INDIAN TRIBES OF THE MISSOURI VALLEY. 343 
number of women and children taken prisoners, many of whom can be seen among the 
- Crows at this time. The remainder of the Atsinas reached their people, the Blackfeet, 
without farther loss, with whom they have continued to reside to this day, and are 
classed as Blackfeet when that nation are spoken of as a body. 
We have now given as correct an account of this nation as can be obtained from the 
most intelligent Indians and traders of the country at the present time. We have 
searched in vain among all the old books of travel for any definite account of the Atsinas 
or Arapohos, and consequently, any accurate information in regard to them must be im- 
portant. 
Unmfreville, as far back as 1790, seems to have known of the Atsinas, and to have ob- 
tained a vocabulary of forty-four words of their language. According to his account, the 
Hudson’s Bay Company and the Nehethewas or Crees, called them Fall Indians, from the 
fact of their inhabiting a district on the southern branch of the Saskatchewan, where the 
rapids are frequent. He says: “As they are not very numerous, and have a harsh, gut- 
tural language peculiar to themselves, I am induced to think they are a tribe that has de- 
tached itself from some distant nation, with which we are not yet acquainted.” He also 
alludes to the impropriety of calling them Big-bellies, inasmuch as they are as comely and 
as well made as any of the surrounding tribes. “'They seem not to be acquainted with 
the hunting of beaver, dressing skins, and killing small peltries, for they bring us nothing 
but wolves, which they take by a variety of contrivances. ‘Though we have interpreters 
for all other Indian languages, none as yet have been able to attain a fluency sufficient to 
be understood, and the general method of conversing is by speaking the Blackfoot tongue, 
which is agreeable and soon acquired.” 
Mackenzie, in 1801, merely alludes to the Fall or Big-bellied Indians living on the Sas- 
katchewan. 
Brackenridge* says: “The Gros Ventres of the Prairie speak the Crow language, and 
wander on the South Fork of the Saskatchewan.” 
Morsef speaks of them as Rapid Indians, and remarks that they call themselves Paw- 
is-tuck’-i-e-ne-wuck. From what source he obtained his information, he does not say. 
Gallatin} also seems to have procured very little accurate information in regard to these 
Indians, and in his comparisons, he used the small vocabulary of Umfreville. 
The brief list of Atsina words given in these pages seems to be the only one, so far as I 
can learn, that has ever been secured, except that of Umfreville, in 1790. It is a matter 
of great surprise, that so little is known of this tribe, though it may be due to the fact, 
that the Atsinas have always been classed with the Blackfeet. 
These Indians have received a great variety of names, as Paunch, Fall, Rapid Indians, 
* 1819. 7 1822. { 1836. 
VOL. X11.—44 
