Assiniboin pipes
Pipe for warlike expeditions
Many games are in use among these Indians; one of these is a round game, in which one holds in his hand some small stones, of which the others must guess the number, or pay a forfeit. This game is known also to the Blackfeet. Another is that in which they play with four small bones and four yellow nails, to which one of each sort is added; they are laid upon a flat 197 wooden plate, which is struck, so that they fly up and fall back into the plate, and you gain, or lose, according as they lie together on one side, and the stake is often very high.
Among the amusements and festivities are their eating feasts, when the guests must eat everything set before them, if they will not give offence. If one of the guests is not able to eat any more, he gives his neighbour a small wooden stick, and the plate with food, the meaning of which is that he will make him a present of a horse, on the next day, if he will undertake to empty the plate; and the young men do this in order to gain reputation. The Assiniboins are brave in battle, and often very daring. They frequently steal into the villages of the Mandans and Manitaries, shoot the inhabitants in or near their huts, or steal their horses.
They believe in a creator, or lord of life (Unkan-Tange), and also in an evil spirit (Unkan-Schidja), who torments people with various disorders, against which their sorcerers or physicians (medicine men) use the drum and the rattle to expel the evil spirit. Like the Crees and several other tribes, they believe that thunder is produced by an enormous bird, which some of them pretend to have seen. Some ascribe lightning to the Great Spirit, and believe that he is angry when the storm is violent. They believe that the dead go to a country in the south, where the good and brave find women and buffaloes, while the wicked or cowardly are confined to an island, where they are destitute of all the pleasures of life. Those who, during their lives, have conducted themselves bravely, are not to be deposited in trees when they die, but their corpses are to be laid on the ground, it being taken for granted that, in case of need, they will help themselves. Of course they are generally devoured by the wolves, to secure them from which, however, they are covered with wood and stones. Other corpses are usually placed on trees, as among the Sioux, and sometimes on scaffolds. They are tied up in buffalo hides, and three or four are sometimes laid in one tree.
The language of the Assiniboins is, on the whole, the same as that of the Sioux, altered by their long separation, and the influence of time and circumstances. Like them, they have many gutturals and nasal tones; in general, however, it is an harmonious language, which a German pronounces without difficulty.
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