Indigenous
people of
North America
and who call themselves the Absaroka, or bird
people. They ranged chiefly in the area of the
Yellowstone
River
and its tributaries and were a hunting tribe
typical of the Plains cultural area. Their only crop was tobacco, which they
used for pleasure and religious purposes. Until the 18th century the Crow lived
with the Hidatsa on the upper
Missouri River
; after a dispute they migrated westward until
they reached the
Rocky Mountains
. The Crow developed a highly complex social
system. They were enemies of the Sioux and helped the whites in the Sioux wars.
Today most Crow live in
Montana
, near the Little Bighorn, where tourism,
ranching, and mineral leases provide tribal income. In 1990 there were over
9,000 Crow in the
United States
.
See R. H.
Lowie, The Crow Indians (1935, repr. 1956); P. Nabokov, Two Leggings:
The Making of a Crow Warrior (1967); E. G. Denig, Five Indian Tribes of
the Upper Missouri (1975).
