Assiniboine

By David R. Miller and John Beierle

Assiniboin is also an alternative spelling; contemporary Assiniboine prefer the spelling with an e, and also often refer to themselves as Nakota, meaning "the people" and the language they speak.

The Assiniboine (a'sini,boin) are a Siouan-speaking people closely related linguistically to the Sioux and Stoney (Parks and DeMallie 1992). Contemporary Assiniboine live on two reservations in northern Montana and on four reserves in southern Saskatchewan. The Stoney ('ston e), often confused with the Assiniboine, developed from the Assiniboine and became an independent people during the eighteenth century, and their descendants live in the foothills of the Rockies in Alberta (DeMallie and Miller 2001: 572).

The name Assiniboine derives from Ojibwa assini•- pwa• n, 'stone enemy' meaning 'stone Sioux' and often with the -ak plural suffix and later a final -t, and by the nineteenth century the final -n or -ne (synonymy by Douglas R. Parks in DeMallie and Miller 2001: 590-592). By the last decades of the nineteenth century Assiniboine reservations and reserves were located in Montana and Saskatchewan, within the larger region they occupied during the previous century. In Montana, the Upper Assiniboines were located with the Atsina Gros Ventre on the Fort Belknap Reservation, and the Lower Assiniboines with Yanktonai, Sisseton/Wahpeton Dakota and a small number of Hunkpapa and other Teton stragglers of Sitting Bull's followers on the Fort Peck Reservation. In Saskatchewan, Assiniboines within Treaty 4 were the reserve bands of Pheasant's Rump, Ocean Man, Carry the Kettle and Long Lodge, and Piapot's Cree speaking Assiniboines, and within Treaty 6 the bands of Grizzly Bear's Head and Lean Man, which often were known as the Battleford Stoneys.

The population history of the Assiniboines remains incomplete until well into the nineteenth century. A number of major disease episodes proved to be quite intrusive. The pre-1780-1781 epidemic population was estimated at 10,000, and from half to one third were left (Mooney 1928: 13). The 1819-1820 epidemic of measles and whooping cough may have again reduced the population by one half (Ray 1974: 105-108). By 1838 the population had recovered as much as 30 percent to between 6,000 and 7,200 (Denig 1930: 396), but after the steamboat brought smallpox to the upper Missouri, the result for the Assiniboine was a loss of as much as 60 per cent of the population, down to 3,375-3,690 persons. After a slow recovery, two more smallpox epidemics struck the Assiniboine in 1856-1857 and 1869 (Denig 1930: 399; Kennedy 1961: 71-72; Miller 1987: 100; Ray 1974: 191).

Assiniboine population figures in the initial reservation/reserve period were complicated by tribal undifferentiated figures for the shared reservations in Montana, and similarly for some of the reserves in Canada. Contemporary population figures reflect the mixed heritage of many intermarriages and their offspring, with other tribal heritages. The total maximum population for Assiniboines in Canada is 5,618 as of December 2000 and 6,442 in the United States as of November 2001.

Assiniboine is a Siouan language. Folk tradition suggests a separation from the Yanktonai Sioux, but this is not supported linguistically or historically. While Assiniboine is coordinate with the other Sioux dialects, it is no closer to one than the other, suggesting that Assiniboine diverged from the Sioux at the same time the other Sioux dialects were differentiating from one another. The language is endangered, with few speakers living, and English is mainly spoken today.

Assiniboines were first encountered by Europeans fur traders in the woodlands in Lake Nipigon, north of Lake Superior in the 1640s and parklands of Manitoba in the 1730s, and were adept canoe users, which facilitated their role as trade middlemen. In the seventeenth century Assiniboine territory extended westward from Lake Winnipeg and the Forks of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers into much of central and southern Saskatchewan. From the earliest descriptions, the Assiniboines were allied with Algonquian speaking Crees, and later in the early to mid nineteenth century, Saulteaux or western Ojibwas. Historical sources suggest a westward expansion of Assiniboine territory during the eighteenth century through the parklands of the central Saskatchewan River and into eastern Alberta, but these farthest reaches represented interaction spheres and not a migration of fully articulated social groups, and reflected the fur traders' knowledge of the western prairies (Ray 1974; Russell 1991). Population movements during the early nineteenth century shifted Assiniboine territory southward, and by 1840 three-quarters of the nation lived along the Missouri in the area of northwestern North Dakota and northeastern Montana. By the mid-nineteenth century Assiniboine territory extended east from the Moose and Wood Mountains to the Cypress Hills and north to south from the North Saskatchewan to the Milk and Missouri Rivers (Denig 1930: 396-397).

