Location: The Assiniboine were located in northeastern Montana and in parts of Canada.
History: It is believed that the Assiniboine were originally Sioux, but broke away in the 17th Century. The Assiniboine people started off life in the land of cold and snow. The children were chilled and food was hard to find. The people knew they had to move to find a warmer living ground where life would have less problems. The tribe which was also called a band started packing up their belonging to move to the place where the "children could breath summer forever." The tribes disagreed, so they started to break off to make their own separate bands. They knew that they would be more susceptible to attack because of the smaller groups they were in, but the new bands wanted to go where there would be more game to hunt. The people of the original band didn’t care for this at all and started giving the new bands negative names (ex. Wasinazinyibi meant fat smokers, or Cantidada meant moldy people).
With the arrival of all of the new bands came changes for the people that were in them, from the dances they performed to the costumes they wore or even little habits they started to pick up. With each new band came a new chief or headman which made the band complete. There could be up to 3 chiefs in each band. At the peak of the Assiniboine population there were about 33 different bands which had approximately 700 to 1,000 people in each one. Half of this population was reduced when they were around the Little Rocky Mountains in 1851.
Language: The Assiniboine people all spoke the same language with varying accents.
Daily Life: As the Assiniboine people became settled in their new territory they each had their own tasks. The elder women would go gather all the wood they could find for the fire that night, the young women would go get the water for all to drink. The men of the band didn’t have any chores at all but the young men would bring the horses to the water holes in case they might get a chance to court the maidens that came from the water. The only time that there were parties was when there was peace made between two bands or when a war was ending. The women were never allowed to eat with the men. The men would feast on all kinds of food that the women would have prepared. After the meal, they would smoke a pipe and talk about the dance which would follow the feast. They would all decide who would lead the dance in place of the people that where getting too old. The dance would last long into the night, and they would all have fun and rejoice in this glorious moment. They all knew there probably wouldn’t be another for a long time.
Written by: Amanda Rossing