The White Clay People: the Gros Ventre (Atsina)
Most of the names we used today for various Native tribes have come down to us from outside sources. Early explorers often asked whatever tribe they happened to encounter what they called other peoples around them and went with it, regardless of the name that the tribe preferred to use for themselves. Often this led to great confusion over which tribe was meant by which name. The French term Gros Ventre, or Big Belly, is believed to have been a French misunderstanding of early Plains Sign Language and was applied to two tribes, the Atsina of central Montana, and the Hidatsa people along the Missouri River, who have already been covered in a previous post. The Atsina, or A'ani, A'aininin, or Haaninin are an Alonquian-speaking people whose name for themselves means either the White Clay People or Lime People. Their enemies had a host of unflattering designations for them, include Snakes, by the Blackfoot, or Beggars, by the Arapaho. The Atsina were also tra...