Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri 5

Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri 5

I am aware of your capacity to judge the merits of the work, and will

consider myself highly honored if I have had the good fortune to meet

your approbation. Moreover, I shall rejoice if I have contributed in

any degree toward opening a course of policy on the part of Government

that may result in the amelioration of the sad condition of the

savages. Should the facts herein recorded ever be published or embodied

in other works, it is hoped the errors of language may be corrected,

but in no instance is it desired that the meaning should miscarry.

 

Should any references be required by the department for whom this is

written I beg leave to name as my friends and personal acquaintances in

addition to your Excellency, Col. D. D. Mitchell, Kenneth Mackruger,

Esq., Rev. P. I. De Smet, Messrs. P. Chouteau, Jr., & Co., and Alex.

Culbertson, Esq., all of St. Louis, and Dr. John Evans, United States

geologist, any of whom will satisfy inquiries on this head.

 

Permit me, my dear friend, to remain with great respect and high

consideration, truly your most obedient servant,

 

EDWIN T. DENIG.

 

[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY FORTY-SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT

PLATE 62

 

FORT UNION AS IT APPEARED IN 1833]

 

[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY FORTY-SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT

PLATE 63

 

EDWIN THOMPSON DENIG AND MRS. DENIG]

 

 

 

 

INDIAN TRIBES OF THE UPPER MISSOURI

 

By EDWIN T. DENIG

 

 

THE ASSINIBOIN[2]

 

[2] Consult Preface for etymologic analysis of this word and for its

objective meaning.

 

 

HISTORY

 

ORIGIN.—But little traditionary can be stated by these Indians as

authentic of their origin which would be entitled to record in history,

though many singular and fabulous tales are told concerning it. As a

portion of people, however, once inhabiting another district and being

incorporated with another nation, their history presents a connected

and credible chain of circumstances. The Assiniboin were once a part of

the great Sioux or Dacotah Nation, residing on the tributary streams of

the Mississippi; say, the head of the Des Moines, St. Peters, and other

rivers. This is evident, as their language with but little variation

is the same, and also but a few years back there lived a very old

chief, known to all of us as Le Gros François, though his Indian name

was Wah-he´ Muzza or the “Iron Arrow-point,” who recollected perfectly

the time of their separation from the Sioux, which, according to his

data, must have been about the year 1760.[3] He stated that when Lewis

and Clark came up the Missouri in 1805 his band of about 60 lodges

(called Les Gens des Roches) had after a severe war made peace with the

Sioux, who at that time resided on the Missouri, and that he saw the

expedition referred to near White Earth River, these being the first

body of whites ever seen by them, although they were accustomed to be

dealt with by the fur traders of the Mississippi. After their first

separation from the Sioux they moved northward, making a peace with the

Cree and Chippewa, took possession of an uninhabited country on or near

the Saskatchewan and Assiniboin Rivers, in which district some 250 or

300 lodges still reside. Some time after the expedition of Lewis and

Clark, or at least after the year 1777, the rest of the Assiniboin,

at that time about 1,200 lodges, migrated toward the Missouri, and as

soon as they found superior advantages regarding game and trade, made

the latter country their home. One principal incident in their history

which they have every reason to remember and by which many of the

foregoing data are ascertained is a visitation of the smallpox in 1780

(see Mackenzie’s travels), when they occupied the British territory.

Even yet there are two or three Indians living who are marked by the

disease of that period and which greatly thinned their population,

though owing to their being separated through an immense district, some

bands entirely escaped. Upon the whole it does not appear to have been

as destructive as the same disease on the Missouri in 1838, which I

will have occasion to mention in its proper place in these pages and

which reduced them from 1,200 lodges to about 400 lodges.

 

[3] This traditional date given by Denig is evidently much too late,

for as early as the middle of the seventeenth century they were known

to the Jesuit missionaries of Canada.

 

NAME AND GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION.—The name of the Assiniboin among

themselves is Da-co-tah, same as the Sioux, which means “our people.”

