Extent Of The Stock
Out of some sixty aboriginal stocks or families found in North America
above the Tropic of Cancer, about five-sixths were confined to the tenth
of the territory bordering Pacific ocean; the remaining nine-tenths of the
land was occupied by a few strong stocks, comprising the Algonquian,
Athapascan, Iroquoian, Shoshonean, Siouan, and others of more limited
extent.
The Indians of the Siouan stock occupied t
e central portion of the
continent. They were preeminently plains Indians, ranging from Lake
Michigan to the Rocky mountains, and from the Arkansas to the
Saskatchewan, while an outlying body stretched to the shores of the
Atlantic. They were typical American barbarians, headed by hunters and
warriors and grouped in shifting tribes led by the chase or driven by
battle from place to place over their vast and naturally rich domain,
though a crude agriculture sprang up whenever a tribe tarried long in one
spot. No native stock is more interesting than the great Siouan group, and
none save the Algonquian and Iroquoian approach it in wealth of literary
and historical records; for since the advent of white men the Siouan
Indians have played striking roles on the stage of human development, and
have caught the eye of every thoughtful observer.
The term Siouan is the adjective denoting the Sioux Indians and cognate
tribes. The word Sioux has been variously and vaguely used. Originally
it was a corruption of a term expressing enmity or contempt, applied to a
part of the plains tribes by the forest-dwelling Algonquian Indians.
According to Trumbull, it was the popular appellation of those tribes
which call themselves Dakota, Lakota, or Nakota (Friendly, implying
confederated or allied), and was an abbreviation of Nadowessioux, a
Canadian-French corruption of Nadowe-ssi-wag (the snake-like ones or
enemies), a term rooted in the Algonquian nadowe (a snake); and some
writers have applied the designation to different portions of the stock,
while others have rejected it because of the offensive implication or for
other reasons. So long ago as 1836, however, Gallatin employed the term
Sioux to designate collectively the nations which speak the Sioux
language,(2) and used an alternative term to designate the subordinate
confederacy--i.e., he used the term in a systematic way for the first time
to denote an ethnic unit which experience has shown to be well defined.
Gallatin's terminology was soon after adopted by Prichard and others, and
has been followed by most careful writers on the American Indians.
Accordingly the name must be regarded as established through priority and
prescription, and has been used in the original sense in various standard
publications.(3)
In colloquial usage and in the usage of the ephemeral press, the term
Sioux was applied sometimes to one but oftener to several of the allied
tribes embraced in the first of the principal groups of which the stock is
composed, i.e., the group or confederacy styling themselves Dakota.
Sometimes the term was employed in its simple form, but as explorers and
pioneers gained an inkling of the organization of the group, it was often
compounded with the tribal name as Santee-Sioux, Yanktonnai-Sioux,
Sisseton-Sioux, etc. As acquaintance between white men and red
increased, the stock name was gradually displaced by tribe names until the
colloquial appellation Sioux became but a memory or tradition throughout
much of the territory formerly dominated by the great Siouan stock. One of
the reasons for the abandonment of the name was undoubtedly its
inappropriateness as a designation for the confederacy occupying the
plains of the upper Missouri, since it was an alien and opprobrious
designation for a people bearing a euphonious appellation of their own.
Moreover, colloquial usage was gradually influenced by the usage of
scholars, who accepted the native name for the Dakota (spelled Dahcota by
Gallatin) confederacy, as well as the tribal names adopted by Gallatin,
Prichard, and others. Thus the ill-defined term Sioux has dropped out of
use in the substantive form, and is retained, in the adjective form only,
to designate a great stock to which no other collective name, either
intern or alien, has ever been definitely and justly applied.
The earlier students of the Siouan Indians recognized the plains tribes
alone as belonging to that stock, and it has only recently been shown that
certain of the native forest-dwellers long ago encountered by English
colonists on the Atlantic coast were closely akin to the plains Indians in
language, institutions, and beliefs. In 1872 Hale noted a resemblance
between the Tutelo and Dakota languages, and this resemblance was
discussed orally and in correspondence with several students of Indian
languages, but the probability of direct connection seemed so remote that
the affinity was not generally accepted. Even in 1880, after extended
comparison with Dakota material (including that collected by the newly
instituted Bureau of Ethnology), this distinguished investigator was able
to detect only certain general similarities between the Tutelo tongue and
the dialects of the Dakota tribes.(4) In 1881 Gatschet made a collection
of linguistic material among the Catawba Indians of South Carolina, and
was struck with the resemblance of many of the vocables to Siouan terms of
like meaning, and began the preparation of a comparative Catawba-Dakota
vocabulary. To this the Tutelo, cegiha, {~LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED T~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER OPEN O~}iwe´re, and Hotcangara
(Winnebago) were added by Dorsey, who made a critical examination of all
Catawba material extant and compared it with several Dakota dialects, with
which he was specially conversant. These examinations and comparisons
demonstrated the affinity between the Dakota and Catawba tongues and
showed them to be of common descent; and the establishment of this
relation made easy the acceptance of the affinity suggested by Hale
between the Dakota and Tutelo.
Up to this time it was supposed that the eastern tribes were merely
offshoots of the Dakota; but in 1883 Hale observed that while the
language of these eastern tribes is closely allied to that of the western
Dakota, it bears evidence of being older in form,(5) and consequently
that the Siouan tribes of the interior seem to have migrated westward from
a common fatherland with their eastern brethren bordering the Atlantic.
Subsequently Gatschet discovered that the Biloxi Indians of the Gulf coast
used many terms common to the Siouan tongues; and in 1891 Dorsey visited
these Indians and procured a rich collection of words, phrases, and myths,
whereby the Siouan affinity of these Indians was established. Meantime
Mooney began researches among the Cherokee and cognate tribes of the
southern Atlantic slope and found fresh evidence that their ancient
neighbors were related in tongue and belief with the buffalo hunters of
the plains; and he has recently set forth the relations of the several
Atlantic slope tribes of Siouan affinity in full detail.(6) Through the
addition of these eastern tribes the great Siouan stock is augmented in
extent and range and enhanced in interest; for the records of a group of
cognate tribes are thereby increased so fully as to afford historical
perspective and to indicate, if not clearly to display, the course of
tribal differentiation.
According to Dorsey, whose acquaintance with the Siouan Indians was
especially close, the main portion of the Siouan stock, occupying the
continental interior, comprised seven principal divisions (including the
Biloxi and not distinguishing the Asiniboin), each composed of one or more
tribes or confederacies, all defined and classified by linguistic, social,
and mythologic relations; and he and Mooney recognize several additional
groups, denned by linguistic affinity or historical evidence of intimate
relations, in the eastern part of the country. So far as made out through
the latest researches, the grand divisions, confederacies, and tribes of
the stock,(7) with their present condition, are as follows: