Museographs The Sioux: Dakota, Lakota, Nakota: The History Publication of World Culture

By Caron Caswell Lazar

Amid the armed conflict and broken treaty signings of nineteenth-century America, the highly successful horse culture of the plains, the Sioux Indians clutched to their way of life. Composed of three major groups and spread over six states, the Sioux represent a community divided. Much of their traditional world view and custom was overshadowed by the white man's quest for the dominance of Western civilization. Still, a highly developed sense of tribal pride coupled with a warrior spirit has safeguarded the Sioux against complete assimilation and cultural elimination.

Chronicle this Western tribe's enduring history with The Sioux. Understand the true scope of the white man's debilitating influence, which while leading initially to a richer vocabulary, a more practical economic system, and lasting contributions to traditional dress, was also later responsible for the horrific 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre.

Though such imposed change might have permanently crushed the spirit of a people, the Sioux have seen a cultural renaissance and thrive today on seven reservations throughout the United States and Canada. Traditional practice has resumed its place in such events as the modern Powwow and the Grass Dance. Costumes originating in the nineteenth-century reflect ethnic vitality and bear the graceful integration between tribal materials and European trader goods to the present. Most importantly, that warrior spirit remains replenished and unshaken, proving a valuable lesson in conquering adversity and in the self-assertion of both individual and collective identities of a people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Feb 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781456615734

Book preview

Celts

The Sioux

Dakota, Lakota, Nakota

Sioux War Club

(Sioux Native American, North or South Dakota, c. 1880)

Length 24 inches

Stone, wood and beads

The Detroit Institute of Arts Founders Society Purchase

In the seasons ahead many, many whitemen will visit this tribe. Certain ones will hold the same good heart toward the Lakota that I and you hold toward one another. They shall see the good Lakota ways and honor the Lakota precept and custom. The Lakota will recognize these good persons for the reason that these good persons shall recognize the Lakota.

Tonweya, Oglala Sioux, circa 1830

Note: Recently the Board of Directors of the Smithsonian’s new museum dedicated to the culture of the first American’s voted to adopt the term American Indian, in place of Native American, as the correct identification of America’s indigenous peoples. Over half of the Directors on the Board of this institution are themselves American Indians. We have therefore changed our original text to coincide with this decision.

Historic Overview

Sioux is the name given to a large and very successful group of American Indian Plains people consisting of a confederation of several independent tribes and bands who by the nineteenth century inhabited an area which stretched from Minnesota across the Dakotas and into eastern Wyoming and Montana.

The name by which this group of people called themselves is the Dakota Nation. Within the Dakota there are three primary groups divided regionally. They are the Eastern or Santee Sioux (Dakota) who lived in the forests and prairies of Minnesota; the Middle Sioux (Nakota) made up of the Yankton to the south and the Yanktonai to the north, who lived between the Missouri and Red rivers of the eastern Dakotas; and the Western or Teton Sioux (Lakota) made up of the Oglala, Brule, Two Kettles, Minniconjou, Sans Arcs, Black Feet and Hunkpapa. These seven Lakota tribes were also known as the Seven Fireplaces.

In the later years of the nineteenth century, during the period of armed conflict with the U.S. government and the negotiation of treaties between 1851 (the year of the Fort Laramie Treaty) and 1881 (the surrender of Sitting Bull), individual bands from among these tribes chose either