Growing Up Sexually

CHEYENNES (North-American Natives)

Index→ Americas → North America → North American Natives → Cheyennes

More: Arapaho, Assiniboine, Athabascans, Blood/ Blackfoot, Cherokee, Chipewyans, Apache Chiricahua, Comanches, Crow, Dakota, Flathead, Gros Ventre, Hopi, Huron, Ingalik, Copper Inuit, Iñupiat, Iroquois, Kaska, Kiowa-Apache, Klamath, Kutenai, Kwakiutl, Lakota, Mohave, Mantagnais / Naskapi, Navajo, Nootka, Ojibwa, Omaha, Pawnee, Paiute, Point Barrow, Pomo, Powhatans, Qipi, Quineault, San Ildefonso, Sanpoil, Seminole, Shoshone, Shuswap, Sioux, Tinglit, Ute, Yokuts, Yurok, Zuñi

See also: North-America Non-Natives

Cheyenne girls, “famous among all Western tribes for their chastity” wore chastity belts which was assumed upon puberty (Llewellyn and Hoebel, 1941:p176-7, 261)^[1][45]. In theory, a girl had no say in marital arrangements; in practice, she sometimes did. However, little boys and little girls court each other in elaborate “camp” play, including going to bed [no sexological inferences are made here] (Grinnell, 1923, I:110-5)^[2][46]. A  Cheyenne boy was expected to court a girl over a duration of one to five years, she being courted by five up to twelve young men at the same time (I, p137-8).Formally, for a girl courtship began “soon after maturity”[3]; however, “Chastity was emphasized”. At first menstruation, adolescent females went through a purification ritual.  They were painted red and cleansed with smoke from a fire.  After this, the girl left with her grandmother for four days to live in a small hut outside the village.  The girl’s father publicly announced the important family event to the village and gave away a horse in honour of the event.  After the four days passed, the girl was again purified with smoke and could return[4].

Janssen, D. F., Growing Up Sexually. Volume I. World Reference Atlas. 0.2 ed. 2004. Berlin: Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology

Last revised: Jun 2005