Assiniboine

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For other uses, see Assiniboine (disambiguation).

The Assiniboine, also known by the Ojibwe name Asiniibwaan "Stone Sioux", are a Native American/First Nations people originally from the Northern Great Plains area of North America, specifically in present-day Montana and parts of Saskatchewan, Alberta and southwestern Manitoba around the US/Canadian border. They were well known throughout much of the late 1700s and early 1800s. Images of Assiniboine people were painted by such 19th century artists as Karl Bodmer and George Catlin. The Assiniboine have many similarities to the Lakota (Sioux) people in lifestyle, linguistics, and cultural habits, and are considered to be a band of the Nakoda or middle division of the Lakota. It is believed that the Assiniboine broke away from other Lakota bands in the 17th century.

They are closely linked to the Stoney First Nations people of Alberta - who are also Siouan people who use a Nakodan variant of the Sioux language - but they are not the same.

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

The life style of this group was semi-nomadic, and they would follow the herds of bison during the warmer months. They did a considerable amount of trading with European traders, and worked with the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara tribes, and that factor is strongly attached to their life style.

Though their description of the group was not all together favorable, the tribe's existence was noted in the journals of Lewis and Clark on their return journey from Fort Clatsop down the Missouri River. They had heard rumors that this was a ferocious group, and hoped to avoid contact with them. They did not see any sign of these people, and were not able to prove those rumors.

The names by which the Assiniboine are usually known are not derived from the way they refer to themselves. As a Siouan people, they traditionally thought of themselves to themselves as the Hohe Nakota. With the widespread adoption of English, however, many simply use the English name consistently. Assiniboine, however, is a word that English borrowed from French, which in turn took it from the Ojibwe word asinii-bwaan (ᐊᓯᓃᑆᓐ), meaning stone Sioux. In the same way, Assnipwan comes from the word asinīpwāt (ᐊᓯᓃᑇᑦ) in the western Cree dialects, from asiniy (ᐊᓯᓂᕀ) - "stone" - and pwāta (ᑇᑕ) - "Sioux". Early French traders in the west were often familiar with Algonquian languages, and many Cree or Ojibwe words for other western Canadian peoples were adopted into French in the early colonial era, and thence into English.

note: They were referred with the name "stone" because they cooked with primarly stones. They would drop hot stones into water, causing the water to boil, which would cook the meat.

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A skin lodige of the Assiniboin chief	An Assiniboin indian (left)	Assiniboin indians	Dacota woman and Assiniboin girl (left)
Magic pile erected by the Assiniboin indians	Tombs of Assiniboin indians on trees	Assiniboine in Montana, 1890-1891.