Gros Ventren.adj.

1804 W. Clark in Orig. Jrnls. Lewis & Clark Expedition (1904) I. 21 We Sent the Chiefs of the Gross Vantres to Smoke a pipe with the Grand Chef of the Mandans in his Village.

1812 C. Le Raye Jrnl. in S. Dakota Hist. Soc. Coll. (1908) IV. 167 The Mandans and Gros Ventres are of the lightest complexion and largest Indians on the Missouri.

1834 F. A. Chardon Jrnl. Fort Clark (1932) 3 Battle with the Yanctons and Mandans, 1 Scioux—1 Mandan—1 Gros Ventre Killed—5 Mandans wounded.

1877 W. Matthews Ethnogr. & Philol. Hidatsa Indians ii. 43 In Arickaree picture writings, Grosventres are sometimes represented by a rude symbol of a man having the upper part covered with parallel stripes.

1888 Cent. Mag. May 39/1 It was the last great Indian hunting-ground across which Grosventres and Mandans..wandered in chase of game.

1908 Mem. Amer. Anthropol. Assoc. 2 iv. 281 Seven of these lodges remain at the present time at Fort Berthold, whereas in 1872 seventy-eight were occupied by the Arikara, ‘Gros Ventres’ (Hidatsa), and Mandan at this agency.

1790 E. Umfreville Present State Hudson's Bay 197 Fall Indians... In this people another instance occurs of the impropriety with which the Canadian-French name the Indians. They call them gros ventres, or big-bellies; and that without any reason.]

1868 N.Y. Herald 29 July 5/2 The Gros-Ventres have agreed..to keep peace with the whites and all the Indian tribes save the Pagons and Blackfeet.

1907 J. W. Schultz My Life as Indian ii. 20 Her father is a Gros Ventre, but her mother is Piegan.

1961 Amer. Heritage Bk. Indians 336/1 Misreading the sign talk, early traders often called the Atsina by the various names of Minnetarees or Gros Ventres (French for ‘big bellies’).

1984 I. Doig Eng. Creek (1985) i. 4 I can still recite the tribes and where they pitched their camps to surround those miles of buffalo..: Gros Ventres and Assiniboines on the northeast, Piegans on the west..Flatheads to the south.

1805 J. Ordway Jrnl. 12 Mar. in Wisconsin State Hist. Soc. Coll. (1916) XXII. 186 Two men..went up to the Grossvantars Village..to Git Some tobacco from the tradors.

1845 J. C. Frémont Rep. Exploring Expedition 37 United with the Cheyenne and Gros Ventre Indians, they were scouring the upper country in war parties of great force.

1893 Outing 22 A gros-ventre buck offered me five for Spy once.

1923 J. W. Schultz in Youth's Compan. 5 July 395/2 At the mouth of the Marias River, was the Gros Ventre camp.

1949 N. Dakota Hist. Jan. 38 The four communities that border the western segment are predominantly Gros Ventre.