Assiniboine

Games of the Plains Tribes

Amusements and gambling are represented in collections by many curious devices. Adults rarely played for amusement, leaving such pastime to children; they themselves played for stakes. Most American games are more widely distributed than many other cultural traits; but a few seem almost entirely peculiar to the Plains. A game in which a forked anchor-like stick is thrown at a rolling ring was known to the Dakota, Omaha, and Pawnee. So far, it has not been reported from other tribes. Hoop Game Another game of limited distribution is the large hoop with a double pole, the two players endeavoring to … Read more

Indians of the Great Western Prairies

Crow Indian

Upon the Yellowstone, and about the headwaters of the Missouri, the most noted tribes are the Crows and Blackfeet. Bordering upon them at the north and northeast are their enemies, the Ojibbeways, Knisteneaux, and Assinaboins, of some of whom brief mention has been made in former chapters. In 1834 the Blackfeet were computed to number over thirty thousand, but when the small-pox swept over the western country, in 1838, they were frightfully reduced. By the returns of 1850, they were represented as amounting to about thirteen thousand. As these Indians are among the farthest removed from the contaminating influence of … Read more

Fort Peck Reservation

Fort Peck Agency Report of Special Agent Jere E. Stevens on the Indians of Port Peck reservation, Port Peck agency, Montana, December 1890, and January 1891. Names of Indian tribes or parts of tribes occupying said reservations: Assinaboine, Brule, Santee, Teton, Unkpapa, and Yanktonai Sioux. The unallotted area of this reservation is 1,776,000 acres, or 2,775 square miles. The reservation has not been surveyed, it was established, altered, or changed by treaty of October 17, 1855 (11 U. S. Stats., p. 657); unratified treaties of’ July 18, 1866, and of July 13 and 15 and September 1, 1868; executive orders, … Read more

Fort Belknap Reservation

Fort Belknap Agency The report of Special Agent Jere E. Stevens on the Indians of Fort Belknap reservation, Fort Belknap agency, Montana, December 1800. Names of Indian tribes or parts of tribes occupying said reservation; (a) Assinaboine and Gros Ventre. The unallotted area of this reservation is 537,600 acres, or 840 square miles. This reservation has not been surveyed. It was established, altered, or changed, by treaty of October 17, 1855 (11 U. S. Stats., p.657); unratified treaties of July 18, 1866, and of July 13 and 15 and September 1,1868; executive orders, July 5, 1873, and August 19, 1874; … Read more

Assiniboin Indians

Assiniboin Indians. From a Chippewa term signifying “one who cooks by the use of stones.” E-tans-ke-pa-se-qua, Hidatsa name, from a word signifying “long arrows” (Long, 1823). Guerriers de pierre, French name. Hohe, Dakota name, signifying “rebels.” Sioux of the Rocks, English name. Stonies, or Stone Indians, English name translated from the Indian. Tlu’tlama’eka, Kutenai name, signifying “cutthroats,” the usual term for Dakota derived from the sign language. Weepers, given by Henry (1809). Assiniboin Connections. The Assiniboin belonged to the Siouan linguistic family, and were a branch of the Dakota (see South Dakota), having sprung traditionally from the Yanktonai whose dialect … Read more

Treaty of September 17, 1851

Articles of a treaty made and concluded at Fort Laramie, in the Indian Territory, between D. D. Mitchell, superintendent of Indian affairs, and Thomas Fitzpatrick, Indian agent, commissioners specially appointed and authorized by the President of the United States, of the first part, and the chiefs, headmen, and braves of the following Indian nations, residing south of the Missouri River, east of the Rocky Mountains, and north of the lines of Texas and New Mexico, viz, the Sioux or Dahcotahs, Cheyennes, Arrapahoes, Crows, Assinaboines, Gros-Ventre Mandans, and Arrickaras, parties of the second part, on the seventeenth day of September, A. … Read more

Houses of the Assiniboin Tribe

A skin lodge of an Assiniboin chief - Karl Bodmer

The Assiniboin were, until comparatively recent times, a part of the Yanktonai, from whom they may have separated while living in the forest region of the northern section of the present State of Minnesota. Leaving the parent stock, they joined the Cree, then living to the northward, with whom they remained in close alliance. Gradually they moved to the valleys of the Saskatchewan and Assiniboin Rivers and here were encountered by Alexander Henry in 1775. Interesting though brief notes on the structures of the Assiniboin as they appeared in 1775 and 1776 are contained in the narrative of Henry’s travels … Read more

Atsina Tribe

Atsina Indians (Blackfoot: ăt-se´-na, said to mean ‘gut people.’). A detached branch of the Arapaho, at one time associated with the Blackfeet, but now with the Assiniboin under Ft Belknap agency, Montana

