Either the river takes its name from the population, or the population from the river; the division to which it belongs being a new one. Different from the Algonkins on the east, different from the Athabaskans on the north, and (in the present state of our knowledge) different from the Arrapahoes on the west, the Assineboins have all their affinities southwards. In that direction the family to which they belong extends as far as Louisiana. These Indians it is to whom nine-tenths of the Valley of Missouri originally belonged--the Indians of the great Sioux class; Indians whose original hunting-grounds included the vast prairie-country from the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi, and who again appear as an isolated detachment on Lake Michigan. These isolated Sioux are the Winebagoes; the others being the Dahcota, the Yankton, the Teton, the Upsaroka, the Mandan, the Minetari, the Missouri, the Osage, the Konzas, the Ottos, the Omahaws, the Puncas, the Ioways, and the Quappas,--all American, _i.e._, belonging to the United States. None of the Sioux tribe come in contact with the sea. None of them belong to the great _forest_ districts of America. Most of them hunt over the country of the buffalo. This makes them warlike, migratory hunters; with fewer approaches to agricultural or industrial civilization than any Indians equally favoured by soil and climate. Of this class the Assineboins are the British representatives. They are the chief _Red River_ aborigines. It is the Iroquois, the Sioux, and certain members of the Algonkin stock, upon which the current and popular notions of the American Indian, the _Red Man_, as he is called-- The Stoic of the woods, the man without a tear, &c., have been formed. The Athabaskans, on the other hand, have not contributed much to our notions on this point. In the first place, they are less known; in the next, they are less typical. But this raises their value in the eyes of the ethnologist; and the very fact of their possessing certain characteristics, in a comparatively slight degree, makes them all the fitter for illustrating the phenomena of _transition_. Previous, however, to this, we must get our other _extreme_. This is to be found in the ethnology of--