Assiniboines first learned of the jurisdiction of the United States with the visit of Lewis and Clark, and their incorporation commenced with the arrival of the first Indian Agents on the Upper Missouri River in 1820s and the building of Fort Union in 1828 particularly for trade with Assiniboines and points west (Miller 1987: 80-82).

Before the 1880s, Assiniboines lived in seasonal camps. When the buffalo herds were reconstituted in the summer, Assiniboines came together in larger camps. During the fall when the herds dispersed the summer camps also broke up, individual bands eventually settling in sheltered river bottoms for the winter.

The locations upon reservations in Montana in the United States and Reserves in Saskatchewan in Canada remain homes for these respective tribes and first nations in the beginning of the 21st century. In every case a large proportion of their populations reside off reserve mostly in cities, encouraged to do so both by increased economic opportunities but also by various Government policy initiatives in the decades following World War II.

Buffalo (Bison) were the primary food and materials resource for Assiniboine subsistence. Three methods of hunting buffalo were used: the group surround, the park or buffalo pound, and single hunter. Communal buffalo hunting, using dogs, and even after acquiring horses, was regulated by a soldier society. Hunters surrounded a herd of buffalo and by the nineteenth century chased them on horseback, using bows and arrows to kill as many as could be possibly killed. Assiniboines utilized the buffalo pound to trap and process larger quantities of animals than could be taken by single hunters (Verbicky-Todd 1984: 69-86; Weekes 1949). The buffalo pound was constructed of a series of posts with an entrance and fenced enclosure of approximately an acre. Rock cairns built at intervals forming a drive way toward the entrance of the constructed surround, allowed a religious leader to call buffalo and lead animals into the "park," were the animals were then slaughtered using bows and arrows, and later guns. Grease, rendered from boiling bones, was used to make pemmican from dry meat and berries and to seal parfleches used for food storage. Armed with bows and arrows, and later guns, single hunters also stalked buffalo. Often in winter, individuals used snowshoes to find buffalo trapped in deep snows, which were easy to dispatch. The meat and other constituent parts were dried or otherwise prepared, stored or traded.

Assiniboines were not averse to eating fish and were reported to have utilized fish weirs on a seasonal basis where this was productive.

In butchering, a buffalo carcass was cut down the backbone and lengthwise along the belly so that the hide was removed in two pieces. After tanning, the two pieces were sewed together with sinew. Each hide required at least three days to process into a robe. Tipi covers were made of sewed hide, and trimmed to size, and recycled into other objects when a new cover was made.

Both horse and dog travois were used to transport goods, but because they owned relatively few horses, the Assiniboine made greater use of the dog travois throughout the nineteenth century. Bullboats constructed of a willow frame and covered with buffalo hide were used to ferry goods and people across streams (Denig 1930: 579; Rodnick 1938: 30).

Assiniboine culture history is bound intricately with the history of the European and later American and Canadian fur trades. A portion of Assiniboines specialized, joining with a portion of the western Crees in the seventeenth century to assume roles as trade middlemen. For groups further inland, these portions of the population became the concentrated producers of furs and buffalo robes which the middlemen took to trade at the trade factories on Hudson Bay. When the European trader came inland to them after the mid-eighteenth century, headmen on behalf of the band conducted trade.

The Assiniboine observed a clear division of labor between men and women. Young men went to war, but after marriage their primary concern was with hunting. Men made all of their tools and weapons, provided and cared for the family's horses, and trapped fur-bearing animals. In addition they participated in councils, feasts, and ceremonies. Women would accompany men on the hunt to help butcher game. In camp, women dressed the hides and cut up and dried the meat. They made the family's clothing as well as the tipi cover, cooked, cared for the young, gathered food and hauled water, and were responsible for packing, unpacking, and setting up the tipi when the camp moved (Denig 1930: 503). Sometimes a man, as the result of a vision, rejected male roles, dressed in women's clothing, and performed the work of women (Lowie 1909: 42).

