Гро-Вентр: история и современность племени северной Монтаны

Native American group of north central Montana

The Gros Ventre (/US/'/g//r//oʊ//v//ɒ//n//t/ , ɡʁo vɑ̃tʁ; meaning "big belly"), also known as the Aaniiih, A'aninin, Haaninin, Atsina, and White Clay, are a historically Algonquian speaking Native American tribe located in northcentral Montana. Today, the Gros Ventre people are enrolled in the Fort Belknap Indian Community of the Fort Belknap Reservation of Montana, a federally recognized tribe with 7,000 members, also including the Assiniboine people.

The name used by the Gros Ventre, ʔɔʔɔɔ̋ɔ́niinénnɔh (transliterated as A'aninin, Aaniiih, or Haaninin), means "White Clay People". With the ancestors of the Arapaho, they formed a single Algonquian speaking people who lived along the Red River Valley in present day Minnesota and North Dakota. They were closely associated with the ancestors of the Cheyenne. They spoke the now nearly extinct Gros Ventre language (Atsina), a closely related Plains Algonquian language, much like the Arapaho, and is grouped as an Arapahoan language (Arapaho Atsina). There is evidence that, together with bands of Northern Arapaho, a southern tribal group, the Staetan, spoke the Besawunena dialect, which had speakers among the Northern Arapaho as recently as the late 1920s.

In the early 18th century, the combined tribe came under pressure from the Ojibwe, and started a migration to the upper Missouri River Valley. During the migration, the large tribe split into the Arapaho and the Gros Ventre, possibly near Devil's Lake. These groups, along with the Cheyenne, were among the last to migrate into Montana, due to pressure from the Ojibwe. The Gros Ventre acquired horses in the mid 18th century. In 1884, gold was discovered in the Little Rocky Mountains. Pressure from miners and mining companies forced the tribes to cede sections of the mountains in 1885. Jesuits came to Fort Belknap in 1862 to convert the Gros Ventre people to Roman Catholicism. In 1887, St. Paul's Mission was established at the foot of the Little Rocky Mountains, near Hays. Much of the traditional ceremonies were lost through the course of time following the establishment of the mission. Two sacred pipes, The Feathered Pipe and The Flat Pipe, still remain central to the traditional spiritual beliefs of the Gros Ventres. In 1888, the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation was established by an act of Congress on May 1, 1888 (Stat., L., XXV, 113). The Blackfoot, Gros Ventre, and Assiniboine tribes ceded a combined 17,500,000 acres of their joint reservation and agreed to live on three smaller reservations. These are now known as the Blackfoot Confederacy, the Fort Peck Indian Reservation and the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation.

By 1904, there were only 535 Gros Ventre tribe members remaining. The tribe has since revived, with a substantial increase in population.

In March 2012, 63 American bison from Yellowstone National Park were transferred to prairie on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, to be released to a 2,100 acre game preserve 25 miles north of Poplar. There are numerous other bison herds outside Yellowstone, but the herd transferred is one of the very few not cross bred with cattle. Many celebrated the move, over a century after bison were nearly made extinct by White settlers and the government. The Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes at the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation also received a portion of the herd.

The reservation government of Fort Belknap has an elected community council with 4 Gros Ventre members and 4 Assiniboine, for a total of 8 elected members of the council. The officers of the council are the President, Vice President, and Secretary Treasurer, with the Secretary Treasurer being appointed by the president and confirmed by the council. The secretary treasurer, as the only appointed officer, may not vote on council matters. The constitution and bylaws of the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation were ratified on September 25, 1935, and adopted on October 19, 1935.