Five Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri:Sioux, Arickaras, Assiniboines, Crees, Crows

Description

Edwin Thompson Denig| for more than twenty years a fur trader on the Upper Missouri and married to an Assiniboine woman| was an acute and objective observer of Indian manners and customs. He assisted Audubon and the Culbertsons in collecting Missouri River fauna| supplied information on the Indians to Father De Smet| who encouraged him to write| and provided Henry Schoolcraft with an Assiniboine vocabulary as well as a detailed “Report on the Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri|” which was not published until 1930| seventy-six years after it was written| and then only in parts.

Denig’s writings on the Sioux| Arickaras| Assiniboines| Crees| and Crows| comprising the Denig manuscript in the Missouri Historical Society| are published together for the first time in this book. The manuscript long had been referred to as the “Culbertson Manuscript” because it had been purchased from a descendant of the fur-trader naturalist Alexander Culbertson. But in 1949| handwriting experts identified it as the work of Denig.