Lakota people

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Eddie Plenty Holes, a Sioux Indian photographed about 1899.

The Lakota (IPA: [laˈkˣota]) (also Lakhota, Teton, Titonwon) are a Native American tribe. They form one of a group of seven tribes (the Great Sioux Nation) and speak Lakota, one of the three major dialects of the Sioux language.

The Lakota are the westernmost of the three Sioux groups, occupying lands in both North and South Dakota. The seven branches or "sub-tribes" of the Lakota are Brulé, Oglala, Sans Arcs, Hunkpapa, Miniconjou, Sihasapa and Two Kettles.

1 History
2 Ethnonyms
3 Reservations
4 See also
5 External links
6 Bibliography

[edit] History

Akta Lakota Museum in Chamberlain, South Dakota.

The Lakota are closely related to the western Dakota of Minnesota. After their adoption of the horse, šųká-wakhą́ ([ˈʃũka waˈkˣã]) ('dog [of] power/mystery/wonder') in the early 18th century, the Lakota became part of the Great Plains culture with their eventual Algonkin-speaking allies, the Tsitsistas (Northern Cheyenne), living in the northern Great Plains. Their society centered on the buffalo hunt with the horse. There were 20,000 Lakota in the mid-18th century. The number has now increased to about 70,000, of whom about 20,500 still speak the Lakota language.

After 1720, the Lakota branch of the Seven Council Fires split into two elements, the Saone who moved to the Lake Traverse area on the South Dakota-North Dakota-Minnesota border, and the Oglala-Brulé who occupied the James River Valley. By about 1750, however, the Saone had moved to the east bank of the Missouri, followed 10 years later by the Oglala and Brulé (Sičangu).

The large and powerful Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa villages had prevented the Lakota from crossing the Missouri for an extended period, but when smallpox and other diseases nearly destroyed these tribes, the way was open for the first Lakota to cross the Missouri into the drier, short-grass prairies of the High Plains. These Saone, well-mounted and increasingly confident, spread out quickly. In 1765, a Saone exploring and raiding party led by Chief Standing Bear discovered the Black Hills (which they called the Paha Sapa). Just a decade later, in 1775, the Oglala and Brulé also crossed the river, following the great smallpox epidemic of 1772–1780, which destroyed three-quarters of the Missouri Valley populations. In 1776, they defeated the Cheyenne as the Cheyenne had earlier defeated the Kiowa, and gained control of the land which became the center of the Lakota universe.

Initial contacts between the Lakota and the United States, during the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804–06, were friendly. But as more and more settlers crossed Lakota lands, this changed. In Nebraska on September 3, 1855, 700 soldiers under American General William S. Harney avenged the "Grattan Massacre" by attacking a Lakota village, killing 100 men, women, and children. Other wars followed; and in 1862–1864, as refugees from the "Dakota War of 1862" in Minnesota fled west to their allies in Montana and Dakota Territory, the war followed them.

Because the Black Hills are sacred to the Lakota, they objected to mining in the area, which had been attempted since the early years of the 19th century. In 1868, the US government signed the Fort Laramie Treaty, exempting the Black Hills from all white settlement forever. 'Forever' lasted only four years, as gold was publicly discovered there, and an influx of prospectors descended upon the area, abetted by army commanders like General George Armstrong Custer. The latter tried to administer a lesson of noninterference with white policies, resulting in the Black Hills War of 1876–77.

The Lakota with their allies, the Arapaho and the Northern Cheyenne, defeated General George Crook's army at the Battle of the Rosebud and a week later defeated the U.S. 7th Cavalry in 1876 at the Battle at the Greasy Grass or Little Big Horn, killing 258 soldiers and inflicting more than 50% casualties on the regiment. But like the Zulu triumph over the British at Isandlwana in Africa three years later, it proved to be a pyrrhic victory. The Teton were defeated in a series of subsequent battles by the reinforced U.S. Army, and were herded back onto reservations, prevented from hunting buffalo and forced to accept government food distribution, which went to 'friendlies' only.

January 17, 1891: Camp of Oglala tribe of Lakota at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, 3 weeks after Wounded Knee incident, when 150 scattered as 153 Lakota Sioux and 25 soldiers died.

Lakota storyteller: painting.

The Lakota were compelled to sign a treaty in 1877 ceding the Black Hills to the United States, but a low-intensity war continued, culminating, fourteen years later, in the killing of Sitting Bull (December 15, 1890) at Standing Rock and the Massacre of Wounded Knee (December 29, 1890) at Pine Ridge.

Today, the Lakota are found mostly in the five reservations of western South Dakota: Rosebud (home of the Upper Sičangu or Brulé), Pine Ridge (home of the Oglala), Lower Brulé (home of the Lower Sičangu), Cheyenne River (home of several other of the seven Lakota bands, including the Sihasapa and Hunkpapa), and Standing Rock, also home to people from many bands. But Lakota are also found far to the north in the Fort Peck Reservation of Montana, the Fort Berthold Reservation of northwestern North Dakota, and several small reserves in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, where their ancestors fled to "Grandmother's [i.e. Queen Victoria's] Land" (Canada) during the Minnesota or Black Hills War.

