Absaroka (redirected from Crow Nation)

Absaroka: see Crow.

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Crow

 self-name Absaroka

North American Plains Indian people of southern Montana, U.S. The Crow, whose language belongs to the Siouan language stock, were historically affiliated with the Hidatsa. Their traditional territory was the area around the Yellowstone River in what are now northern Wyoming and southern Montana. Much of Crow life revolved around the buffalo and the horse. The Crow were prominent as middlemen, trading horses, bows, and other items to village-based tribes in return for guns and metal goods that they carried to the Shoshone in Idaho. The basic element in Crow religious life was the vision quest, induced by fasting and isolation. The Crow continually suffered losses from wars with the Blackfoot and Sioux and sided with the U.S. military in the Indian wars of the 1860s and '70s. In 1868 they accepted a reservation carved from former tribal lands in southern Montana. Crow descendants numbered some 15,000 in the early 21st century.