No Plains tribes claimed a special right to any circumscribed or limited territory. Consequently, the Assiniboines and their neighbors believed in their general right to the whole of the hunting grounds, where buffalo are to be found and particular Indians could be stationed. Each autonomous unit of tribes was in possession of a portion of these lands, necessary for its preservation. In defending their portion from aggression they used every means in their power. Should the game fail, they could encroach upon other regions and neighbors, especially their neighbors, according to their means of protecting themselves. This was the attitude when a nomadic adaptation was possible, and was transformed once forced to have a sedentary orientation on reservations.

KIN GROUPS AND DESCENT

Assiniboine bands were bilateral, although women after marriage usually joined the husband's band, and the couple acquired their own lodge as soon as feasibly possible. Descendants believed they are equally related to the relatives of their fathers and mothers.

KINSHIP TERMINOLOGY

Kinship terminology was of the Dakota type, in which father and father's brother were classed together as father, and mother and mother's sister were classed together as mother; parents' opposite-sex siblings were uncle and aunt. The children of all fathers and mothers were brothers and sisters to one another, and the children of aunts and uncles were called cousins (Rodnick 1938: 37). Kinship terms were used for address instead of personal names among the immediate and extended family members within the camping band, and the customary patterns of kinship behavior gave order to everyday life. For example, a man was forbidden to speak directly to his parents-in-law; however, a man could lessen the tension of this avoidance relationship and allow for some communication by presenting his parents-in-law with a scalp taken in battle (Denig 1930: 503-504; Kennedy 1961: 17; Rodnick 1938: 38-39).

Men married for the first time between the ages of 20-25, while women married after the age of 12. The sound of a courting flute outside a girl's lodge or the use of love medicines was used by a suitor to persuade her to run off with him. Precautions were taken to protect eligible girls from violators, virginity at the time of marriage being highly valued. The formalities of marriage required the perspective groom to send a horse and some cooked meat to the girl's lodge. If her family was resistant he might send another horse and other presents. Once the offer was accepted the girl was sent with her belongings to the man's lodge to live there as his wife. In-law avoidance precluded the new couple being able to live with the wife's family; the new husband did not enter his parents-in-law's lodge. Until children were born from the union, the groom performed bride service, hunting for his in-laws. The labor necessary to process buffalo hides were so great that a successful hunter took more than one wife. A man had the right to marry his wife's younger sisters as co-wives when they came of age. Upon the death of a wife, a man waited a year before remarrying, while a widow might wait for as much as three years (Denig 1930: 510-512, 590; Rodnick 1938: 59-63; Kennedy 1961: 27-32). Divorce rarely happened if a couple had children, but a man did have the right of divorce, and if there were children, older children went with the father and the younger with the mother. Adultery and barrenness were the usual reasons for divorce (Denig 1930: 512).

The core of a band was a cluster of related families, composed of a number of brothers and cousins. Each nuclear family lived in its own lodge, a bison hide tipi erected with the three pole style of foundation (Rodnick 1938: 29; Lowie 1909: 14-15). The average size tipi was 31 feet in circumference, requiring a minimum of 12 hides for the cover, and could house a family of eight, as well as two or three visitors. Space within the lodge was formally organized, indicating relationships and proscribed behaviors. To the right of the doorway as one entered was the family storage place, filled with storage containers both of family as a whole and of individuals. Next in sequence, was a place for a widowed grandmother, then the man of the household, with his first wife, then their children, and finally, a place for male visitors. At the back of the lodge was the place of honor, where a visiting brother-in-law or other relative might stay. To the left of the doorway was another storage area, beyond which were places for an unmarried grandfather or uncle; for co-wives, and, toward the back, additional placed for female relatives or visitors. Additional lodges for co-wives and their children were created if the main family residence became too crowded (Denig 1930: 507-508, 578).

The personal property of Plains tribes consisted of horses, and a measure of wealth was related to the number possessed at any given time. Over all Assiniboines were quite horse poor, being at the furthest end of the trade continuum, giving rise to their interest in taking horses from their enemies. All objects, e.g., clothing, robes, arms, etc., made by themselves were considered their personal property. While dying wishes of an individual were taken into consideration, the division of property remained the prerogative of the closest relatives (Denig 1930: 474-476; 478-479).

