Summaries: A B C D E-I J-K L-M N O P Q-R S T-V W X-Z
Cayuga Man
Cayuga – A tribe of the Iroquoian confederation, they formerly occupied the shores of Cayuga Lake, New York. Its local council was composed of four clan kinship groups, which became the pattern of the Iroquoian Confederation. In 1660 they were estimated to number 1,500, but by 1778, they had been reduced to 1,100. Today, four Cayuga bands primarily live in Canada, New York, and Oklahoma.
Cayuse – Of the Waiilatpuan language stock, the Cayuse tribe was originally located in northeastern Oregon and southeastern Washington.
Chactoo – A band of Indians, possibly related to the Atakapa, documented in 1753 as living in Louisiana. In 1805 they were living on Bayou Boeuf, about ten miles south of Bayou Rapide, toward Opelousas and numbered 30 men. They were not Choctaw, and in addition to their own language, they also spoke the Mobilian trade language.
Chakchiuma – A tribe speaking a Choctaw–Chickasaw dialect that formerly lived on the Yazoo River in Mississippi. At that time, they were probably the most populous of the Yazoo tribes. They lived in a walled town during Hernando de Soto’s Expedition in 1540-41. During the 18th century, they were included in the Chickasaw confederacy and had a reputation of being warlike. Later, they moved to the east side of the Mississippi River with the Choctaw and Chickasaw and settled on the Tallahatchie River.
Chakankni – A Molala band formerly settled in the Cascade Range, northwest of Upper Klamath Lake, on the headwaters of Rogue River in Oregon. By the 1880s, they were rapidly becoming absorbed by the neighboring tribes and had practically given up their own language for that of the Klamath.
Chatot – Related to the Choctaw, this band lived south of Fort St. Louis in Mobile Bay, Alabama, in 1709 when French colonizer Sieur de Bienville wanted to establish a settlement there. The Chatot spoke both the French and Choctaw languages. Another band by the same name also lived in the upper Apalachicola River and Chipola River basins in Florida. This group had a Muskogean language, which may have been the same as that of the Pensacola tribe. By 1675, the Spanish had established several missions for the Chatot.
Chaui – A tribe of the Pawnee Confederacy, they held a prominent place in the Council of the Confederacy, their head chiefs outranking all others. In 1833 they ceded to the United States their lands south of Platte River, Nebraska, and in 1857 all lands on the north side of the river when the Pawnee Reservation on Loup River in mid-central Nebraska was established. After the state of Nebraska was admitted into the Union, the state government extinguished the tribe’s rights to their land. It soon sold the land and used the proceeds to defray expenses to obtain lands in the Indian Territory for a new reservation in 1876. The tribe was then relocated to Oklahoma. In 1892, their land was again taken in severalty, and tribal members became citizens of the United States. Later, in 1964, the Pawnee Nation was paid $7,316,096.55 for undervalued ceded land from the previous century.
Chaushila – A Yokut tribe that formerly lived in central California, north of Fresno River, probably on the lower Chowchilla River. Their neighbors on the north were of Moquelumnan stock. Extinct today, they are often confused with but are distinct from the Chowchilla tribe.
Chitimacha Indians by François Bernard, 1870
Chawasha – The Chawasha people are an Indian tribe of Louisiana who formerly lived on the Bayou La Fourche and eastward to the Gulf of Mexico and across the Mississippi River. Today, they are part of the federally recognized tribe of the Chitimacha.
Chehalis – A collective name for several Salishan tribes who lived on the Chehalis River and its affluents and on Grays Harbor in Washington. Today, the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation is a federally recognized tribe that includes the Upper and Lower Chehalis, Klallam, Muckleshoot, Nisqually, and Quinault peoples.
Chelamela – A small Kalapuya Family division formerly living on Long Tom Creek, a western tributary of the Willamette River in Oregon. They were included in the Dayton treaty of 1855. Nothing is known about their customs, and they are now extinct.
Chelan – The Chelan Indians were an interior Salish people, speaking the Wenatchi dialect, who originally lived on the outlet of Lake Chelan in Washington. They are now one of the twelve bands or tribes that make up the federally recognized Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.
Chemehuevi Indians of the Colorado River Region in 1861
Chemehuevi – The Chemehuevi people, a branch of the Southern Paiute tribe, were nomadic residents of the Mojave Desert’s mountains and canyons and the Colorado River shoreline in Arizona and Colorado for thousands of years. The Chemehuevi reservation encompasses approximately 32,000 acres, including 30 miles of the Colorado River. It includes more than 700 members of the Chemehuevi tribe. It is located in Havasu Lake, California.
Chepenafa – A Kalapuya tribe, sometimes regarded as a subdivision of the Lakmiut, formerly lived at St Marys Creek, forks, near Corvallis, Oregon. They were nearly wiped out by disease by the 1830s, and in 1855, the few left were removed to the Grand Ronde Reservation, which still exists today. By 1870 they numbered just 49 people, and in 1910, only 24. The Grande Ronde Reservation, officially known as Marys River Indians, consists of 27 Native American tribes.
Cheraw – The Cheraw were an important tribe in their region, probably of Siouan stock. They formerly ranged east of the Blue Ridge, from about present-day Danville, Virginia, southward to the Cheraw, South Carolina neighborhood. The tribe is extinct today.
Cherokee horsemen of Texas
Cherokee – (also called Tsalagi) The Cherokee first lived in the American Southeast, mostly in Tennessee and Georgia. Depending upon natural resources for survival, they built homes from branches and stalks woven together to make frame buildings. The Cherokee were spread throughout the southeast in about 200 villages, each having as many as 60 houses. Hunting game for meat, they were also considered to be excellent farmers. The Cherokee were forcibly deported to Oklahoma along the infamous Trail of Tears.
Chesapeake – Little known about the name than it was designated to the small Powhatan tribe that once resided in Princess Anne and Norfolk Counties of Virginia. In 1608 their principal village was situated on the Lynnhaven River in Princess Anne County, at which time they were estimated to have about 350 people. Half a century later, they had entirely disappeared as distinct people.
Chetco – A group of former Athapascan villages situated on each side of the mouth of and about 14 miles up the Chetco River in Oregon. The people then resided in nine villages and were closely allied to the Tolowa of California, from whom they differed but slightly in language and customs.