Lakota & Dakota (Oceti Sakowin)

Status: Researched draft — cultural review pending

How to read this entry: Documented fact = treaty text, court record, or published scholarship (Sources). Tradition — the people's own account = Lakota/Dakota oral tradition or nation-published teaching, labelled as such. Debated / Claim = disputed point. No ceremonial instructions are given; the content of ceremonies such as the Sun Dance and sweat lodge is community-restricted and is not described — only their existence as documented public facts is named, as the task permits.

The people's own collective name is Oceti Sakowin — "Seven Council Fires" — as printed by the Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural Center and South Dakota's Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings (Aktá Lakota Museum, n.d.; South Dakota Department of Education, OSEU). The seven fires comprise: Mdewakanton, Wahpekute, Sisseton (Sisitonwan) and Wahpeton (Dakota, "D" dialect); Yankton and Yanktonai (Nakota in common usage, "N"); and Teton (Lakota, "L"), itself of seven bands including Oglala, Sicangu (Brulé), Hunkpapa, Miniconjou, Sihasapa, Oohenumpa and Itazipco (Aktá Lakota Museum, n.d.). "Sioux" is an exonym derived, through French, from an Ojibwe term — documented in reference sources and noted by Dakota scholars (Dartmouth / Medicine Bear Winter Count project, n.d.).

Language

• Family. Dakota and Lakota are Siouan languages, closely related varieties (Dakota, Lakota, and the Yankton-Yanktonai variety) of one language in most linguistic treatments, with the D/L/N correspondence the best-known dialect marker (Mithun, 1999; Ullrich, 2008, New Lakota Dictionary, Lakota Language Consortium).
• Writing. Latin orthographies: the Lakota Language Consortium's standard orthography (Ullrich, 2008) is widely used in schools; Dakota communities also use systems associated with Riggs (1852, Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota Language, Smithsonian) and community variants. Orthographic choice is a live community question — do not present one system as the people's single standard.
• Status today. UNESCO Atlas and tribal sources classify Lakota and Dakota as endangered. Counts are method-dependent and contested — immersion-school and tribal-census figures differ — so no single total is given here; flagged gap. Documented revitalisation: Lakota Language Consortium teaching materials, immersion schools including Lakȟól'iyapi Wahóȟpi (Lakota Language Nest, Standing Rock) and Tusweca Tiospaye (Pine Ridge), and Dakota Wicohan (Minnesota) (organisation publications, n.d.).

Traditions

• Kinship and governance, high level. The basic social unit in published ethnography is the tiospaye (extended family band — spelling as printed in OSEU materials); bands camped, hunted and governed through councils and leaders chosen for ability, with camp-circle organisation recorded in winter counts and ethnography (DeMallie, 2001, "Sioux until 1850," Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 13, Smithsonian; Walker, 1982, Lakota Society, ed. DeMallie).
• Seasonal round and bison economy. Documented fact: Plains Lakota life in the 18th–19th centuries centred on communal bison hunting, tipi encampments moved seasonally, and trade; Dakota communities to the east combined horticulture (corn), wild-rice / fishing waters and hunting (DeMallie, 2001). The near-extermination of the bison herds in the 1870s–80s by market hunting — a documented U.S.-tolerated strategy — destroyed that economy (Isenberg, 2000, The Destruction of the Bison, Cambridge University Press).
• The Seven Council Fires' fire-keeping — carrying the sacred fire / embers when moving camp — is described in South Dakota OSEU materials as a symbol of sovereignty and unity (Douville, in OSEU draft, 2016). Present as nation-taught tradition.
• Ceremonies: named only. Published sources name seven Lakota rites in tradition attributed to White Buffalo Calf Woman — Tradition — the people's own account (Black Elk / Brown, 1953, The Sacred Pipe). Their content is restricted and is not described here.

Treaties Particular to Them

• Treaty of Fort Laramie (17 September 1851). Parties: the United States and the Sioux (Dakota/Lakota/Nakota), Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow and others. It defined territorial boundaries between the peoples, provided for U.S. roads and posts, and promised annuities (Treaty of Fort Laramie, 1851, Kappler, Vol. II). It did not cede Sioux land.
• Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) — the Sioux Treaty. Signed at Fort Laramie through spring–November 1868, following Red Cloud's War. From the text: Article 2 established the Great Sioux Reservation — all of present South Dakota west of the Missouri, including the Black Hills — as land "set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians"; Article 16 designated country north of the North Platte and east of the Bighorn summits as unceded Indian territory closed to white settlement or passage without Sioux consent; Article 12 provided that no future cession would be valid without signatures of at least three-fourths of all adult male Indians occupying or interested in the reservation (Treaty with the Sioux, 1868, Kappler, Vol. II; Smithsonian Magazine / National Museum of the American Indian, "Nation to Nation," Cutlip, 2018).
• The Black Hills taking (1876–1877). Documented facts: gold was confirmed in the Black Hills by the 1874 Custer expedition; the U.S. failed to purchase the Hills; an 1876 agreement obtained signatures from roughly 10% of adult Sioux men — far below Article 12's three-fourths requirement — and Congress enacted the cession by the Act of 28 February 1877 (sources: treaty scholarship surveyed in Lazarus, 1991, Black Hills/White Justice, HarperCollins; figures for the 10% signature share are those used by the Supreme Court's recitation and the Lakota Times summary of the case — treat as the court's record, not an independent count).
• United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371 (30 June 1980). The Supreme Court held the 1877 act effected a taking of the Black Hills (and other lands) without just compensation, in breach of the 1868 treaty, and upheld an award of the 1877 value plus 5% interest from 1877. The dollar figures are reported inconsistently in secondary sources — $15.5 million, $17.1 million and $17.5 million all appear for the principal in reputable summaries, with interest bringing the 1980 total to about $122 million (compare Smithsonian, 2018: "more than $100 million"; court text, 448 U.S. 371). This entry therefore states "about $122 million in 1980" and flags the principal figure for verification against the slip opinion before publication. Documented fact: the Sioux nations have refused to accept the money, maintaining the Black Hills were not for sale; the fund, with interest, has been reported at over $1 billion (figures dated 2011 in secondary sources; current value requires a fresh Bureau of Trust Funds source — flagged).
• Later agreements (1889) divided the Great Sioux Reservation into the present smaller reservations (Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, Lower Brulé, Crow Creek) (Act of 2 March 1889; DeMallie, 2001).

