into several (local groups), which consisted of one or more extended families. The smallest social unit was the (nuclear family), which usually lived in one (tipi) or two neighboring tipis. As a patrilineal tribe hereditary leadership passes through the male line, and children are considered to belong to the father and his clan. Mythology The figure of Iktome from the Assiniboine creation myth is one of the most famous creator-trickster characters of Native American mythology. In the myth Ikotme sends some animals searching to find land beneath the depths of the primeval sea. This is an "earth-diver" style of creation myth resembling similar stories of the Anishinabe and Ojibwe peoples. The only animal who succeeds is the muskrat who floats to the surface dead. Ikotme uses the earth the muskrat was clutching in his dead hands to create land. Unlike other creators, Ikotme is amoral. Ikotme kills a frog who challenges his plans to create an endless winter but eventually yields and shortens the length to seven months. He creates horses and humans out of dirt and teaches the Assinibone how to steal horses. Some of the elements in modern versions of the myth include elements that are later additions such as the presence of horses which were introduced to North America by the Spanish. Subgroups and bands Aegitina ('Camp Moves to the Kill') Bizebina, Bízebina ('Gophers' or 'Gopher People') Cepahubi ('Large Organs') Canhdada, Cantidada, Cąȟtáda ('Moldy People', lived along the North Saskatchewan River around Battleford (Ogíciza Wakpá) and North Battleford – known as "The Battlefords" – as neighbors of the Waziyamwincasta Band, this territory was contested ground and the area between the North Saskatchewan River and Battle River (the name derives from the war fought between the Iron Confederacy and the Blackfoot Confederacy) was the limit of the warring tribal alliances; political once part of the Upstream People of Plains Cree – today known as Battleford Stoneys part of the Mosquito, Grizzly Bear's Head, Lean Man First Nations) Canhewincasta, Cą́ȟe wįcášta, Chan He Winchasta ('Wooded-Mountain People' or 'Wood Mountain People' – 'People Who live around Wood Mountain', lived around today's Wood Mountain and in the adjoining Big Muddy Badlands to the southeast in southern Saskatchewan and northern Montana; close allies to the Insaombi (Cypress Hills Assiniboine) band, in which territory they had their winter camps. They were once politically part of the "Downstream People" of Plains Cree and close