Newborn babies when not being carried were placed in buckskin cradles, and these were sometimes fastened to cradle boards obtained in trade from the Cree or Saulteaux. The first name for a baby was bestowed three to four weeks after birth. A successful warrior or holy person was asked to give the name for which he received a horse, and he would lead the horse about the camp announcing the new name of the child. Names given to girls were generally kept throughout their lives, in contrast to the boys, who, as they grew older, would obtain new names in recognition of their first accomplishments (Denig 1930: 517, 519; Kennedy 1961: 33-35; Lowie 1909: 38-39; Rodnick 1938: 55-56).

When children were two to three years, they were weaned. At this same age, without fanfare grandmothers pierced the ears of children. Parents trained their same-sex children, never striking them when punishing, but rather chastising them and teaching them proper behavior (Denig 1930: 513, 520; Rodnick 1938: 56-57). Men taught their sons to hunt and use weapons. The kill from the first hunt was left as a sacrifice for the carrion eaters, with prayers offered for future success in hunting and war. Proficiency in hunting was usually achieved by age 18 when many also joined their first war expeditions, although some went to war as young as 12 (Denig 1930: 535, 542; Rodnick 1938: 41). Girls were taught a range of skills necessary to women's work, from making clothing and to preparation of foods for preservation, and participated from an early age in the care of younger children. When a girl's first menstruation occurred, she was secluded in a small shelter erected near the family tipi. In earlier times this was the practice of all women of child bearing age when on their moon, but this was apparently abandoned by the mid-nineteenth century (Denig 1930: 513, 524; Lowie 1909: 39; Kennedy 1961: 33).

Autonomous bands organized Assiniboine society, each having its own preferred territory (Denig 1930: 430-431). The core of a band was a group of related families, usually comprising a number of brothers and cousins. A system of status was tied to accomplishments of young men in warfare and in hunting, before they were allowed to marry and participate in other social and cultural responsibilities.

The band constituted a large extended family, headed by a headmen known as a chief. The chief addressed band members collectively as "my children," emphasizing the significance of kinship as the basis for political organization. The position of chief was not hereditary but was based on merit. The chief's family was often the largest and most prestigious in the band; therefore, when a chief died he was usually replaced by a relative. The chief served as the chair for a council of "little chiefs" who were the heads of families in the membership of the band, and supported the Chief as long as they had confidence in him and accepted his leadership. Bands could fission, and did often if they became larger that was viable to sustain easily in the summer seasons; the configuration political leadership of the new entities would sort out and chiefs would be made as new ones were needed and others retired or died. Decisions of the chief and council were enforced by the Soldier's society, whose members were appointed by council.

The band was the largest political unit, there being no other overarching structure as a tribe. Bands would coalesce regionally for ceremonies, buffalo hunts, or to plan military expeditions. On these occasions they camped in an expanded circle with each band occupying its own section, maintaining its own autonomy (Rodnick 1938: 33).

The functions of the soldiers were both as police and a paramilitary force, maintaining order within the camp and supervising hunts and camp moves, and had the authority to punish transgressors by destroying their property (Denig 1930: 436). Crimes, including murder, were considered private matters, left to the parties to resolve, without the interference of the chief or council (Denig 1930: 448, 452-455).

Warfare was integral to Assiniboine culture. The defense of family and village from the aggression by other tribes necessitated such practices, and status was earned in two types of offensive warfare: horse stealing raids and war expeditions. Both types of ventures were discussed and organized in the Soldiers' Lodge, and any plan had to be sanctioned by the leader's fasting for a vision. Once received, the leader's family made a feast for lodge members to explain the intention of the expedition (Denig 1930: 544; Lowie 1909: 28: Rodnick 1938: 41; 1939). Dancing prefaced departures as warriors prepared themselves for rigors ahead. Horse-stealing parties left on foot, each man taking extra pairs of moccasins. If at any point the leader or followers had dreams of failure, the party would turn back (Denig 1930: 494, 544-545).

