226 SYSTEMS OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



Fifth. My father's sister is my aunt, Ne-to'-tarse. 

 Sixth. My mother's brother is my uncle, Ne-io'-tahse. 

 Seventh. ]My mother's sister is my step-mother, N'-to'-tox-is. 

 Eighth. My mother's sister's son and daughter are my brother and sister, elder 

 or younger. 



Ninth. My grandfather's brother is my grandfather, Ne-ta-he-a-sa. 

 Tenth. The grandchildren of my brother and sister, and of my collateral brothers 

 and sisters, are my grandchildren. 



The children of a brother and sister are cousins. There are terms for male and 

 female cousin used by the males, and another set for the same used by the females. 

 It will be noticed that the Blackfoot system, as well as dialect, approaches nearer 

 to those of the Great Lake nations than to any other group of the Algonkin stem. 

 2. Ahahnelins, or Gros Ventres of the Prairie. Of the early history of this 

 people very little is knomi. They appear to be a subdivision of the Arapahoes, the 

 separation, if such were the case, having occurred at a very early period. Lewis 

 and Clarke speak of a " great nation called Fall Indians, who occupy the inter- 

 mediate country between the Missouri and the Siskatchewan, and who are known 

 as the Minnitarees of the Missouri and the Minnitarees of Fort due Prairie.'" Mr. 

 Gallatin, the most thorough of American ethnologists, speaks of a confederacy of 

 five tribes between the.Missouri and the Siskatche^tan, " viz., the Satsika or Black- 

 feet, the Kena or Blood Indians, the Piekan or Pagan Indians, the Atsina, Arapa- 

 hoes, Fall Indians or Gros Ventres, and the Susses. The first three speak the 

 same language, which belongs to the Algonkin family. The Susses speak a dia- 

 lect of the Athapascan. The Arapahoes have a language of which we have as yet 

 but a scanty vocabulary."^ In his ethnological map, pubhshed in 1818, he locates 

 the Arapahoes between the Missouri and Siskatchewan, with the Asiniboins on 

 their cast and the Blackfeet on their west, omitting the others, thus perhaps im- 

 plying that the Arapahoes Avere the true nation mentioned under the four alterna- 

 tive names. But the Ahahnelins, now known under the vulgar name of the Gros 

 Ventres of the Prairie, are probably the same people mentioned under the alterna- 

 tive name of the Gros Ventres, so that the four represented as one, were in fact 

 two.^ 



In 1853, the Ahahnelins were established upon Milk River, between its mouth 

 and the Bear's Paw INIountain. " This tribe," says Gov. Stephens, " numbered, in 

 1855, two thousand five hundred and twenty souls, and owned at least three thou- 

 sand horses."* Their dialect has diverged greatly from the common form ; but it 

 tends with the Arapahoe and Shiyan, in the direction of the dialects of the Mis- 

 sissippi nations, particularly the Menominee and Shawnee. This is shown by the 

 terms of relationship, which are superior for comparison to ordinary vocabulary 

 words. It was with extreme difficulty that I was able to obtain that portion of 

 their system of relationship which is given in the Table, very few of the traders 



> Travels, p. 97. ' Trans. Am. Eth. Soc. 11, Intro. CVI. 



« The Minnitarees are often called the Gros Ventres of the Missouri. 

 • E.x-plorations, Pacific Railroad, XII. Pi. 1, 2.39. 



