Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/159

 SECT. IV.] BETWEEN THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE PACIFIC. 123 latitude and some distance west of the Missouri, between the forty-third and forty-seventh degrees of latitude. According to Lewis and Clarke, who in their ascent up the Missouri had frequent interviews with them, their number does not exceed six thousand souls. Renville, a half-breed Dahcota, who served as an interpreter in Major Long's second expedition, has raised the number to twenty-one thousand six hundred, of whom he allows fourteen thousand four hundred to the Tetons alone. From the still more exaggerated account he gave of the popu- lation of the Assiniboins, whom he supposed to be still less known to us, very little reliance can be placed on his state- ments in that respect ; and it is believed, though our data are imperfect, that the seven tribes together amount at most to twenty thousand souls. The western Dahcota tribes have carried on a constant pred- atory war against all the tribes living on the Missouri, or its tributary streams, from the Mandans to the Osages ; and the eastern tribes appear to have been, from time immemorial, inveterate enemies of the Chippeways. The government of the United States has, during the last thirty years, used unre- mitted efforts to establish a permanent peace between them, and lately, it is believed, with better hope of success. The Assiniboins (Stone Indians), as they are called by the Algonkins, are a Dahcota tribe, separated from the rest of the nation, and on that account called Hoha or " Rebels," by the other Sioux. They are said to have made part originally of the Yanktons ; but we are not acquainted with their real name. Their separation must have taken place at an earlier date than has been presumed by late writers. Father Marquette, wri- ting in the year 1669, from the Chagouamigong Mission, after having mentioned the Nadouessies, as a formidable nation speaking a language altogether different from the Algonkin and the Huron, adds, that the Assiniponiels have almost the same language as the Nadouessies, and live about fifteen days' jour- ney from the mission on a lake, which, from a map annexed to that volume of the Relations, must have been Lake Winni- pek. The only detailed account we have of them was given by Sir Alexander Mackenzie, and is confirmed by subse- quent English writers. They formed an intimate connexion with the Knistinaux and, jointly with them, drove away the ancient inhabitants of the main Saskachawin and of the north branch of the same river. They also continued to occupy the