War expeditions were organized to seek revenge against an enemy part of a cycle of blood feud for the purpose of taking scalps. Expeditions varied in size, but could be as many as 300 men, but the larger the group, the more problems of leadership arose and could endanger the success of the venture. Holy men were consulted to divine the overall success, and to secure protective medicines for the group and for individuals. Some might go on foot, other mounted, depending on the overall plan for the engagement, and scouts were sent ahead to ascertain the enemy locations and strength. Dressing themselves in finery and sacred war charms, and sometimes in clothes or carrying shields upon which were designs of visions, they carried weapons of bows and arrows and guns for fighting at a distance, and lances, war clubs, and battle axes for hand-to-hand combat (Denig 1930: 548-554; Lowie 1909: 28-33). Warfare ceased by the late 1880s when groups were placed on their reservations or reserves.

Assiniboine religious life is centered by the living among myriad forces, the greatest and organizer of these is the great power, the first cause of creation, and is called Great Mystery, the Creator, which encompassed all that was incomprehensible to humans. The physical world, including all animals and plants within which spirits most often dwell, were never embodied as the Great Mystery which was not personified. Contemporary Assiniboines pray to First Born Boy (HOKSHI TOGAB) as their intercessor with Creator. The spirits were omnipresent and omnipotent, and humans could call on their power for good or for evil (Denig 1930: 486; DeMallie and Miller 2001: 578). Individual prayer is the core practice in Assiniboine religion, which includes the requisite burning of sweet grass; the filling, lifting, and smoking of pipes; a range of sacrifices; and weeping and self-mortification so that men and women make themselves pitiful, and therefore, pitiable. Prayers often contain the phrase, "I know you (the Creator) pity no one, but I ask that you pity me." While Assiniboines believe that the created world was a gift for human beings, the spirits were called upon to help humans cope with their inadequacies and provide security against the insecurities of the world. Men, young and old, the venue for encounters with spirits who in such visits bestow power for war, hunting and curing, seek visions. Those with such visions and accompanying dreams often construct a medicine bundle according to the instructions received from spirit helpers; these are buried with individuals' bodies when they die (Denig 1930: 483-484, 486-489, 498; Rodnick 1938: 53-54).

Repeated visions meant that an individual was being selected to become a religious specialist. Ceremonial leaders were considered "holy men" with power to find lost objects, cure particular ailments, cause illness by shooting evil into others, and interpreting dreams, but moreover, their core influence was teaching others about the revelations that resulted in the faithful practice of their particular ceremonies. Other specialists, called "medicine men" were those who had unique powers with medicines, using mostly herbs and organic animals materials to heal the sick or wounded. Sweat baths were also used in curing. Both men and women were curers, women receiving their powers exclusively in dreams and training as midwives; however the majority were men (Denig 1930: 422-428, 492-494; Rodnick 1938: 53-54).

The most important religious ceremony of the ceremonial calendar was the Lodge Building Dance (Sun dance), held in the first part of summer, bringing together relatives and others after the long winter. More than one might be held in various parts of Assiniboine country performed by different makers (Rodnick 1937: 408). Individuals come together after having made vows and become a community in the village specially constituted for the preparing for the lodge. Individual dancers prepare themselves by fasting in isolation and purifying themselves in advance of helping construct the lodge structure. The building takes place on the first day, the center pole found, captured and its life taken as a sacrifice, and brought to the site of the lodge. During the four-day cycle, dancers pray and sacrifice themselves for the vow they have made and for the well being and future of the people. Dancers were painted to give them strength. Formalized self-mortification for the men consisted of piercing their chests with cherry wood skewers attached by ropes to the center pole. Women dancers made offerings of small bits of flesh cut from their arms or legs, all deposited at base of the center pole. Singers sing special songs throughout, singing non-stop during the time when the piercing and flesh offerings are made.

Horse society curing rituals both for horses and humans were next in degrees of sacredness. Both men and women belonged to a society, which held its rituals every two or three years, lasting several days, and was held primarily for renewal of the power of the bundles and the initiation of new members. Prayers were for increase in numbers of horses among the people and that children would grow up free from sickness (Rodnick 1938: 50-52; Lowie 1909: 57-58; Ewers 1956).

