Swiss emigres and Mennonite missionaries Marie and Rodolphe Petter were welcomed into Cheyenne Chief Red Moon's band in Oklahoma. Away from the interference of other whites, they decided to live like their new neighbors and pitched a tipi before building a more substantial structure. There they continued their studies of the Cheyenne language and became familiar with the ways of the Cheyenne. Mennonite women's sewing circles, begun in the late nineteenth century, grew out of their desire to support mission work. Mennonite sewing circles were organized along peer group and family lines. Like other Christian churches, Mennonite women's sewing circles collected offerings, which were used to support missions. Mennonite men do not have "circles." It is, in Mennonite culture, a distinctly feminine term. However, the circles taught more than craft. As gathering places for women, they were empowering. These sewing circles, so readily adopted by Native women, continued a sewing tradition. In contrast to the Mennonite missionary women, Cheyenne women held their own property, a tradition that survived the reservation, or in the case of Oklahoma, the allotment era.