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ASSINIBOIN (eh-SIN-eh-boyne)
The coniferous forests and many lakes of central
North America, particularly northern Minnesota, were the home of the
Assiniboin, a plains tribe whose name means "one who cooks with heated
stones."
A nomadic tribe, the Assiniboin dwelled in the
transportable tipi, easily moved to follow game. Some times villages
contained as many as 200 tipis, set up in a circle, or if many,
concentric circles. Many tipis were as large as 30 feet in diameter,
and housed extended families or more than one family.
In the winter they hunted deer, elk, antelope and
bighorn sheep from an established camp. In the spring, they gathered on
the open plains to prepare for annual summer buffalo hunts. Communal
ceremonies were held to ensure a good hunt and the gatherings allowed
for hunt strategy sessions.
The buffalo was a critical part of the Assiniboin
culture, providing their primary food source and skins to make clothes,
tipi covers, utensils and tools. To supplement the buffalo, women
gathered plants, nuts and berries in each camp, often making pemmican
(buffalo, fat and berries dried).
The buffalo provided the skins for clothing, typical
of the plains. Breechcloths for men, with leggings and shirts; long
buckskin dresses for the women. Moccasins for both.
Like many plains tribes, the Assiniboin focused their spirituality on Wakan Tanka
and believed everyone is born with four souls. Three of those souls die
with the body and the fourth is contained within a "spirit bundle,"
which is offered gifts by the friends of the deceased until the spirit
is released to follow the others.
When the Europeans first encountered the Assiniboin
they were a very large and influential tribe. However, by the mid-1800s
thousands of Assiniboin had succumbed to small pox brought to them by
whites. A broken people, those who survived disease were forced from
their homelands to a reservation in western Montana. The U.S.
government promised them care and food subsidies, but the food never
arrived and hundreds more starved to death on the new reservation. With
so few left, the reservation land was divided and sold to the few
Assiniboin who remained and white settlers.
Today Assiniboin live on reservation lands in Canada and Montana.
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