Fool Dance was performed by a maker who called upon various individuals to constitute a society at the commencement of the ritual. Contrary behavior was used in a two-day ritual to give those chosen and by extension all present in the camp powers for war and hunting. The maker was said to possess the power for doctoring eyes. Held once a year, at the time of the sundance, the selected dancers wore masks and clothes to disguise their identities. The ritual culminated with the retirement of the maker and his dancers to the society's lodge, where those needing eye treatment could come. A number of men and women sodalities' (societies) rituals included both public and private performances, each revolving around distinctive rules, regalia, songs, and dances. Borrowed from the Blackfeet, the Tea Dance or 'drunken dance' involved drinking large quantities of tea and mimicking drunken behavior, while fostering abstinence. It was revived at Fort Belknap in 1891 with men and women participating. Small-scale give aways were expected from the sponsor.

Portions of the Ghost Dance complex were introduced by the Arapaho to the Gros Ventres at Fort Belknap, but the Assiniboines were not adherents, beyond a few individuals. Assiniboines however enthusiastically embraced the ritual hand game that passed from tribe to tribe in association with the Ghost Dance (Mooney 1896: 817; Lesser 1933: 124-130, 309-337). The hand game was one of chance, but the new hand game of the Assiniboines was considered a religious ceremony of divination in which no gambling occurred, the outcome was considered an answer to the question posed by the ritual's sponsor.

Prayers in sweat lodge and in pipe ceremonies provided venues for individuals to center their thoughts and prepare for other rituals, to ascertain solutions to dilemmas or to mark special events.

Most artistic expressions appeared on clothing, buffalo robes, storage containers, and tipis. For ceremonies and going to war, clothing was decorated with porcupine quillwork or beadwork. War shirts and leggings were often trimmed with locks of human hair or ermine skins. Trade items such as dentalium shell for women's dresses, trade cloth for all kinds of clothing, glass beads used for men, women and children's clothes and decorative strips on blankets, small hawk bells, and brass and silver wire for earrings and arm bands. Designs were simple and mostly geometric (Denig 1930: 584-591; Lowie 1909: 19-26; Kennedy 1961: 90; VanStone 1983, 1996).

Upon the death of a person, the spirit of the deceased was urged by wailing relatives and friends to travel south to the land of the spirits. The mourners cried until the body was buried. Warriors who died were dressed and painted as for war, and wrapped in a blanket, his weapons placed with the body, and then wrapped in a buffalo robe painted with pictures of his brave deeds, and wrapped once more in more rawhide and placed on a scaffold or high place, with the feet to the south and the upper body slightly raised. A favorite horse, or in the case of a woman, her favorite dogs might be killed at the grave, to reduce the loneliness of the diseased. When scaffolds rotted and fell to earth, the bones were gathered up and buried (Denig 1930: 491, 493, 570-574).

Documents referred to in this section are included in the eHRAF collection, and are referenced by author, date of publication and eHRAF document number.

The Assinboine file consists of 20 documents, all in English, with a time span ranging from approximately 1640 to the early twentieth century. The major focus of the file, however, is on the period from the mid nineteenth century to about 1940. The most detailed works for a general understanding of the traditional ethnography of the Assiniboine will be found in Denig (1930, no.5; 1961, no. 12), Lowie (1909, no. 17), Dusenberry (1960, no. 7), and Kennedy (1972, no. 14). Other major topics of special note in this file are: the history of the Assinboine fur trade in Ray (1974, no. 23); the Bear and Horse cults in Ewers (1955, no. 8; 1956, no. 9); the Cypress Hill Massacre in Allen (1983, no. 1), and Goldring (1973, no. 13); social change and acculturation in Rodnick, (1938, no. 25); Assiniboine and Cree relationships in Sharrock, (1974, no. 28), and Sioux-Assiniboine-Stoney linguistic relationships in Parks (1994, no. 30).

For more detailed information on the content of the individual works in this file, see the abstracts in the citations preceding each document.

There has been confusion in ethnic identification between Assiniboine and Stoney in the literature. Where cultural data may overlap in some of the documents in this file, the reader is advised to consult also the Stoney file (OWC NF12) in the eHRAF collection.

This culture summary is a slightly expanded version of the article "Assiniboine" by David Reed Miller in the Encyclopedia of World Cultures Supplement, edited by Carol R. Ember and Melvin Ember with the assistance of Ian Skoggard. Macmillan Reference/Gale, 2002. The Human Relations Area Files would also like to thank David R. Miller for his bibliographical suggestions in the preparation of this file. The synopsis and indexing notes were written by John Beierle in January 2002.

