ARAPAHO, an Algonkin Plains tribe, bison hunting, and tepee dwelling, on the upper Platte and Arkansas at the time of first white settlement, now on reservations in Wyoming and Okla homa. About 1,50o survive of the former 3,000-4,000. Besides the northern and southern divisions now recognized, there are submerged remnants of two or three other groups, once perhaps tribally independent, since they spoke distinct dialects ; besides the Atsina or Gros Ventre, close to the Arapaho in speech, but chiefly associated with the Blackfoot during the 19th century. Arapaho is one of the most divergent Algonkin languages, suggest ing that its speakers have been long separated from the body of the stock, presumably on or at the edge of the Plains. (They were non-agricultural and clanless, kept a bundle containing a tubular pipe as tribal fetish and were divided into seven age-graded ritual societies for men and one for women, besides practising the Sun dance in elaborate form. Their ceremonial system, deco rative art and other traits indicate them as one of the nuclear or typical tribes participating in Plains culture. They adhered vig orously to the messianic Ghost dance religion of 1889-91.
See A. L. Kroeber, Bull. Amer. Museum Natural Hist., vol. xvifii., 1902 ; G. A. Dorsey, Field Mus. Publ. Anthr. Ser., vol. iv., 1903; Dorsey and Kroeber, ibid., vol. v., 1903.