The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin (, ; Dakota and Lakota: ) are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations people from the Great Plains of North America. The Sioux have two major linguistic divisions: the Dakota and Lakota peoples (translation: referring to the alliances between the bands). Collectively, they are the , or . The term Sioux, an exonym from a French transcription () of the Ojibwe term , can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or to any of the nation's many language dialects.
Before the 17th century, the Santee Dakota (: , also known as the Eastern Dakota) lived around Lake Superior with territories in present-day northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. They gathered wild rice, hunted woodland animals, and used canoes to fish. The Dakota–Ojibwe War, which lasted throughout the 18th century, pushed the Dakota west into southern Minnesota, where the Western Dakota (Yankton, Yanktonai) and Lakota (Teton) lived. In the 19th century, the Dakota signed land cession treaties with the United States for much of their Minnesota lands. The United States' failure to make treaty payments or provide rations on time led to starvation and the Dakota War of 1862, which resulted in the Dakota's exile from Minnesota. They were forced onto reservations in Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota, and some fled to Canada. After 1870, the Dakota people began to return to Minnesota, creating the present-day reservations in the state. The Yankton and Yanktonai Dakota ( and ; and ), collectively also called by the endonym , lived near the Minnesota River before ceding their land and moving to South Dakota in 1858. Despite ceding their lands, their treaty with the US government allowed them to maintain their traditional role in the as the caretakers of the Pipestone Quarry, a cultural center for Sioux people. Considered the Western Dakota, they have in the past been erroneously classified as Nakota.for a report on the long-established blunder of misnaming as "Nakota", the Yankton and the Yanktonai, see the article Nakota Nakota are the Assiniboine and Stoney of Western Canada and Montana.
The Lakota, also called Teton (; possibly ), are the westernmost Sioux, known for their Plains Indians hunting and warrior culture. With the arrival of the horse in the 18th century, the Lakota became a powerful tribe on the Northern Plains by the 1850s. They fought the US Army in the Sioux Wars and defeated the 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of Little Big Horn (1876). The armed conflicts with the US ended with the Wounded Knee Massacre (1890).
Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the Dakota and Lakota continued to fight for their treaty rights, including the Wounded Knee incident, Dakota Access Pipeline protests, and the 1980 Supreme Court case United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, in which the court ruled that the US government had illegally taken tribal lands covered by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 and that the tribe was owed compensation plus interest. As of 2018, this amounted to more than $1 billion; the Sioux have refused the payment, demanding instead the return of the Black Hills. Today, the Sioux maintain many separate tribal governments across several reservations and communities in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Montana in the United States and reserves in Manitoba and Saskatchewan in Canada.
Etymology
The Sioux people refer to their whole nation of people (sometimes called the Great Sioux Nation) as the (meaning ). Each fire symbolizes an (people or nation). Today the seven nations that comprise the are: (also known collectively as the Lakota or Teton) , , , and (also known collectively as the Santee or Eastern Dakota) and (also known collectively as the Yankton/Yanktonai or Western Dakota).
They are also referred to as the Lakota or Dakota based on dialect differences. In any of the dialects, Lakota or Dakota translates as , referring to the alliances between the bands.
The name Sioux was adopted in English by the 1760s from French. It is abbreviated from the French , first attested by Jean Nicolet in 1640. The name is sometimes said to be derived from (plural ),NAA MS 4800 . Three drafts of On the Comparative Phonology of Four Siouan Languages. James O. Dorsey papers, circa 1870–1956, bulk 1870–1895. National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution an Ojibwe-language exonym for the Sioux meaning or (compare , used for the Iroquois).Learn about the history of the Sioux Indians . Indians.org. Retrieved on 2012-07-08. The French pluralized the Ojibwe singular by adding the French plural suffix to form , which was later shortened to . The Proto-Algonquian form , meaning , has reflexes in several daughter languages that refer to a small rattlesnake (massasauga, Sistrurus). An alternative explanation is derivation from an (Algonquian) exonym, (plural ), from a verb meaning . The current Ojibwe term for the Sioux and related groups is (singular ), meaning . Presumably, this refers to the style of cooking the Sioux used in the past.
In recent times, some of the tribes have formally or informally reclaimed traditional names: the Rosebud Sioux Tribe is also known as the , and the Oglala often use the name , rather than the formal Oglala Sioux Tribe or OST. The alternative English spelling of Ogallala is considered incorrect.
Culture Traditional social structure The traditional social structure of the strongly relied on kinship ties that extend beyond human interaction and includes the natural and supernatural worlds. Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ () represents a spiritual belief of how human beings should ideally act and relate to other humans, the natural world, the spiritual world, and to the cosmos. The represents the political and economic structure of traditional society.
