Assiniboine people

The Assiniboines or Assiniboins ( /əˈsɪnɨbɔɪnz/; Ojibwe: Asinaan, "stone Sioux"; also in plural Assiniboine or Assiniboin), also known as the Hohe and known by the endonym Nakota (or Nakoda or Nakona), are a Siouan Native American/First Nations people originally from the Northern Great Plains of the United States and Canada. In modern times, they have been based in present-day Saskatchewan; they have also populated parts of Alberta, southwestern Manitoba, northern Montana and western North Dakota. They were well known throughout much of the late 18th and early 19th century. Images of Assiniboine people were painted by such 19th-century artists as Karl Bodmer and George Catlin.

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The Assiniboine have many similarities to the Lakota Sioux in culture and language. They are considered to have separated from the central sub-group of the Sioux nation. Scholars believe that the Assiniboine broke away from Yanktonai Dakota[1] in the 16th century.

Language

They are more closely linked by language to the Stoney First Nations people of Alberta. The latter two tribes speak varieties of Nakóda, a distant, but not mutually intelligible, variant of the Sioux language.[2]

The Assiniboine were close allies and trading partners of the Cree, engaging in wars together against the Atsina (Gros Ventre). Together they later fought the Blackfoot. A Great Plains people, they generally went no further north than the North Saskatchewan River. They purchased a great deal of European trade goods from the Hudson's Bay Company through Cree middlemen.

Life style

The life style of this group was semi-nomadic. During the warmer months, they followed the herds of bison for hunting, preserving the meat for winter. They hunted using bow and arrows and horses. The successful tribe were excellent horsemen. They got their horses by trading with the Blackfeet and the Gros Ventre tribes. They did a considerable amount of trading with European traders. They worked with the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara tribes, a factor strongly attached to their life style.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition journals noted the tribe as the party was returning from Fort Clatsop down the Missouri River. The explorers had heard rumors that the Assiniboine were a ferocious group and hoped to avoid contact with them. They did not encounter them at all.

Names

The names by which the Assiniboine are usually known are not derived from their autonym, what they call themselves. As a Siouan people, they traditionally called themselves the Hohe Nakota. With the widespread adoption of English, however, many simply use the English name consistently. The English borrowed Assiniboine from the earlier French colonists. They had adapted it from the Ojibwe exonym asinii-bwaan (stone Sioux), as well as the Cree asinîpwâta (asinîpwâta ᐊᓯᓃᐹᐧᑕ NA sg, asinîpwâtak ᐊᓯᓃᐹᐧᑕᐠ NA pl). In the same way, Assnipwan comes from the word asinîpwâta in the western Cree dialects, from asiniy ᐊᓯᓂᐩ NA - "rock, stone" - and pwâta ᐹᐧᑕ NA - "enemy, Sioux". Early French traders in the west were often familiar with Algonquian languages. They transliterated many Cree or Ojibwe exonyms for other western Canadian indigenous peoples during the early colonial era. At another remove, the English adopted terms from the French, usually trying to spell them with English phonetics.

The Assiniboine were referred to with terms using "stone" because they primarily cooked with heated stones. They dropped hot stones into water to heat it to boiling, for cooking meat.

Groups

Present day

Today, a substantial number of Assiniboine people live jointly with other tribes, like the Plains Cree, Saulteaux, Sioux and Gros Ventre, in several reservations in Canada and the United States. In Manitoba, the Assiniboine currently survive only as individuals, with no separate reserves.

United States - Montana:

Canada - Saskatchewan:

About 250 people are today speaking the Assiniboine language or A' M̆oqazh, most are over 40 years old. The majority of the Assiniboine today speaks only American English. The 2000 census showed 3,946 tribal members who lived in the United States.

Canada Steamship Lines named one of their new ships the CSL Assiniboine.[13]

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See also

References

  1. ^ for a report on the long-established blunder of misnaming “Nakota” the Yanktonai people, see the article Nakota
  2. ^ Ullrich, Jan (2008). New Lakota Dictionary (Incorporating the Dakota Dialects of Yankton-Yanktonai and Santee-Sisseton). Lakota Language Consortium. pp. 2–6. ISBN 0-9761082-9-1. 
  3. ^ POLITICAL STRUCTURE AND STATUS AMONG THE ASSINIBOINE INDIANS
  4. ^ James L. Long, William Standing: Land of Nakoda: The Story of the Assiniboine Indians, Riverbend Publishing 2004, ISBN 978-1931832359
  5. ^ History of the Fort Peck Reservation
  6. ^ Fort Peck Tribes
  7. ^ Fort Belknap Indian Community
  8. ^ Carry the Cattle First Nation
  9. ^ FIRST NATION CONNECTIVITY PROFILE - 2003
  10. ^ White Bear First Nation
  11. ^ Ocean Man First Nation
  12. ^ Pheasant Rump Nakota Nation
  13. ^ Great Lakes and Seaway Shipping (2005). "CSL Assiniboine". http://www.boatnerd.com/pictures/fleet/cslassiniboine.htm. Retrieved 2007-05-02. 

Further reading

  • Denig, Edwin Thompson, and J. N. B. Hewitt. The Assiniboine. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000. ISBN 0806132353
  • Fort Belknap Curriculum Development Project. Assiniboine Memories Legends of the Nakota People. Harlem, Mont: Fort Belknap Education Dept, 1983.
  • How the Summer Season Came And Other Assiniboine Indian Stories. Helena, Mont: Montana Historical Society Press, with the Fort Peck and Fort Belknap Tribes, 2003. ISBN 0917298942
  • Kennedy, Dan, and James R. Stevens. Recollections of an Assiniboine Chief. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972. ISBN 0771045107
  • Nighttraveller, Will, and Gerald Desnomie. Assiniboine Legends, Saskatoon: Saskatchewan Indian Cultural College, 1973.
  • Nighttraveller, Will, and Gerald Desnomie. Assiniboine Legends, Saskatoon: Saskatchewan Indian Cultural College, 1973.
  • Schilz, Thomas F. 1984. "Brandy and Beaver Pelts Assiniboine-European Trading Patterns, 1695-1805". Saskatchewan History. 37, no. 3.
  • Writers' Program (Mont.), James Larpenteur Long, and Michael Stephen Kennedy. The Assiniboines From the Accounts of the Old Ones Told to First Boy (James Larpenter Long), The Civilization of the American Indian series. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961.

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