Assiniboine People - Names

Names

The Europeans and Americans adopted names that other tribes used for the Assiniboine; only later learning the self-appellation of this tribe, or autonym. In Siouan, they traditionally called themselves the Hohe Nakota. With the widespread adoption of English, however, many now use the English name. The English borrowed Assiniboine from earlier French colonists, who had adapted it from what they heard from the Ojibwe. They called the people in Ojibwe asinii-bwaan (stone Sioux). The Cree called them asinîpwâta (asinîpwâta ᐊᓯᓃᐹᐧᑕ NA sg, asinîpwâtak ᐊᓯᓃᐹᐧᑕᐠ NA pl). In the same way, Assnipwan comes from the word asinîpwâta in the western Cree dialects, from asiniy ᐊᓯᓂᐩ NA - "rock, stone" - and pwâta ᐹᐧᑕ NA - "enemy, Sioux". Early French traders in the west were often familiar with Algonquian languages. They transliterated many Cree or Ojibwe exonyms for other western Canadian indigenous peoples during the early colonial era. The English referred to the Assiniboine by adopting terms from the French spelled using English phonetics.

Other tribes associated "stone" with the Assiniboine because they primarily cooked with heated stones. They dropped hot stones into water to heat it to boiling for cooking meat. Some writers see this as a confusion between "-boine" and French "bouillir", to boil