Sioux

BiographyThe Sioux ( /'su?/) are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects. The Sioux comprise three major divisions based on Siouan dialect and subculture:

Isá?yathi or Isá?athi ("Knife," originating from the name of a lake in present-day Minnesota): residing in the extreme east of the Dakotas, Minnesota and northern Iowa, and are often referred to as the Santee or Eastern Dakota.

Ihá?kt?u?wa? and Ihá?kt?u?wa?na ("Village-at-the-end" and "little village-at-the-end"): residing in the Minnesota River area, they are considered to be the middle Sioux, and are often referred to as the Yankton and the Yanktonai, or, collectively, as the Wichíyena (endonym) or the Western Dakota (and have been erroneously classified as “Nakota”[3]) .

Thít?u?wa? or Teton (uncertain, perhaps "Dwellers on the Prairie"; this name is archaic among the natives, who prefer to call themselves Lak?óta[4]): the westernmost Sioux, known for their hunting and warrior culture, are often referred to as the Lakota.
Today, the Sioux maintain many separate tribal governments scattered across several reservations, communities, and reserves in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Montana in the United States; and Manitoba and southern Saskatchewan in Canada.

Name origins

The name "Sioux" is an abbreviated form of Nadouessioux borrowed into Canadian French from Nadoüessioüak from the early Odawa exonym: naadowesiwag "Sioux".[5] Jean Nicolet recorded the use in 1640.[6] The Proto-Algonquian form *na·towe·wa, meaning "Northern Iroquoian", has reflexes in several daughter languages that refer to a small rattlesnake (massasauga, Sistrurus).[7] This information was interpreted by some that the Odawa borrowing was an insult. However, this Proto-Algonquian term most likely was ultimately derived from a form *-a·towe·, meaning simply "to speak a foreign language".[5] - which would make it similar to the etymology of the Greek "Barbarian". Later this was extended in meaning in some Algonquian languages to refer to the massasauga. Thus, contrary to many accounts, the old Odawa word naadowesiwag did not equate the Sioux with snakes. This is not confirmed though, since usage over the previous decades has led to this term having negative connotations to those tribes to which it refers. This would explain why many tribes have rejected this term as an exonym.

Some of the tribes have formally or informally adopted traditional names: the Rosebud Sioux Tribe is also known as the Sichá?gu Oyáte, and the Oglala often use the name Oglála Lak?óta Oyáte, rather than the English "Oglala Sioux Tribe" or OST. The alternative English spelling of Ogallala is considered improper.[6].

3. for a report on the long-established blunder of misnaming as “Nakota”, the Yankton and the Yanktonai, see the article Nakota
4. Ullrich, Jan (2008). New Lakota Dictionary (Incorporating the Dakota Dialects of Yankton-Yanktonai and Santee-Sisseton). Lakota Language Consortium. pp. 1–2. ISBN 0-9761082-9-1.
5. "Sioux". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 2007-09-05.
6. Johnson, Michael (2000). The Tribes of the Sioux Nation. Osprey Publishing Oxford. ISBN 1-85532-878-X.
7. Riggs, Stephen R. (1893). Dakota Grammar, Texts, and Ethnography. Washington Government Printing Office, Ross & Haines, Inc.. ISBN 0-87018-052-5.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sioux)

Person TypeGroup