Wapiti Indians
Led by Rains Fall
Wapiti Indians operates around Wapiti Indian Reservation (until 1899), with 2 named members.
- Leaders
- Rains Fall
- Status
- Active (1907)
- Territory
- Wapiti Indian Reservation (until 1899), Canada (post-1899)
- Affiliations
- Van der Linde gang
Player notes
The Wapiti Indians are an Indigenous people from The Heartlands of New Hanover, led by Chief Rains Fall. Years of war with settlers and the United States government leave them weakened, and successive treaties fail them before a third confines them to the Wapiti Indian Reservation in Ambarino. Colonel Favours and Leviticus Cornwall seek to remove them again, so Cornwall can exploit oil beneath the reservation. The Van der Linde gang first sees Wapiti people while leaving Colter, when Charles Smith assures Arthur Morgan and Hosea Matthews that they mean no harm.
In Saint Denis, Evelyn Miller introduces Arthur to Rains Fall and his son, Eagle Flies. Eagle Flies hires Arthur to take documents from Cornwall's refinery that may expose the plan against his people. Arthur infiltrates the refinery, and Eagle Flies creates an explosion to help him escape the guards. Arthur gives him the papers and receives payment. After the gang reaches Beaver Hollow, Eagle Flies and Paytah join Dutch van der Linde, Arthur and Charles in recovering horses stolen by soldiers near Fort Wallace.
Arthur later rides with Rains Fall, who shows him a desecrated sacred site and asks him to recover its stolen objects without bloodshed. Arthur also helps Captain Monroe reclaim vaccines withheld from the sick Wapiti. Dutch persuades Eagle Flies to attack an Army patrol, but the soldiers capture Eagle Flies. Arthur and Charles rescue him from Fort Wallace after Favours rejects Rains Fall's attempt at peace and moves to arrest Monroe. Eagle Flies concludes that the Army has left his people no way but war.
Eagle Flies leads Wapiti warriors to the Cornwall refinery, seeking the gang's help to destroy it. Rains Fall tries to stop the attack, but his son proceeds with Dutch, Arthur, Charles and the warriors. During the assault, Eagle Flies is shot while saving Arthur. Arthur and Charles bring him to Rains Fall at the reservation, where Eagle Flies dies beside his father. By the end of 1899, the remaining Wapiti flee the reservation. They eventually settle in Canada, where Rains Fall remains their leader in 1907.
Trivia
- ◆Wapiti Avenue in Blackwater is named after the tribe. This was common practice in the United States to name streets, cities, and even several states after the local Indian inhabitants, often despite a near-total wipeout of most local Indian populations.
- ◆Wapiti, also known as Elk, is one of the largest species of Deer and is endemic to the North American continent. The word "wapiti" (sometimes spelled "waapiti") is of Shawnee origin and literally translates to "white rump."
- ◆The fictional Wapiti tribe is not based on any single tribe but instead is a composite of Native American groups mostly from the Plains and Rocky Mountain regions, such as the Cheyenne, Blackfeet, Crow, Ute, Arapaho, and especially the Sioux given that the members of the tribe speak the Lakota language.
- ◆Conversations and newspaper articles in the game speak of the Wapitis’ plight in standing up to outsiders who wish to take their reservation land because of its purported deposits of oil. Many tribes, particularly those whom the U.S. government removed to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) in the nineteenth century, faced such threats by the turn of the twentieth century as demand for natural resources became lucrative in an increasingly industrialized society.
- ◆The Wapiti tribe’s efforts to flee to Canada reflect the historical late-nineteenth-century attempts to do so by several actual tribes and bands, most famously the Nez Perce as led by Chief Joseph, as well as Lakota groups led by Sitting Bull.
- ◆The Wapiti Indians also speak the Lakota language, as identified by in game subtitles.
- ◆In the Epilogue, the player can encounter Native Americans, who are observing them from out of in-game bounds. They can be seen at the Mexican side of Manteca Falls or near the waterfall at the Lower Montana River.
- ◆Native Americans may spawn acting as lawmen if the player becomes or is "Wanted" near the Wapiti Reservation at any point before it is abandoned.
- ◆Wapiti is also the name of an unincorporated community in Park County, Wyoming. The Grizzlies East region shares similarities with northwestern Wyoming, where Park County is located.
- ◆The Wapiti seem to have knowledge of the Murfree Brood, as Charles Smith mentions some of the Natives talking about them.
Named members
2The members with pages of their own are linked. The rest are named by the wiki but have no article to point at.
Last verified September 14, 2026