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Kutchin |
Chipewyan |
Beaver |
Stoney |
Blackfoot |
Blood |
Assiniboine |
Sioux | Sarcee
The Assiniboine were a part of the Sioux
family and directly related to the Yanktonai but
separated from them in the 1500's judging by their
slight dialectic differences. They lived in the area
between Lake Superior and the Hudson Bay which was a
rough forest covered landscape with thousands of lakes
throughout the land. When the separated from the
Yanktonai they were probably living in he headwaters of
the Mississippi in North Dakota and Minnesota. The
slowly drifted north past Lake of the Woods to the lands
described above. They then spread south west past
present day Brandon to the Cyprus Hills in Southern
Saskatchewan. This migration may have been made possible
due to the arrival of horses.
They had 2 main bands with between 200 - 250 lodges each
and around 1838 there was between 1000-1200 lodges in
total. Shortly thereafter smallpox hit the Assiniboine
and their numbers were quickly reduced to about 400
lodges by this deadly disease.
The were at war on a more or less
continuous basis with the Dakota's being one of their
most deadly enemies.
The men did not cut their hair and
would twist and coil it onto the top of their head. They
practiced polygamy which may have allowed the population
to maintain it's number by allowing widowed females to
continue producing babies with polygamous husbands.
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