Dictionary:

Sioux

  (sū)

1. 1. A group of Native American peoples, also known as the Dakota, inhabiting the northern Great Plains from Minnesota to eastern Montana and from southern Saskatchewan to Nebraska. Present-day Sioux populations are located mainly in North and South Dakota.
   2. A member of any of these peoples.
2. Any of the Siouan languages of the Sioux peoples.

[North American French, short for nadouéssioux, from Ottawa naadowesiwag.]

Any one of a group of several Plains Indian tribes located between the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and speaking a Souian language. Perhaps the best known of the Sioux tribes was the Lakota Sioux.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

For more information on Sioux, visit Britannica.com.

Referred to collectively by outsiders as Sioux, a French rendition of the Ottawa name na•towe•ssiwak, meaning "enemy," the Sioux call themselves Lakota or Dakota, depending on dialect, signifying "allies." While linguists trace their origins to the southeastern United

States, some Lakotas and Dakotas today say they emerged from the Black Hills, where they have lived for millennia. At the time of early European contact these groups were found in southern Minnesota, extending east to western Wisconsin and south to northern Iowa and westward across the prairies of North and South Dakota. By the late nineteenth century some Sioux had made their way west as far as eastern Montana. The total Sioux population reached its nadir in 1890 at 25,920. In the 2000 U.S. Census, 153,360 people self-identified as Sioux or Sioux and other tribal affiliations.

The Sioux conceptualize themselves as the Seven Council Fires. The easternmost division, the Santees, consist of four tribes: Mdewakanton (Spirit Lake Village), Wahpeton (Leaf Village), Wahpekute (Leaf Shooters), and Sisseton (sometimes translated as Fish Scale Village). The central division, the Yanktons, are made up of two tribes, Yankton (End Village) and Yanktonai (Little End Village). The westernmost division, the Tetons, consists of seven tribes: Sicangu (also Brule, Burnt Thighs), Hunkpapa

(End of the Camp Circle), Miniconjou (Planters by the Water), Oglala (They Scatter Their Own), Oohenonpa (Two Kettles), Itazipco (also Sans Arcs, Without Bows), and Sihasapa (Blackfeet). The Assiniboine and Sioux were formerly one people but at the time of European contact the Assiniboines allied themselves with the Crees and moved north and west, settling by the early nineteenth century in Saskatchewan and northeastern Montana. The westernmost Assiniboines moved to the Rocky Mountains in Alberta and became a separate tribe, the Stoneys.

The Sioux maintained their own historical records through oral traditions. The Yanktons and Tetons also preserved winter counts, pictographic records that associated each year (winter) with an event significant to the group. The Dakotas are first mentioned in European writings in 1640, and the first recorded contact with them was by French explorers in about 1660. The Dakotas and Lakotas encountered Lewis and Clark in 1804.

All the Sioux were primarily nomadic hunters and gatherers whose lives focused on the buffalo, a pattern that intensified with the introduction of European horses and guns in the eighteenth century. Each of the Dakota and Lakota tribes was organized into bands that were composed of families related by blood, marriage, and adoption. Each band established its own territory for hunting and gathering. These bands were largely independent but allied into larger groups for communal hunts and warfare. All the Sioux shared a common culture, but some of the Santees and Yanktons borrowed elements of Woodlands and Missouri River cultures, most significantly the Chip-pewa midewiwin, or medicine dance, and earth lodges from the riverine tribes. These Santee and Yankton bands constructed permanent villages, gathered wild rice, fished, and engaged in limited agriculture. Religious rituals practiced by all the Sioux include the sun dance, vision quest, and sweat lodge. While they practiced a rigidly defined sexual division of labor, respect was accorded to both gender groups for successful fulfillment of their respective roles. Contemporary Lakotas and Dakotas continue to stress the separate but complementary roles of men and women in their society.

Warfare was both a political and ritual act, and military service continues to be considered prestigious among these peoples. After sporadic contacts with the French and British, the Lakotas and Dakotas dealt primarily with the United States, first through the fur trade and then in the struggle to maintain their lands and traditions. As the United States expanded westward, a series of treaties resulted in significant land loss for the Sioux. The treaties of Mendota and Traverse des Sioux in 1851 placed the Santees in difficult circumstances, precipitating the Minnesota Conflict of 1862. The majority of the Santees fled into Canada or were exiled to a reservation in Nebraska. As Americans pressed farther west, the Yanktons and Lakotas entered into the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. Further American expansion through Lakota territory led to a series of conflicts sometimes called Red Cloud's War, which ended with the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. The insistence by the United States that the Lakotas leave their hunting territories to settle on their reservation precipitated the Battle of the Little Bighorn on 25 June 1876. Lakota lands diminished when the Black Hills were alienated through the Agreement of 1876, and much more land was forfeited through the Agreement of 1889, which broke up the Great Sioux Reservation into small units. Cultural disruption, mistreatment, and famine in 1889 all encouraged the spread of the Ghost Dance Movement among these peoples and culminated in the tragic Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890.

Although some history books mark the "end" of the Lakota and Dakota tribes with Wounded Knee, this is clearly not the case. The persistence of the Lakotas as well as the dire conditions of reservation life came into public prominence through the Wounded Knee Occupation of 1973. The Lakotas continue to pursue various land claims, most significantly the claim for the Black Hills. In 1980 the Supreme Court recognized the rank illegality of the alienation of the Black Hills and awarded the Lakotas $106 million. The Lakotas, however, have refused to accept the money, seeking instead the return of the land. Lakotas and Dakotas today live on reservations in North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Montana, and the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan as well as in urban areas throughout the United States and Canada. They continue to shape their own lives and struggle to maintain their distinct legal, linguistic, and cultural identity as they negotiate their relationships with the rest of the world.

Bibliography

Sturtevant, William C., gen. ed. Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 13 (2 parts): Plains, edited by Raymond J. DeMallie. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 2001. The following articles are relevant to the Sioux: Part 1: Raymond J. DeMallie and David Reed Miller, "Assiniboine"; Ian A. L. Getty and Erik D. Gooding, "Stoney." Part 2: Raymond J. DeMallie, "Sioux until 1850," "Teton," "Yankton and Yanktonai"; Patricia Albers, "Santee"; Dennis N. Christafferson, "Sioux, 1930–2000." This volume is the most authoritative and comprehensive written work on the Sioux.

Bucko, Raymond A. "Lakota Dakota Bibliography." http://puffin.creighton.edu/lakota/biblio.html. Contains an extensive bibliography of Lakota and Dakota materials.

A common name for the Dakota people, a tribe of Native Americans inhabiting the northern Great Plains in the nineteenth century. They were famed as warriors and frequently took up arms in the late nineteenth century to oppose the settlement of their hunting grounds and sacred places. In 1876, Sioux warriors, led by Chief Sitting Bull, and commanded in the field by Chief Crazy Horse, overwhelmed the United States cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. (See Custer's last stand.) A group of Sioux under Chief Big Foot were massacred by United States troops at Wounded Knee in 1890.