Gros Ventre

The name Gros Ventre historically referred to two different Indian groups. The first was a band of the Arapaho called the Atsina, whose language came from the Algonquian family. The second was the Hidatsa, who spoke a Siouan language. There are a couple of theories as to the origin of the name Gros Ventre, which is French for “big belly.” French fur traders who encountered them in Canada may have used the name for both groups due to confusion about the similarity of signs in the Indian sign language, one of which described the Atsina by communicating hunger and the other of which described the chest-tattooed Hidatsa. Another possibility is that other tribes referred to the Gros Ventre as “The Water Fall People.” Passing the hand over the stomach was the sign for waterfall, which could have been interpreted as “big belly.”

The Atsina originated in the northeastern United States; the Hidatsa were among the tribes that came from the southeast. Both groups arrived on the Great Plains in the 1600s and 1700s as European settlement pushed west. Guns obtained through trade with English and French settlers and horses obtained from the Spanish helped to create the nomadic and warlike way of life of the Plains Indians. The Atsina, who call themselves the A'ani, which means “White Clay People,” were once joined with the Arapaho and living on the plains of Canada. Around 1700, they separated from the Arapaho and by midcentury were located between the north and south branches of the Saskatchewan River. An outbreak of smallpox in 1780 dramatically reduced their population, and the tribe drifted south due to pressure from Crees and Assiniboines, who possessed firearms. Half of the A'ani rejoined the Arapaho in 1826 to move further south and trade with the Mexicans. Eventually they returned to Montana and their fellow tribe members. In 1855, the A'ani and the Blackfoot signed a treaty with the federal government to ensure hunting grounds and provisions. After splitting from the Blackfoot, the A'ani began living at Fort Belknap in Montana in 1888. They have shared the reservation with the Assiniboine ever since. The A'ani are sometimes referred to as the Gros Ventre of the Prairie. The Hidatsa, who live in North Dakota's Missouri River area, are occasionally known as the Gros Ventre of the Missouri. In 1930, the U.S. census began to distinguish between the two groups. Today the name Gros Ventre is usually only applied to the A'ani.

Catholic missionaries arrived in 1862 and were very successful in converting the A'ani on the reservation. St. Paul's Mission was built in 1887, and Catholicism at Fort Belknap proceeded to erode traditional religious practice. In 1895, the A'ani, or Gros Ventre of Fort Belknap, numbered only 596, the lowest total in their history. Although they had acquired a certain degree of immunity from smallpox, declining buffalo herds, on which all Plains Indian tribes depended, made survival much more difficult. The Gros Ventre were also forced to give up the sacred Little Rockies on the southern part of the Fort Belknap Reservation to gold miners. Members of the Gros Ventre have continued to make pilgrimages to the Little Rockies up to the present.

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