By the Sioux they are called Ho´-hai or “Fish-eaters,” perhaps from

the fact that they lived principally on fish while on the British

grounds, as most of those Indians do. By the Cree and Chippewa they

are called As-see-nee-poi-tuc or Stone Indians; hence the English name

of Assiniboin arises. As has been stated, at the earliest date known

they roved about the head of St. Peters, Des Moines, Lac du Diable, and

Lac qui Parle; and they were then joined with the Sioux Indians, who

inhabited and claimed all the lands between the Mississippi and the

Missouri as low down as Big Sioux River and as high up as the head of

Rivier à Jacques, thence northward toward Lac du Diable, other bands of

Sioux (Teton) residing west of the Missouri. The number of Assiniboin

when they separated must have been at least 1,500 lodges, averaging

six souls to a lodge [or about 9,000 persons]. Their migration has

been referred to and the extent of land they occupied in the British

territory on the Saskatchewan, etc., was very large, but at present

their habitat is entirely different, and it may be as well to state

it here. The northern Assiniboin, 250 or 300 lodges, rove the country

from the west banks of the Saskatchewan, Assiniboin, and Red Rivers in

a westward direction to the Woody Mountains north and west among small

spurs of the Rocky Mountains east of the Missouri, and among chains of

small lakes through this immense region. Occasionally making peace with

some of the northern bands of Blackfeet enables them to come a little

farther west and deal with those Indians, but, these “peaces” being

of short duration, they are for the most part limited to the prairies

east and north of the Blackfeet range. The rest of the Assiniboin,

say 500 to 520 lodges [who may be called the Southern Assiniboin],

occupy the following district, viz., commencing at the mouth of the

White Earth River on the east, extending up that river to its head,

thence northwest along the Couteau de Prairie, or Divide, as far as

the Cyprus Mountains on the North Fork of the Milk River, thence down

Milk River to its junction with the Missouri River, thence down the

Missouri River to the mouth of White Earth River, or the starting

point. Formerly they inhabited a portion of country on the south side

of the Missouri River along the Yellowstone River, but of late years,

having met with great losses by Blackfeet, Sioux, and Crow war parties,

they have been obliged to abandon this region and now they never go

there. As before remarked, the Assiniboin still numbered 1,000 to

1,200 lodges, trading on the Missouri until the year 1838, when the

smallpox reduced their numbers to less than 400 lodges. Also, being

surrounded by large and hostile tribes, war has had its share in their

destruction, though now they are increasing slowly.

 

ANCIENT AND MODERN HABITAT.—Before proceeding further it would be

well to state and bear in mind that of all the Indians now residing

on the Missouri River the Assiniboin appear to have made the least

progress toward acquiring civilized ideas or knowledge of any kind.

Superstitious, lazy, and indisposed to thought, they make no attempt

to improve themselves in any way. Neither are they anxious that others

should teach them; consequently they are far behind the other tribes

even as regards their own savage manner of life. This will receive

further explanation. They do not think the Great Spirit created them

on or for a particular portion of country, but that he made the whole

prairie for the sole use of the Indian, and the Indian to suit the

prairie, giving among other reasons the fact that the buffalo is so

well adapted to their wants as to meat and clothing, even for their

lodges and bowstrings. To the Indian is allotted legs to run, eyes to

see far, bravery, instinct, watchfulness, and other capacities not

developed in the same degree in the whites. The Indian, therefore,

occupies any section of prairie where game is plentiful and he can

protect himself from enemies. With regard to any other kind of right

than that of possession and ability to defend, besides the general

right granted by the Great Spirit, they have not the most distant idea.

The Assiniboin conquered nothing to come into possession of their

habitat, they had their difficulties with surrounding tribes and still

have, as others have, and continue as they commenced, fighting and

hunting alternately. Their first interview with Europeans (now spoken

of) was when the traders of the Mississippi pushed their traffic as far

as their camps, and from whom they obtained firearms, woolen clothing,

utensils, etc. Afterwards these supplies were had from the Hudson Bay

Co. and, latterly, from the Americans on the Missouri River. There is

every reason to believe that the introduction of ardent spirits among

them was coeval, if not antecedent, to that of any other article of

trade. Before the trade was opened with them by the whites they say

they used knives made of the hump rib of the buffalo, hatchets made of

flint stone, mallets of the same, cooking utensils of clay and wood,

bones for awls, and sinew for thread, all of which articles can yet

be found among them. They made with these rude tools their bows and

arrows, pointing the latter with stone, and, as game was abundant,

hunted them on foot or threw them into pens built for the purpose,

which method they continue to use to this day. In this way they had

no difficulty in supporting themselves, and so contend that they have

gained nothing by intimacy with the whites but diseases which kill them

off in numbers and wants which they are unable at all times to gratify.

They have never sold lands by treaty, and the only treaty (with the

exception of that at Laramie, 1851) was made by them through an Indian

agent of the United States named Wilson, at the Mandan village in 1825.

But this was merely an amicable alliance for the protection of American

traders and an inducement held out to the Indians to leave off trading

at the Hudson Bay Co.‘s posts and establish themselves on the Missouri,

without, however, any remuneration on the part of the United States.

 

VESTIGES OF EARLY TRADITION.—They have no creditable tradition of the

Mosaic account of the creation or deluge, neither of their ancestors

having lived in other lands nor knowledge of foreign quadrupeds nor any

idea of whites or other races occupying the country before the Indians.

It is easy to perceive in converse with them that whites have from

time to time endeavored to explain the Mosaic account of the creation

and deluge, together with other scriptural records, but instead of

comprehending the same they have mixed with their own superstitions and

childish notions in so many various and nonsensical forms that none is

worthy of record.

 

They have no name for America, neither do they know of its extent,

for the most part believing that the lands occupied by themselves and

the surrounding tribes compose the greatest part of the world, and

certainly contain the greatest reputed number of people. It vexes and

grieves them to be told of large tracts of land elsewhere, and they do

not or will not believe the whites to be as human as they are.

 

There is nothing in this subject any Assiniboin could either comprehend

or answer, except that there is a mound about 50 miles above the mouth

of the Yellowstone on the west side and near the Missouri consisting

of an immense pile of elk horns, covering an area of about an acre of

ground, and in height about 30 feet. We have frequently inquired of

these and the surrounding nations as to its origin, but it was raised

previous to the knowledge or even tradition of any tribe now living in

these parts. From the state of decay the horns are in it must be very ancient.