Arapaho

Introduced in: Native Lights

Appearance
Arapaho has a buckskin coloration, or light golden with a black or deep brown mane and tail. He has black points (stockings) and white socks on all four legs. Arapaho also has a white blaze on his snout. His hooves are tan in front and gray in back. He wears a white and black feather in his chocolate brown mane, and has a necklace of leather surrounded at the base by cougar claws. There is also a painted-on cougar pawprint on his right flank.

Personality
Arapaho is incredibly honest, sometimes too much so! He loves spending time with his cougar friend taking long hikes through his mountainous home. He is very responsible and always keeps his promises.

Tribe
The Tribe this steed is based on are the Arapaho. They originally called themselves “The Bison Path People” because they followed the migration of the buffalo across the northern plains. The name Arapaho is derived from the Pawnee word for ‘trader’ because the Arapaho were renowned fur and hide traders.

Arapaho lived in cone-shaped, hide-covered dwellings called tipis, which they could quickly put up, take down, and move. They began using horses in the late 1700s. The Arapaho had complex relations with other plains nations. They were allied with the Cheyenne and enemies of the Crow. They had adversarial relations with the Pawnees, the Comanche and the Kiowa in the east, and the Ute and Shoshone in the west.

Central to the Arapaho culture was the Sun Dance, a ceremony that lasted for days, and which included rituals, fasting and sleep deprivation. Present day Arapahos have the seventh largest reservation in the United States: the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, which encompasses an area of 3,700 square miles.

Inspirational Message
"Show you are responsible by always telling the truth."