Traditionally, the Assiniboin people are an offshoot of the Wazikute gens of the Yanktonai (Ihañkto^nwa^nna) Dakota.
Dr. F. V. Hayden in his “Contributions to the Ethnography and Philology of the Indian Tribes of the Missouri Valley” says that Mr. Denig was “an intelligent trader, who resided for many years at the junction of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers as superintendent of Fort Union, the trading post for the Assiniboins.” Of the vocabulary of the Assiniboin language, recorded by Mr. Denig, Doctor Hayden wrote that it is “the most important” one theretofore collected. From the citation from Mr. Denig’s description of Fort Union in a preceding paragraph it appears that Doctor Hayden is in error in making Mr. Denig superintendent of the fort rather than of the office of the American Fur Co. at that point.
In one of his letters Reverend Father Terwecoren wrote that Mr. Denig, of the St. Louis Fur Co., is “a man of tried probity and veracity.”
From references in Audubon, Kurtz, De Smet, Hayden, and Schoolcraft, and as well from a perusal of this manuscript, it is evident that Mr. Denig was an exceptional man, and for more than 20 years was a prominent figure in the fur trade of the upper Missouri River.
In this summary report to Governor Stevens Mr. Denig has succinctly embodied in large measure the culture, the activities, the customs, and the beliefs of the native tribes who occupied the upper Missouri River 75 years ago, more than 75 per cent of which has been lost beyond recovery by contact with the white man. For more than 40 years the native life with which Mr. Denig was in contact has been largely a thing of the past, so that it is futile to attempt to recover it from the remnants of the tribes who formerly traded with Mr. Denig at Fort Union.
In addition to preparing this report to Governor Stevens Mr. Denig also recorded a Blackfoot Algonquian vocabulary of about 70 words, a Gros Ventres Siouan vocabulary, and an Assiniboin Siouan vocabulary of more than 400 words, which was published by Schoolcraft in his fourth volume.
From a letter written February 27, 1923, by Dr. Rudolph Denig, of 56 East Fifty-eighth Street, New York, N. Y., the following interesting biographical matter relating to the ancestry of Mr. Denig is taken: