CREES, CREE-ASSINIBOINES, AND ASSINIBOINES: INTERETHNIC SOCIAL ORGANIZATION ON THE FAR NORHTERN PLAINS.

Interethnic social organization on the Far Northern Plains has typically been interpreted within the framework of "tribe." According to this concept, a tribe — by non-specific definition — is a discretely bounded unit that corresponds in membership composition to ethnic unit, linguistic unit, territorial coresidential unit, cultural unit, and societal unit. tn this paper are presented ethnohistorical data on the Cree and Assiniboine which indicate to the contrary that within each of these five unit categories, the sociocultural units were graded erie into another; and that the membership of one unit category was not necessarily correlative with the membership of any other. The society was polyethnic — composed of both monoethnic and polyethnic coresidence units. It is suggested that interethnic social organization be interpreted on the basis of two independently varying criteria — ethnicity and coresidence. Based on these criteria, three forms of interrelationship are shown to bare existed between the Cree and Assiniboine ethnic units: Early Alliance, Intermarriage and Polyethnic Coresidence, and Fused Ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]