Large numbers of Lakota also live in Rapid City and other towns in the Black Hills, and in Metro Denver. Lakota elders joined the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO) seeking protection and recognition for their cultural and land rights.

The Lakota name now joins Sioux, Kiowa, Apache, Dakota, Cherokee and other American Indian names that have been given to aircraft. The UH-145 has been selected as the United States Army's new Light Utility Helicopter, and has been named the Lakota.

[edit] Ethnonyms

The name Lakota comes from the Lakota autonym, lak^hóta "feeling affection, friendly, united, allied". The early French literature does not distinguish a separate Teton division, instead lumping them into a "Sioux of the West" group with other Santee and Yankton bands.

The names Teton and Tintowan comes from the Lakota name t^hít^hųwą (the meaning of which is obscure). This term was used to refer to the Lakota by non-Lakota Sioux groups. Other derivations include: Ti tanka, Tintonyanyan, Titon, Tintonha, Thintohas, Tinthenha, Tinton, Thuntotas, Tintones, Tintoner, Tintinhos, Ten-ton-ha, Thinthonha, Tinthonha, Tentouha, Tintonwans, Tindaw, Tinthow, Atintons, Anthontans, Atentons, Atintans, Atrutons, Titoba, Tetongues, Teton Sioux, Teeton, Ti toan, Teetwawn, Teetwans, Ti-t’-wawn, Ti-twans, Tit’wan, Tetans, Tieton, Teetonwan, etc.

As noted above, the early French sources call the Lakota Sioux with an additional modifier, such as Scioux of the West, West Schious, Sioux des prairies, Sioux occidentaux, Sioux of the Meadows, Nadooessis of the Plains, Prairie Indians, Sioux of the Plain, Maskoutens-Nadouessians, Mascouteins Nadouessi, and Sioux nomades.

Lakota Beaded Saddle Belt, made ca. 1850

Today many of the tribes continue to officially call themselves Sioux which the Federal Government of the United States applied to all Dakota/Lakota/Nakota 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 Sičangu Oyate (Brulé 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 deprecated, even though it is closer to the correct pronunciation.) The Lakota have names for their own subdivisions.

Notable persons include Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake) from the Hunkpapa band and Crazy Horse (Tašunka Witko), Red Cloud (Maĥpiya Luta), Black Elk (Hehaka Sapa) and Billy Mills from the Oglala band.

[edit] Reservations

Today, one half of all Enrolled Sioux live off the Reservation.

Lakota reservations recognized by the US government include:

Some Lakota also live on other Sioux reservations in eastern South Dakota, Minnesota, and Nebraska:

Santee, in Nebraska
Crow Creek in Central South Dakota
Yankton in Central South Dakota
Flandreau in Eastern South Dakota
Sisseton-Wahpehton in Northeastern South Dakota and Southeastern North Dakota
Lower Sioux in Minnesota
Upper Sioux in Minnesota
Shakopee in Minnesota
Prairie Island in Minnesota

In addition several Lakota live on Wood Mountain Indian Reserve often Wood Mountain First Nation northwest of Wood Mountain Post now a Saskatchewan historic site.

[edit] See also

Lakota language
Lakota mythology
UH-72A Lakota, a helicopter in the US Army.

A starship, the USS Lakota, was named for them in the Star Trek universe.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Lakota

Dakota Blues: The History of The Great Sioux Nation
Lakhota.Com The Leading Lakota Sioux Resource teaching Language and History since 1995 - run by members of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe
The Teton Sioux (Edward S. Curtis)
Lakota Language Consortium (Indiana)
Lakota Winter Counts a Smithsonian exhibit of the annual icon chosen to represent the major event of the past year
Lakota Herbs (Canada)

[edit] Bibliography

Christafferson, Dennis M. (2001). Sioux, 1930-2000. In R. J. DeMallie (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Plains (Vol. 13, Part 2, pp. 821-839). W. C. Sturtevant (Gen. Ed.). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-050400-7.
DeMallie, Raymond J. (2001a). Sioux until 1850. In R. J. DeMallie (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Plains (Vol. 13, Part 2, pp. 718-760). W. C. Sturtevant (Gen. Ed.). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-050400-7.
DeMallie, Raymond J. (2001b). Teton. In R. J. DeMallie (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Plains (Vol. 13, Part 2, pp. 794-820). W. C. Sturtevant (Gen. Ed.). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-050400-7.
Hein, David (Advent 2002). "Episcopalianism among the Lakota / Dakota Indians of South Dakota." The Historiographer, vol. 40, pp. 14-16. [The Historiographer is a publication of the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church and the National Episcopal Historians and Archivists.]
Hein, David (1997). "Christianity and Traditional Lakota / Dakota Spirituality: A Jamesian Interpretation." The McNeese Review, vol. 35, pp. 128-38.
Matson, William and Frethem, Mark (2006). Producers. "The Authorized Biography of Crazy Horse and His Family Part One: Creation, Spirituality, and the Family Tree". The Crazy Horse family tells their oral history and with explainations of Lakota spirituality and culture on DVD. (Publisher is Reelcontact.com)
Parks, Douglas R.; & Rankin, Robert L. (2001). The Siouan languages. In R. J. DeMallie (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Plains (Vol. 13, Part 1, pp. 94-114). W. C. Sturtevant (Gen. Ed.). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-050400-7.