Crow people: Difference between revisions

The autonym of the tribe, Apsáalooké or Absaroka,{{refn|Or ''Absahrokee'', ''Absaraka'', ''Absarako'', ''Ab-sar-o-ka'', ''Absaroke'', ''Absaroki'', ''Absoroka''.<ref name="clark">{{cite book |last1=Clark |first1=Patricia Roberts |title=Tribal Names of the Americas: Spelling Variants and Alternative Forms, Cross-Referenced |date=21 October 2009 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-5169-2 |page=10 |language=en}}</ref>}} means "children of the large-beaked bird"<ref>{{citation | last = Johnson| first = Kirk|title=A State That Never Was in Wyoming | newspaper = [[The New York Times]] | date=24 July 2008| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/us/24wpa.html}}</ref> and was given to them by the [[Hidatsa]], a neighboring and related Siouan-speaking tribe. French interpreters translated the name as ''gens du corbeau'' ("people of the crow"), and they became known in English as the Crow. Other tribes also refer to the Apsáalooke as "crow" or "raven" in their own languages.<ref>William C. Sturtevant, ''Handbook of North American Indians: Southwest'' (1979, {{ISBN|0160504007}}), page 714: "Among other tribes the Crow are most commonly designated as 'crow' or 'raven'."</ref> The identity of the bird this name was meant to refer to originally is lost to time, but many Apsáalooké people believe it references the mythical [[Thunderbird (mythology)|Thunderbird]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Crow Expressions|url=https://www.ywhc.org/exhibit/expressions/crow-expressions/|access-date=2021-10-19|website=Western Heritage Center|language=en-US}}</ref>

The River Crows charged a moving Blackfeet camp near [[Judith Gap, Montana|Judith Gap]] in 1845. Father [[Pierre-Jean De Smet]] mourned the destructive attack on the "petite Robe" band.<ref>De Smet, Pierre-Jean (1847): ''Oregon Missions and Travels over the Rocky Mountains in 1845–46.'' New York, p.177.</ref> The Blackfeet chief Small Robe had been mortally wounded and many killed. De Smet worked out the number of women and children taken captive to 160. By and by and with a fur trader as an intermediary, the Crows agreed to let 50 women return to their tribe.<ref>Bedford, Denton R. (1975): The Fight at "Mountains on Both Sides". ''Indian Historian'', Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 13–23, p. 19.</ref>