Shyela is what the Cheyanne Indians called themselves. They were (and are) the Shyela. Other tribes called them that too. We Europeans (likely French explorers) called them the Cheyanne.I am not Cheyanne. I am not Native American. I am 3rd generation European (Austrian, German, Welsh, English, and Jewish (if you consider it a racial group, I don't)) immigrant stock.
(I do not know any really cool names besides mine. Find a book on Native Americans.)My parents were and are wierd. Very wierd. When I was born they gave me my name, and when I was younger, I was called Cheyanne by them, usually in that I-am-using-your-full-name-and-you-are-in-trouble way that parents have. Oh, and incidently, 3rd-graders aren't good with wierd names, which is how I got my everybody-uses-it sort-of-a-nick name, Shy. (And no, I am not bashful.)
After I got over the urge to change my name to something like Michael (one of the cooler archangels), I asked my parents how they picked it. They told me what it meant, and said they found it in Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown, a book about the forced relocation of the Indians into the reservations, The Trail of Tears. I read the book when I was 13, and several times later, and I never found my name in it! Of course, at the time, I figured they were probably lying to me, that they couldn't possibly have found a name like that anywhere. The bastards!
Years later (like two ago), my father bought me book while he was in New Mexico and while reading it, I found an account of a part of the Battle of the Little Big Horn (where Custer, aka Long Hair, went bye-bye), also called the Fight at Greasy Grass River and The Rubbing Out of Long Hair, where the Sioux narrator tells of a very brave Shyela:
There was a very brave Shyela with us, and I heard someone say: "He is going!" I looked, and it was this Shyela. He had on a spotted war bonnet and a spotted robe made of some animal's skin and this was fastened with a spotted belt. He was going up the hill alone and we all followed part way. There were soldiers along the ridge up there and they were on foot holding their horses. The Shyela rode right close to them in a circle several times and all the soldiers shot at him. Then he rode back to where we had stopped at the head of the gulch. He was saying "Ah, ah!"
Someone said, "Shyela friend, what is the matter?" He began undoing his spotted belt, and when he shook it, bullets dropped out. He was very sacred and the soldiers could not hurt him. He was a fine looking man.
(Becoming Brave, Compiled by Laine Thom, 1992, Chronicle Books, San Francisco)