Dog Soldiers

The Dog Soldiers or Dog Men (Cheyenne Hotamétaneo'o) are historically one of six military societies of the Cheyenne Indians. Beginning in the late 1830s, this society evolved into a separate, militaristic band that played a dominant role in Cheyenne resistance to the United States of America expansion towards west in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming, where the Cheyenne had settled in the early 19th Century.

After the deaths of nearly half the Southern Cheyenne in the cholera epidemic of 1849, many of the remaining Masikota band joined the Dog Soldiers. It effectively became a separate band, occupying territory between the Northern and Southern Cheyenne. Its members often opposed policies of peace chiefs such as Black Kettle. In 1869, most of the band were killed by United States Army forces in the Battle of Summit Springs. The surviving societies became much smaller and more secretive in their operations.

In the 21st-century, there has been a revival of the Dog Soldiers society in such areas as the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana and among the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma.

The two central institutions of traditional Cheyenne tribal governance are the Council of Forty-Four and the military societies, including the Dog Soldiers. The Council of Forty-Four is the council of chiefs, comprising four chiefs from each of the ten Cheyenne bands, plus four principal or "Old Man" chiefs, known to have had previously served with distinction on the council. While chiefs are responsible for overall governance of individual bands and the tribe as a whole, the headmen of warrior societies are charged with maintaining discipline within the tribe, overseeing tribal hunts and ceremonies, and providing military leadership.

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