Blackfoot Tribe, Past and Present

Fifty years ago the name Blackfoot was one of terrible meaning to the white traveler who passed across that desolate buffalo-trodden waste which lay to the north of the Yellowstone River and east of the Rocky Mountains. This was the Blackfoot land, the undisputed home of a people which is said to have numbered in one of its tribes the Pi-k[)u]n’-i 8000 lodges, or 40,000 persons. Besides these, there were the Blackfeet and the Bloods, three tribes of one nation, speaking the same language, having the same customs, and holding the same religious faith. But this land had not always … Read more

Assiniboin Indian Research

Assiniboin Indians (Chippewa: ŭ’sini, stone’ ŭ’pwäwa ‘he cooks by roasting’: ‘one who cooks by the use of stones.’-W. J.). A large Siouan tribe, originally constituting a part of the Yanktonai. Their separation from the parent stem, to judge by the slight dialectal difference in the language, could not have greatly preceded the appearance of the whites, but it must have taken place before 1640, as the Jesuit Relation for that year mentions the Assiniboin as distinct. The Relation of 1658 places them in the vicinity of Lake Alimibeg, between Lake Superior and Hudson bay. On Jefferys’ map of 1762 this … Read more

Dakota-Asiniboin

The Dakota are mentioned in the Jesuit Relations as early as 1639-40; the tradition is noted that the Ojibwa, on arriving at the Great Lakes in an early migration from the Atlantic coast, encountered representatives of the great confederacy of the plains. In 1641 the French voyageurs met the Potawatomi Indians flying from a nation called Nadawessi (enemies); and the Frenchmen adopted the alien name for the warlike prairie tribes. By 1658 the Jesuits had learned of the existence of thirty Dakota villages west-northwest from the Potawatomi mission St Michel; and in 1689 they recorded the presence of tribes apparently … Read more

1837 Smallpox Epidemic

No disease which has been introduced among the tribes, has exercised so fatal an influence upon them as the smallpox. Their physicians have no remedy for it. Old and young regard it as if it were the plague, and, on its appearance among them, blindly submit to its ravages. This disease has appeared among them periodically, at irregular intervals of time. It has been one of the prominent causes of their depopulation. Ardent spirits, it is true, in its various forms, has, in the long run, carried a greater number of the tribes to their graves; but its effects have … Read more

Plains Indians Use of Rawhide

Fig. 23. Parfleche Pattern.

The Use of Rawhide. In the use of rawhide for binding and hafting (handle or strap), the Plains tribes seem almost unique. When making mauls and stone-headed clubs a piece of green or wet hide is firmly sewed on and as this dries its natural shrinkage sets the parts firmly. This is nicely illustrated in saddles. Thus, rawhide here takes the place of nails, twine, cement, etc., in other cultures. The Partleche A number of characteristic bags were made of rawhide, the most conspicuous being the parfleche. Its simplicity of construction is inspiring and its usefulness scarcely to be over-estimated. … Read more

Religion and Ceremonies of the Plains Tribes

Blackfoot Medicine Pipe

The sacred beliefs of these Indians are largely formulated and expressed in sayings and narratives having some resemblance to the legends of European peoples. There are available large collections of these tales and myths from the Blackfoot, Crow, Nez Perce, Assiniboin, Gros Ventre, Arapaho, Arikara, Pawnee, Omaha, Northern Shoshoni, and less complete series from the Dakota, Cheyenne, and Ute. In these will be found much curious and interesting information. Each tribe in this area has its own individual beliefs and sacred myths, yet many have much in common, the distribution of the various incidents therein forming one of the important … Read more

Government and Societies of the Plains Tribes

Fig. 35. A Dog Dancer. Hidatsa. (After Maximilian.)

The political organization of plains tribes was rather loose and in general quite democratic. Each band, gens, or clan informally recognized an indefinite number of men as head men, one or more of whom were formally vested with representative powers in the tribal council. Among the Dakota, there was a kind of society of older men, self-electing, who legislated on all important matters. They appointed four of their number to exercise the executive functions. The Omaha had a somewhat similar system. The Cheyenne had four chiefs of equal rank and a popularly elected council of forty members. Among the Blackfoot … Read more

Assiniboin Indian Clans, Bands and Gens

Many tribes have sub-tribes, bands, gens, clans and phratry.  Often very little information is known or they no longer exist.  We have included them here to provide more information about the tribes. Chabin (from ge ‘mountain’). A division of the Assiniboin. Maximilian, Trav., 194, 1843. Eagle Hills Assiniboin. A band of Assiniboin of 35 lodges living in 1808 between Bear hills and South Saskatchewan r., Assiniboia Canada. Henry Thompson Jour., Coues ed., ii, 523. 1897 Gens de Pied (French: foot people). A former band of Assiniboin in 33 lodges w. of Eagle hills, Assiniboia, Canada. Henry (1808) in Coues, New … Read more