Part 2: The Modern Governance Model and Traditional Alignment

Truth in Focus

LAME DEER, Mont. — Modern Northern Cheyenne governance operates within a written constitutional structure, but that written system exists alongside a much older body of traditional law, cultural authority, and community responsibility.

Northern Cheyenne community member Lori Fourhorn summarized that tension in a recorded statement provided to Truth in Focus: “I wish we could go back to that traditional law.”

Her comment reflects a question that has existed for generations: how should a modern written government relate to traditional Cheyenne governance and customary law?

Sheldon C. Spotted Elk’s scholarship on Northern Cheyenne constitutional reform describes a written constitution compatible with the Indian Reorganization Act existing alongside an oral traditional constitution. His work emphasizes that the two systems have continued to interact rather than one simply erasing the other.

The current written Constitution also differs significantly from the original 1935 structure. Amendments approved in 1996 added an express separation of powers. Article XI divides authority among legislative, executive, and judicial branches, and later tribal law further addressed the organization and independence of the judiciary.

That does not eliminate the practical question of traditional alignment. Communities can still debate how traditional chiefs, societies, elders, districts, and customary principles should inform modern policy while remaining consistent with the written Constitution and applicable tribal law.

Possible structural approaches discussed in Indigenous-governance scholarship and community conversations can include formal advisory consultation, stronger district-level participation, clearer publication of government records, and procedures that require consultation before major institutional changes. These are options for public discussion, not recommendations by Truth in Focus.

The central issue is therefore not simply a choice between “traditional” and “modern” government. The Northern Cheyenne experience shows that both have existed at the same time. The continuing civic question is how the Nation chooses to define their relationship through its own law, institutions, and community processes.

Sources

Recorded statement provided to Truth in Focus by Lori Fourhorn; Sheldon C. Spotted Elk, “Northern Cheyenne Tribe: Traditional Law and Constitutional Reform,” Tribal Law Journal 12 (2012); Northern Cheyenne Constitution & Bylaws, as amended in 1996.