Writings and Record Systems

• Winter counts (waniyetu wowapi — spelling as printed in OSEU materials). Documented fact: designated keepers painted one pictograph per year on hides (later cloth/paper), each image naming the year by a memorable event, the sequence serving as a chronological framework for oral history (Smithsonian Institution, Lakota Winter Counts online exhibit, National Museum of the American Indian / National Anthropological Archives; Greene & Thornton, eds., 2007, The Year the Stars Fell: Lakota Winter Counts at the Smithsonian, University of Nebraska Press). Named counts include those of Battiste Good, Lone Dog, Flame, and American Horse; originals are held at the Smithsonian and other museums, with copies and community editions in tribal keeping — provenance varies by count and is flagged per-item for review.
• Pictography on hides, tipis and ledger art (post-1870s, on paper) is documented in Smithsonian collections.
• Print and scholarship. Dakota-language print begins with mission presses and Riggs (1852); foundational Indigenous-authored works include Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa, Dakota) and Ella Deloria (Yankton Dakota), whose Dakota Texts (1932) and ethnographic work are standard scholarly sources.

Crafts, Arts, Skills

• Tipi engineering. The conical tipi — adjustable smoke flaps, liner and dew-cloth insulation, rapidly erected and struck — is a documented, sophisticated Plains dwelling technology (Laubin & Laubin, 1957, The Indian Tipi; Smithsonian collections).
• Quillwork and beadwork. Porcupine-quill embroidery predates glass-bead work, for which Lakota floral and geometric styles are renowned (Smithsonian NMAI collections; Berlo & Phillips, 1998, Native North American Art, Oxford).
• Hide painting, parfleche (painted rawhide containers), and horse culture arts (from the 18th century) are documented in museum records.
• Agriculture. Eastern Dakota corn horticulture and, on the Plains, Lakota cultivation in river bottoms are documented (DeMallie, 2001), alongside the better-known bison economy.
• Medicine / plants — historical record only. Published ethnobotany (e.g., Rogers, 1980, Edible and Medicinal Plants of the Great Lakes; Moerman, 1998, Native American Ethnobotany, Timber Press, database) records historical uses. Caution: historical record ≠ proof of clinical effectiveness; no dosages, preparations or treatment instructions are given. Sage, cedar and sweetgrass are widely named in public sources as significant plants; their ceremonial use is restricted and not described.

Sources

• Aktá Lakota Museum & Cultural Center (n.d.). "Oceti Sakowin: Seven Council Fires." akta lakota.stjo.org.
• Black Elk / Brown, Joseph Epes (1953). The Sacred Pipe. University of Oklahoma Press.
• Cutlip, Kimbra (2018). "In 1868, Two Nations Made a Treaty. The U.S. Broke It…" Smithsonian Magazine / NMAI.
• DeMallie, Raymond J. (2001). "Sioux until 1850." Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 13. Smithsonian Institution.
• Greene, Candace S. & Thornton, Russell, eds. (2007). The Year the Stars Fell. University of Nebraska Press / Smithsonian.
• Isenberg, Andrew C. (2000). The Destruction of the Bison. Cambridge University Press.
• Kappler, Charles J. (1904). Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II — Fort Laramie Treaties, 1851 and 1868.
• Lazarus, Edward (1991). Black Hills/White Justice. HarperCollins.
• Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge University Press.
• Moerman, Daniel E. (1998). Native American Ethnobotany. Timber Press.
• Riggs, Stephen R. (1852). Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota Language. Smithsonian Institution.
• South Dakota Department of Education (2016–2024 drafts). Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings and Standards (OSEU).
• Ullrich, Jan F. (2008). New Lakota Dictionary. Lakota Language Consortium.
• UNESCO. Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger — Lakota, Dakota entries. Accessed 2026.
• United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371 (1980).

Weakest-sourced points in this entry (flagged): (1) The 1980 award principal — $15.5M / $17.1M / $17.5M in different reputable summaries; verify against 448 U.S. 371 before publication; (2) current trust-fund value ("over $1 billion" is a 2011-era secondary figure); (3) speaker totals deliberately omitted; (4) the 1876 "10% of adult men" signature figure comes from the litigation record, not an independent census.