific act of violence seemed to fix the particular location of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. On December 12, 1880, the prominent Northern Cheyenne chief, Little Wolf, staggered into a white-owned trading store near Fort Keogh, Montana Territory, and, in a drunken stupor, shot and killed a fellow Cheyenne named Starving Elk. Enraged at Starving Elk for gambling with his daughter, Little Wolf committed the most atrocious act a Cheyenne could commit, the killing of another Cheyenne. Blood spilled within the tribe polluted the Mahuts, the four sacred arrows the Creator gave to the Cheyenne people to …