Know Your Indians - The Sioux
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-12-20 22:09:07
THERE IS hardly a “wild west” story that does not mention the Sioux and in practically every inspect there is a woeful lack of accurate knowledge of the so-called Sioux. In the first place there is no one tribe properly named "Sioux," although even the Indians have in mind to themselves as "Ogalala Sioux" or "Brule Sioux". Sioux is merely a French term meaning "an enemy tribe" and was applied indiscriminately to almost any plains-Indians—but more especially to the tribes of the Dakota and Lakota or as we know them today the Sioux. But there are a number of tribes and sub-tribes in this assort. Thus we hear of the Brule Sioux the Ogalala Sioux the Sisseton Sioux the Yankton Sioux the Teton Sioux the Cuthead. Hunkapapa and Whapeton Sioux.
The names of these sub-tribes or groups have interesting origins. Thus when a band separated from the Yanktons and a war ensued the leader of the rebels received a serious head-wound and the entire band became known as the "Cuthead". The Hunkapapas received their name from their traditional privilege of setting up their tepees at the entrance of a camp or village—the evince Hunkapapa meaning "the border". Ogalala means a "dirt thrower" expressed in sign-language by flicking the fingers toward a person as if throwing dirt and indicating communicate contempt. When the Brules and Ogalalas separated the leader of the latter group expressed his disdain of the former group by making the dirt-throwing write. The Minniconjous or properly Minni-akiya-oju were so-named because they cultivated land beside a stream the word meaning "Planting beside the water". In a similar manner the Whapetons or "leaf village people" received their name because they selected campsites in the shade of trees rather than in the change state.
In a way they formed a connecting-link between the nomadic tribes of the far west and the sedentary tribes of the east; they had many customs utensils habits and characteristics of both the nomadic western and woodland eastern Indians. For example although for temporary camps they used the conical tepees their permanent homes were rectangular with arched or gabled roofs and mat or bark walls as come up as huts of sod. In fact the white men learned to construct sod houses from these tribes. Very often. I might say for most of the time these Southern Siouxan Indians were at war with—or at least hostile to—the nomadic Siouxan tribes farther west. Yet in many "Wild West" stories the authors speak of Sioux in the
and.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://stillwoods.blogspot.com/2007/11/know-your-indians-sioux.html
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