The term Sioux is itself derived from an Ojibwe term, nadouessioux , which means “little snakes” or “enemies.”   This usage reflects the often hostile relationship between the Ojibwe (Anishinaabe, also known as Chippewa) and Sioux.   It is thought the Sioux people originally inhabited the Minnesota area, living a farming, hunting life, and were displaced southward by the Ojibwe when the Ojibwe migrated west into Minnesota following the westward progression of the fur trade.  (Today, Minneapolis/St. Paul has the largest urban native population:   There are more Native Americans in the Twin Cities than on all reservations in South Dakota.  Ojibwe and Sioux cooperate in many ways such as the American Indian Center, the Minnesota Native American AIDS Project, and the American Indian Movement.)   Some anthropologists, based on linguistic patterns, have suggested the Sioux originally lived in the mid-Atlantic area of the east coast of North America.  In this paper I generally will not use the somewhat pejorative term Sioux to refer to these people, but their word, namely Lakota.   Lakota is derived from the verb lakolya, “to be friendly with” (Beuchel, 1983, p. 322).  An English-Lakota dictionary translates “friendly Indian” as Lakota (Karol, 1974, p. 29).

        The Lakota Nation is broken into three distinct cultural and linguistic groups (Table 1).  The eastern Sioux speak the Dakota dialect, the central Sioux speak Nakota, and the western Sioux speak the Lakota dialect.  The dialect name has become the common name for the people as well.   If you asked a member of the Mdewakahtohwa h band in Minnesota the name of her people, she would respond, “Dakota.”  But, if you asked a man from the Oglala band at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the same question, he would say, “Lakota.”  (The Lakota do not have a “d” sound in their dialect, and hence in Beuchel’s Lakota-English Dictionary, “E” entries follow “C” entries.)   These language groupings are also known by their common names, the Santee, Yankton, and Teton.  The four Santee groups, two Yankton groups and the Tetons were said to comprise the seven “council fires.”  [Note: The Greek  h is used in transliterating Lakota to indicate nasalized vowels, a h, i h, o h, and u h.  Usually I follow Beuchel’s spelling, and translations, for Lakota words.]

        The Teton Sioux or Lakota are the focus of my research.   The name Teton is derived from Títohwah, meaning “to live in community” in Lakota, and has nothing to do with the Teton mountain range in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  (That range takes its name from the Grand, Middle, and South Teton peaks, named Les Trois Teton, “the three breasts,” by French trappers who had been away from civilization for too long a time.)    The Teton are further subdivided into seven subdivisions.

        The most famous, and largest, council fire is the Oglála (“To scatter one’s own”) who are found today mostly at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.  They were led by two remarkable Lakota, Chief Red Cloud (Mahpiya Luta, 1822-1909, Figure 1) and Crazy Horse (Tashuhka Witko,1849?-1877; No authentic photograph of Crazy Horse is known to exist).  Spotted Tail (Sihté Gleska, 1823-1881) led the Sicáhgu or Brulé (“Burned” in French) Lakota who live today on the Rosebud Reservation.   Certainly the Lakota leader who is known to everyone is Sitting Bull (Tatahka Iyotaka, 1834?-1890, Figure 2) who was the spiritual leader of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho force that defeated Custer’s Seventh Cavalry on June 25, 1876.  His Huhkpapa (“They camp by the entrance”) are found today on two South Dakota Reservations, Cheyenne River and Standing Rock.   Finally the Lakota who were massacred by the reconstituted Seventh Cavalry at Wounded Knee in December, 1890, were mostly the Mnikowoju (“They plant by the water”) led by Big Foot, who are also now living at Cheyenne River and Standing Rock.

Figure 2.   Sitting Bull (Tata hka Iyotaka).

