DAKOTA, a tribe, or confederated aggregation of tribes, of Siouan family in the northern plains of the United States. The name, now applied to two States, means "allies"; the popular designation is Sioux, abbreviated from Nadowessioux, from Ojibwa via French. As the largest group in the Siouan family, the Dakota have given their name to this. They number in the aggregate some 25,000, not much less than at first white contact, probably. There are three main divisions : Santee, Yankton, Teton, calling them selves respectively Dakota, Nakota and Lakota. The Santee com prise the Mdewakanton, Wahpeton, Wahpekute, Sisseton; the Yankton includes the Yankton and the Yanktonai. This makes seven divisions, recognized by the Dakota themselves as "seven council fires" ; but the Teton outnumber the other six combined.
First encountered by the whites in Minnesota, the Dakota have drifted westward, under pressure first from the Ojibwa, who were early armed with French guns, and later from the whites. During the latter half of the i8th century the Teton established them selves west of the Missouri river. They are now on ten reservations in several States.
The Dakota have always been a spirited, brave, somewhat turbulent people, upstanding and outright in character. Tall in stature and picturesque in costume, they have in recent generations impressed civilized imagination perhaps more than any other American tribe. All the Teton and part of the other divisions ad hered to the plains Indian type of life: buffalo hunting, tepee dwelling, nomadic, non-agricultural, raiding, and proud of their war exploits. Their greatest ceremony was the so-called sun dance.
(A. L. K.)