Penpal Letter for the Cheyenne Tribe

428 Words2 Pages
Dear penpal, My name is Alinga, meaning sun. I live in the great plains region of North America. Most of our land consists of grasslands, valleys, streams and hills. My tribe is called Cheyenne and we speak the language of Cheyenne. It is musical language that has complicated verbs with many parts. Here is an example of a few words - emese translates to eat and heove translates to yellow. Firstly, I will start with our appearance. You probably visualise us with feathers in our hair and paint smeared across our face to show we are savages who enjoy fighting in war. In actual fact we are a peaceful, tranquil tribe who respect the earth and live in a spiritual way. In reality, men wear animal skin leggings with a belt. They rarely wore shirts but had buffalo furs over their shoulders. Women wear deer skin dresses which are fringed and often decorated with porcupine quills, shells, and elk teeth and jewlerry made of sea shells, metals and beads. We all wear a moccasins. Also, we are not all dark skinned and none of us actually have red skin, suggested by the Pilgrims who met a tribe(Pequot)who painted their skin red. Additionally, we do not have high cheekbones and tie our braids back. Some Indian people are blond-haired and blue-eyed. Some have the features of African Americans. It is best not to make assumptions about ethnic identity solely from outward appearance. Even if the child is a native, he or she is first an individual. As farming people most of our day evolves our food. Men hunt buffalo and antelope with powerful bows and arrows, war clubs, spears, and hide shields while we, at home, grow crops such as maize, beans and pumpkins and gather wild fruits and vegetables. We don't like to waste food so we preserve it by either drying it in the sun or using salt and sugar. Finally, my home is a teepee made of buffalo hides. The door of the

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