Preface
The Cheyenne followed their own way of life on the Great Plains of the United States of America until the end of the 19th Century. The coming together of three great natural phenomena – the horse, unlimited grasslands and the buffalo – must have seemed heaven sent; the Cheyenne embraced it wholeheartedly. Their life of hunting and war, underpinned by spirituality, was not of course without risk or danger. Surviving nature’s occasional scarcities and warfare with other tribes for horses or captives was natural to the Cheyenne. A less natural struggle was the resistance to the gradual encroachment of Europeans who were determined to turn America into their own form of continental Paradise. The Cheyenne, in common with all other native peoples, eventually succumbed. Despite that, the Cheyenne are still with us today – on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Lame Deer, Montana.
This book has fictional characters set against a real culture with a real history. Some of the tribal structures and ceremonies are fictional though they are set in the same pattern of those that actually existed. Most of the historical events are true and well documented; I just wanted to add the Cheyenne perspective.
This book is neither a hagiography of the Cheyenne nor a condemnation of US expansion. It is about human beings dealing with hunger and plenty, war and peace, friendship and enmity, birth and death.
Tom McMullen
Cumbria
England
