THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 121 



This custom is a very awkward and tedious one, and used only as an ingenious 

 means of boiling their meat by a tribe which was loo rude and ignorant to construct 

 a kettle or pot. 



The traders havo recently supplied these people with pots ; aud even long before 

 that the Mandans had instructed them in the secret of manufacturing very good and 

 serviceable earthen pots, which together bave entirely done away the custom except- 

 ing at public festivals, where they seem,lik^ all others of the human family, 1o take 

 pleasure in cherishing and perpetuating their ancient customs. 



The Assinneboins, or stone-boilers, are a fine and noble looking race of Indians, 

 bearing, both in their looks and customs, a striking resemblance to the Dahcotas, or 

 Sioux, from whom they have undoubtedly sprung. The men are tall add graceful in 

 their movements, and wear their pictured robes of the buffalo hide with great skill 

 aud pleasing effect. They are good hunters, and tolerably supplied with horses ; and 

 living in a country abounding with buffaloes, are well supplied with the necessaries 

 of Indian life, and may be said to live well. Their games aud amusements are many, 

 of which the most valued one is the ball-play; and in addition to which they havo 

 the game of the moccasin, horse-racing, and dancing, some one of which they seem to 

 be almost continually practicing, and of all of which I shall hereafter give the reader 

 (as well as of many others of their amusements) a minute account. — G. C. 



THE ASSINABOINES. 



(See Dakotas, herein.) 



The Assinncboines, or Stone Indians — the Dakotas proper — were 

 called by the Algonkius Nudowesioux. 



(See No. 453, herein, for pipe dance.) 



The Assinaboines made treaties with the United States after 1855, 

 and up to July, 1880. They were forced to quit farming and to locate 

 on the reservations in Northern Montana after 1875 by reason of the 

 building- of railroads, disappearance of game, and the incoming of 

 settlers. This tribe roamed along with the Blackfeet and Piegans to 

 north of the Yellowstone, and affiliated with the Crees from British 

 America. The boundary line between the United States and the Do- 

 minion of Canada was not clearly defined until after 1874, and up to 

 within a year or two past there has been a free zone below that line. 

 The surrender of Sitting Bull's Sioux, the almost destruction of a por- 

 tion of the Piegans by Col. E. M. Baker in 1870, and the evident inten- 

 tion of the Government to use force to compel them to stop roaming 

 had this effect. The agents at both agencies, Fort Peck and Fort 

 Belknap, Montana, make extremely favorable reports as to these 

 Indians. 



PRESENT LOCATION AND CONDITION. 



In June, 1884, the Assinnaboines at Fort Peck Agency, Montana, 

 numbered 1,195, and at Fort Belknap Agency, Montana, 1,000; total, 

 2,195. 



August 15, 1885, the Assinaboines at Fort Peck Agency, Montana, 

 numbered 1,072; at Fort Belknap, August 5, 1885, 700; total, 1,772. 

 Decreasing in numbers. They are blanket Indians. Most of them are 

 roamers and herders, though some few are devoted to agriculture. They 