        The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 promised the Lakota a Great Reservation but this promise was gradually whittled away by the western movement of the whites.   The discovery of gold in the sacred Black Hills (Paha Sapa, literally “hills black”; in Lakota the adjective follows the noun) led to the ultimate battles at the Little Bighorn in 1876 (“Custer’s Last Stand,” known to the Lakota as the “Battle of the Greasy Grass”) and Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890.  The treaties, made and broken by the whites, and differing world views led to this “clash of cultures” (Utley, 1984).  Sitting Bull promised to defend the sacred Paha Sapa, “We want no white men here.  The Black Hills belong to me.   If the whites try to take them, I will fight.”   Crazy Horse captured the Lakota view of the land when he said, “One does not sell the earth upon which the people walk.”   Red Cloud, who outlived both Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, gave the final assessment:  “They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it”   (Brown, 1970; pp. 273, 449).

        Several excellent histories give further details of the history of the Lakota. George E. Hyde, born in 1882, has been called the dean of Indian historians.   Despite being handicapped with almost total deafness and extremely limited eyesight, Hyde managed to compile superb histories of the plains Indians, particularly the Lakota.  This was done with only an eighth grade education!   While late twentieth century scholars have taken issue with some of his interpretations and his lack of direct references, nonetheless Hyde’s work on the Lakota serves as a primary survey of their nineteenth-century life (Hyde, 1961, 1975, 1993).  Other books give a late twentieth century interpretation of these events and people (D. Brown, 1962;  D. Brown, 1970; Hassrick, 1964; Utley, 1984).

 

Eastern Sioux	Central Sioux	Western Sioux
ISÁNTI (Knife) SANTEE  Dakota dialect	IHÁNKTOWAN (Horn) YANKTON  Nakota dialect	TÍTONWAN (Village) TETON  Lakota dialect
Mdewakahtohwa h (Sacred Lake Camp) Shakopee, Prairie Island, MN.	Ihánktowa h/Yankton (Horn Camp) Yankton Res., SD.	Oglála (To scatter one’s own) Red Cloud, Crazy Horse  Pine Ridge, SD
Wapetowah (Camp in the Woods) Devil’s Lake, ND; Flandreau, Sisseton, SD.	Ihánktowanna/Yanktonai (Little Horn Camp) Standing Rock Res. & Crow Creek Res., SD; Devil’s Lake, ND; Ft. Peck, MT.	Sicáhgu/Brulé (Burned Thigh) Spotted Tail (Sinte Gleska)  Rosebud, SD
Wapekute (Hunt/shoot in the Woods) Santee, NE; Ft. Peck, MT.		Huhkpapa ( They camp by the entrance) Sitting Bull (Tatahka Iotanka)  Cheyenne River, Standing Rock, SD.
Sissetowah (Fish Scales Camp) Devil’s Lake, ND; Sisseton, SD		Mnikowoju (They plant by the water) Big Foot  Cheyenne River, Standing Rock, SD.
		Itázipko/Sans Arc (No Bows) Cheyenne River, Standing Rock, SD.
		Sihasapa (Black feet) Cheyenne River, Standing Rock, SD.
		Oohenuhpa/Two Kettles (Boiled Twice) Cheyenne River, Standing Rock, SD.

References:

Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1970, ISBN 0-8050-1730-5.

Dee Brown, The Fetterman Massacre, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1962, ISBN 0-8032-5730-9.

Eugene Buechel, S.J., Lakota-English Dictionary , ed., by Paul Manhart, S.J., Red Cloud Indian School, Holy Rosary Mission, Pine Ridge, South Dakota, 1983.

Royal B. Hassrick, The Sioux, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1964, ISBN 0-8061-2140-8.

George E. Hyde, A Sioux Chronicle, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1993, ISBN 0-8061-2483-0.

George E. Hyde, Red Cloud’s Folk, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1975, ISBN 0-8061-1520-3.

George E. Hyde, Spotted Tail’s Folk, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1961, ISBN 0-8061-1380-4.

Joseph S. Karol, Everyday Lakota: An English-Sioux Dictionary for Beginners, Rosebud Educational Society, St. Francis Mission, St. Francis, South Dakota, 1974.

Robert M. Utley, The Indian Frontier of the American West 1846-1890, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1984, ISBN 0-8263-0716-7.