Lakota

The Lakota ("friends" or "allies", sometimes also spelled "Lakhota") are a Native American tribe, also known as the Sioux (see Names). They form one of a group of seven tribes (the Great Sioux Nation or Seven Council Fires) that speak three different dialects, including Titonwan or Lakota proper, Santee or Dakota, and Nakoda. The Lakota, or Teton (Titonwon), are the westernmost of the three groups, occupying lands in both North and South Dakota. The Nakoda or Nakota, the smallest division, reside on the Yankton reservation in South Dakota, the Northern portion of Standing Rock Reservation, and Canada (the Stoney and Assiniboine), while the Dakota live mostly in Minnesota and Nebraska, but include bands in the Sisseton-Wahpeton, Flandreau, and Crow Creek Reservations in South Dakota.

Names

The name Sioux was created by the French Canadians, who abbreviated the French-adapted Algonquin word Nadouéssioux (from Ojibwe naadawesiwag, "large snakes, Iroquois"), by which a neighboring Ojibwa tribe, or the Ottawa, referred to the Dakota to the west and south. This term is popularly interpreted as an insult but it could refer to a time when the Dakota people, like the Creek, were known to revere serpents (see Serpent Mounds in Ohio, feathered serpent, water serpents - unktehi/uktena, etc.) Today many of the tribes continue to officially call themselves 'Sioux' which the Federal Government of the United States applied to all Dakota/Lakota/Nakoda people in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, some of the tribes have formally or informally adopted traditional names: the Rosebud Sioux Tribe is also known as the Sicangu Oyate (Brule Nation), and the Oglala often use the name Oglala Lakota Oyate, rather than the English "Oglala Sioux Tribe" or OST. (The alternate English spelling of Ogallala is not considered proper.)

Related Topics:
French Canadian - Algonquin - Ojibwe - Ojibwa - Ottawa - Creek - Feathered serpent

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The Dakota, Lakota and Nakoda have names for their own subdivisions. The "Santee" received this name from camping for long periods in a place where they collected stone for making knives. The "Yankton" received this name which meant people from the villages of far away. The "Tetonwan" were known as people who moved west with the coming of the horse to live and hunt buffalo on the prairie. From these three principal groups, came seven sub-tribes.

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