United States or Mali ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Even under the changed circumstances of their present lives, dwelling amidst the forests and rocks instead of in the plains and open country, these Assineboines of the Mountains retain many of the better characteristics of their race; they are brave and skilful men, good hunters of red deer, moose, and big horn, and are still held in dread by the Blackfeet, who rarely venture into their country.
The Crees too pressed down from the North and East, and occupied a great-portion of their territory; the Blackfeet smote them hard on the south-west frontier; and thus, between foes and disease, the Assineboines of to-day have dwindled down into far-scattered remnants of tribes.
It is about fifty years since the first great epidemic of small pox swept over the regions of the Missouri and the Saskatchewan, committing great ravages among the tribes of Sioux, Gros-Ventres, and Flatheads upon American territory; and among the Crees and Assineboines of the British.
At war with their hereditary enemies, the Crees, upon their northern and eastern boundaries at war with Kootanais and Flathead tribes on south and west at war with Assineboines on the south-east and north-west carrying on predatory excursions against the Americans on the Missouri, this Blackfeet nation forms a people of whom it may truly be said that they are against every man, and that every man is against them.
The Assineboines derive their name, which signifies "stone-heaters," from a custom in vogue among them before the advent of the traders into their country.
Accustomed to regard murder as honourable war, robbery and pillage as the traits most ennobling to man hood, free from all restraint, these warring tribes of Crees, Assineboines, and Blackfeet form some of the most savage among even the races of Western America.
Twenty years later they still were numerous along the whole line of the North Saskatchewan, and their lodges were at intervals seen along a river line of 800 miles in length, but even then a great change had come upon them. In 1780 the first epidemic of small-pox swept over the Western plains, and almost annihilated the powerful Assineboines.
A simpler classification, and one which will be found more useful when estimating the relative habits of these tribes, is to divide them into two great classes of Trairie Indians and Thickwood Indians the first comprising the Blackfeet with their kindred tribes of Bloods, Lurcees, and Peagins, as also the Crees of the Saskatchewan and the Assineboines of the Qu'Appelle; and the last being composed of the Rocky Mountain Stonies, the Swampy Crees, and the Salteaux of the country lying between Manitoba and Fort Ellice.
It is not the Chippewayans alone that leave their lands to go in search of food to preserve their lives; the Strongwood Crees and Assineboines are all out in the plains, because, as they affirm, their usual hunting-grounds are so exhausted that they cannot live upon them.
The portion of-your Excellency's instructions which has reference to the Indian tribes of the Assineboine and Saskatchewan regions now claims my attention. The aboriginal inhabitants of the country lying between Red River and the Rocky Monntains are divided into tribes of Salteaux, Swampies, Crees, Assineboines, or Stonies of the Plains, Blackfeet and Assineboines of the Mountains.
Word Of The Day