(community) kinship
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the different villages (, ) consisted of many (), which were large extended families united by kinship (, ). varied in size, were led by a leader appointed by an elder council and were nicknamed after a prominent member or memorable event associated with the band. Dakota ethnographer Ella Cara Deloria noted the kinship ties were all-important, they dictated and demanded all phrases of traditional life:
During the fur trade era, the refused to trade only for economic reasons. Instead the production and trade of goods was regulated by rules of kinship bonds. Personal relationships were pivotal for success: in order for European-Americans to trade with the , social bonds had to be created. The most successful fur traders married into the kinship society, which also raised the status of the family of the woman through access to European goods. Outsiders are also adopted into the kinship through the religious ceremony. Early European explorers and missionaries who lived among the Dakota were sometimes adopted into the (known as "huŋka relatives"), such as Louis Hennepin who noted, "this help'd me to gain credit among these people". During the later reservation era, districts were often settled by clusters of families from the same .
Religion
The traditional social system extended beyond human interaction into the supernatural realms. It is believed that Wakȟáŋ Tháŋka () created the universe and embodies everything in the universe as one. The preeminent symbol of Sioux religion is the Čhaŋgléska Wakȟaŋ or medicine wheel (), which visually represents the concept that everything in the universe is intertwined. The creation stories of the describe how the various spirits were formed from . Black Elk describes the relationships with as:
Prayer is believed to invoke relationships with one's ancestors or spiritual world. The Lakota word for , wočhékiye, means . Their primary cultural prophet is Ptesáŋwiŋ, White Buffalo Calf Woman, who came as an intermediary between Tȟáŋka and humankind to teach them how to be good relatives by introducing the Seven Sacred Rites and the čhaŋnúŋpa (sacred pipe). The seven ceremonies are Inípi (purification lodge), (crying for vision), (Sun Dance), (making of relatives), (female puberty ceremony), (throwing of the ball) and (soul keeping). Each part of the sacred pipe (stem, bowl, tobacco, breath, and smoke) is symbolic of the relationships of the natural world, the elements, humans and the spiritual beings that maintain the cycle of the universe.
Dreams can also be a means of establishing relationships with spirits and are important to the . One can gain supernatural powers through dreams. Dreaming of the Wakíŋyaŋ (thunder beings) is believed to involuntarily make someone a Heyókȟa, a sacred clown. Black Elk, a famous said: "Only those who have had visions of the thunder beings of the west can act as heyokas. They have sacred power and they share some of this with all the people, but they do it through funny actions".
Governance Historical leadership organization
The of the assembled each summer to hold council, renew kinships, decide tribal matters, and participate in the Sun Dance. The seven divisions selected four leaders known as from among the leaders of each division. Being one of the four leaders was considered the highest honor for a leader; however, the annual gathering meant the majority of tribal administration was cared for by the usual leaders of each division. The last meeting of the Seven Council Fires was in 1850. The historical political organization was based on individual participation and the cooperation of many to sustain the tribe's way of life. Leaders were chosen based upon noble birth and demonstrations of chiefly virtues, such as bravery, fortitude, generosity, and wisdom. Political leaders were members of the society and decided matters of tribal hunts, camp movements, whether to make war or peace with their neighbors, or any other community action. Societies were similar to fraternities; men joined to raise their position in the tribe. Societies were composed of smaller clans and varied in number among the seven divisions. There were two types of societies: , for the younger men, and , for elders and former leaders. (Soldier) societies existed to train warriors, hunters, and to police the community. There were many smaller societies, including the Kit-Fox, Strong Heart, Elk, and so on. Leaders in the societies, per , were the tribal elders and leaders. They elected seven to ten men, depending on the division, each referred to as ("chief man"). Each interpreted and enforced the decisions of the . The elected two to four shirt-wearers, who were the voice of the society. They settled quarrels among families and also foreign nations. Shirt-wearers were often young men from families with hereditary claims of leadership. However, men with obscure parents who displayed outstanding leadership skills and had earned the respect of the community might also be elected. Crazy Horse is an example of a common-born shirt-wearer". A ranked below the "Shirt Wearers". The pipe-holders regulated peace ceremonies, selected camp locations, and supervised the societies during buffalo hunts.
Gender roles Within the Sioux tribes, there were defined gender roles. The men in the village were tasked as the hunters, traveling outside the village. The women within the village were in charge of making clothing and similar articles while also taking care of, and owning, the house. However, even with these roles, both men and women held power in decision-making tasks and sexual preferences were flexible and allowed. The term wíŋkte refers to men who partook in traditional feminine duties while the term () was used for women who rejected their roles as either mother or wife to be a prostitute.
Funeral practices Traditional funeral practices