Sioux
Current population 150,000+ (2005)
Location United States, Canada
Language(s) English, Sioux
The word "Sioux" means:
1. a major linguistic group in central and southeastern North America. This group is subdivided into two subgroups, the now extinct Catobas and the Sioux (who themselves have other subdivisions);
2. a word of Sauteux origin which designates culturally very close Lakota, Nakota and Dakota tribes. The word "Sioux" comes from the expression "nadewisu" which, in the language of the Ojibsians, would mean "treacherous serpents", but this point is uncertain and disputed.
This term was taken up by the French in the 17th century, and then adopted by the Sioux themselves, but today they prefer to reuse their original names by saying I am Lakota, Nakota or Dakota. “Nahdossiou” is therefore originally a pejorative word that the Ojibsians used to designate the neighboring tribes to the Whites who inquired about the name of this tribe; for linguistic simplification, only the word Sioux has remained, which has lost this pejorative meaning.
The Sioux called themselves OCETI SAKOWIN OYATE, “The People of the Seven Fires”. This people was divided into three large groups:
* the Tetons or Lakota (Traditional Dakota/Wyoming Territory) which include:
o Honkepapa ("They camp at the entrance"). Standing Rock Reservation (South and North Dakotas)
o Oglala ("They Scatter") Pine Ridge Reservation (South Dakota)
o Burned ("Burnt Thighs"). Rosebud Reservation and Lower Brule Reservation (South Dakota)
o Minneconjou “Mnikwojupi” (“They plant near water”). Cheyenne River Reservation (South Dakota)
o Without-arc ("Without arc"). Cheyenne River Reservation (South Dakota)
o Boiler ("Twice Boiled"). Cheyenne River Reservation (South Dakota)
o Pied-noir ("Blackfoot" or Blackfeet Sioux, not to be confused with the Blackfoot people). Cheyenne River Reservation (South Dakota).
* the Santis or Dakota (traditional Minnesota territory) which include:
o Sisseton. Sisseton-Wahpeton Reservation (South Dakota)
o Wahpeton ("They dwell under the leaves"). Sisseton-Wahpeton Reservation (South Dakota)
o Wahpekute ("They hunt under the leaves"). Minnesota Small Reserves
o Mdewakanton ("They inhabit the holy lake"). Devil's Lake (North Dakota) and Prior Lake (Minnesota) reservations.
* the Yankton or Nakota (Dakota National Territory) which include:
o Ankton "Iyanktonwan" ("They live at the end"). Yankton Reserve (South Akota)
o Assiniboine (related to the Yanktons). Fort Peck Reserve, Fort Belknap Reserve (Montana) and Reserves in Alberta (Canada)
o Stoney (related to the Yanktons). Reserves in Alberta
o Yanktonnais “Iyanktonwanna” (“Little Yanktons”). Reservation of Fort Peck (Montana).
Contacts with Europeans
.
The French were the first Europeans to encounter the Sioux, on the western side of Lake Superior, in what are now the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin. The Sauteux, their enemies, nicknamed them Nadowessioux, "the little vipers", a derogatory name that the French, allies of the Objiwas, took up by abbreviating it. In fact, the Sioux called themselves in their language Oceti Sakowin, "the Council of the Seven Fires", in reference to their seven political divisions. At the time of the first contacts with the French, in the years 1670-1680, the Sioux were settled in large villages; they alternated growing corn, picking wild rice and hunting bison, then present in the clearings of Upper Mississippi. During the 18th century, the Sioux bands, probably driven out by the then endemic conflicts around the Great Lakes and the development of the epidemics which decimated the neighboring tribes, began their migration towards the West. This movement beyond the Mississippi was also motivated by the abundance of bison and by the appearance of the horse, which had come from the southern plains, where the Indians had adopted it when it appeared with the arrival of the Spaniards, in the 16th century.
During the 18th century, the Sioux tribes built up a veritable "empire" in the West by pushing the Ravens (Crows in French in France) towards the Rocky Mountains, and the Panis on the Platte River. They first appear in accounts in 1650 in the Milles and Leech Lakes area near Mississippi, Minnesota. The borders of their new territory being a day's walk from Lake Superior. Under pressure from the Sauxteux tribes (among the first to obtain firearms), they moved further west again, pushing ahead of them the Cheyenne, Omaha, Crow and other smaller tribes. They quickly invaded all of the west and south-west of the country after acquiring horses and guns.
Around 1750, they crossed the Mississippi and invaded the Black Hills. The Lewis and Clark expedition, at the beginning of the 19th century, allowed the Americans to deepen their knowledge of the Sioux. When American settlers arrived in the Great Plains in the 1830s and 1840s, the Sioux occupied a vast territory that stretched from Missouri to the Little Bighorn Mountains (the current states of North Dakota and of South Dakota), as well as parts of Wyoming and Nebraska. In this conquest, the Sioux Confederacy allied with the Arapaho and Cheyenne; this union, which lasted throughout the 19th century, made the Sioux the most imposing military power on the Northern Plains.
Derived place names
Two states in the United States, North Dakota and South Dakota are named after the Dakota tribe. Two other states have names of Sioux origin:Minnesota (mni ("water") and sota ("misty/smoky, unclear") and Nebraska whose name comes from a language close to Santee, in which mni and blaska ("flat") refer to the Platte River (French name). such as Omaha in Nebraska and Ponca City in Oklahoma.These names demonstrate the wide dispersal of Sioux peoples throughout the Midwest
Several municipalities in the Midwest use the word Sioux in their names:Sioux City and Sioux Center (Iowa) and Sioux Falls (South Dakota) as well as the Little Sioux rivers in Iowa and Big Sioux on the border between Iowa and the South Dakota.
Several lesser towns and other geographic features of the Northern Plains bear names of Sioux origin or translations of Sioux names such as Wasta, Owanka, Oacoma, Hot Springs (Minnelusa), Minnehaha County, Belle Fourche (Mniwasta, or "Good water"), Inyan Kara etc.