• AHKITCHETAH (AKIEITA) -- soldiers or camp guards -- categories 701, 625

• counting coup -- category 555

• Crazy Bear -- head of the Assiniboine nation after the treaty of Laramie in 1851 -- category 643

• Family Allowance Act Program -- category 746

• Fort Union -- a trading post and trading center for the Assiniboine -- categories 443, 366

• Great Spirit/Great Power -- categories 776, 778

• made beaver (MB) -- a standard unit of evaluation in the fur trade -- category 436

• medicine bundle -- category 778

• soldier's lodge -- category 344

• Sun Dance -- category 796

• Thunder Bird -- category 776

• WAK-KON -- sacred objects -- category 778

• WAKOÑDA -- great unknown power -- categories 776, 778

DeMallie, Raymond J., and David Reed Miller . "Assiniboine." In Raymond J. DeMallie, ed., Plains. Vol. 13, Part 1, The Handbook of North American Indians, 572-595. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian, 2001.

Denig, Edwin Thompson. "Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri." Edited by J.N.B. Hewitt. U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology, Annual Reports, 46: 375-628. 1930. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1930.

Ewers, John C. "The Bear Cult Among the Assiniboin and Their Neighbors of Northern Plains," Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 11:1-14. 1955.

Ewers, John C. "The Assiniboin Horse Medicine Cult," Primitive Man 29: 57-68. 1956.

Fowler, Loretta. Shared Symbols and Contested Meanings: Gros Ventre Culture and History, 1778-1984. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.

Lesser, Alexander. The Pawnee Ghost Dance Hand Game: Ghost Dance Revival and Ethnic Identity. Columbia University Contributions to Anthropology, Monograph XVI. New York: Columbia University Press, 1933.

Lowie, Robert H. "The Assiniboine." American Museum of Natural History, Anthropological Papers, 4, pt. 1:1-270. 1909.

Miller, David Reed. "Montana Assiniboine Identity: A Cultural Account of an American Indian Ethnicity." Dissertation Abstracts, 48, issue 5: 1247. Publication No. AAT8717766. Bloomington: Indiana University, 1987.

Mooney, James. The Aboriginal Population of America North of Mexico. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 80: 1-40. 1928. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1928.

Mooney, James. The Ghost-dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890. Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1892-93, Part 2, 641-1110. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian, 1896.

Parks, Douglas R., Raymond J. DeMallie and David Reed Miller. Synonymy, Assiniboines. In Raymond J. DeMallie, ed., Plains. Vol. 13, Part 1, The Handbook of North American Indians, 590-592. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian, 2001.

Parks, Douglas R., and Raymond J. DeMallie. Sioux, Assiniboine, and Stoney Dialects: A Classification. Anthropological Linguistics 34(1-4):233-255. 1992.

Ray, Arthur J. Indians in the Fur Trade: Their Role as Hunters, Trappers and Middlemen in the Lands Southwest of Hudson Bay, 1660-1870. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974.

Rodnick, David. Political Structure and Status Among the Assiniboine Indians. American Anthropologist, n.s. 39: 408-416. 1937.

Rodnick, David. The Fort Belknap Assiniboine of Montana: A Study in Culture Change. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1938.

Rodnick, David. An Assiniboine Horse-Raiding Expedition. American Anthropologist, n.s. 41: 611-616. 1939.

Russell, Dale R. Eighteenth-Century Western Cree and Their Neighbors. Archaeological Survey of Canada, Mercury Series Paper 143. Hull: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1948, 1992.

VanStone, James. The Simms Collection of Plains Cree Material Culture From Southeastern Saskatchewan. Fieldiana Anthropology New Series No. 6. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1983.

VanStone, James. Ethnographic Collections from the Assiniboine and Yanktonai Sioux in the Field Museum of Natural History. Fieldiana Anthropology New Series No. 26. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1996.

Verbicky-Todd, Eleanor. Communal Buffalo Hunting among the Plains Indians. Archaeological Survey of Alberta, Occasional Paper No. 24. Historical Resources Division, Alberta Culture. 1984.

Weekes, Mary. An Indian's description of the making of a Buffalo Pound. Saskatchewan History 1: 14-17. 1949.