Lakota Sioux, 1891, John Graybill

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Sometimes also spelled “Lakhota,” this group consists of seven tribes who were known as warriors and buffalo-hunters. Sometimes called the Tetons, meaning “prairie dwellers,” the seven tribes include:

• Ogalala ("they scatter their own," or "dust scatterers")

• Sicangu or Brule ("Burnt Thighs")

• Hunkpapa ("end of the circle"),

• Miniconjou ("planters beside the stream"),

• Sihasapa or Blackfoot (Ntote confused with the separate Blackfoot tribe)

• Itazipacola (or Sans Arcs: "without bows")

• Oohenupa ("Two Boilings" or "Two Kettle")

This band migrated west from Minnesota after the tribe began to use horses. There were about 20,000 Lakota in the mid 18th century, a number which has increased to about 70,000 today, of which approximately 1/3 still speak their ancestral language.

The Lakota were located in Minnesota when Europeans began to explore and settle the land in the 1600s. Living on small game, deer, and wild rice, they were surrounded by large rival tribes. Conflict with their enemy, the Ojibwa eventually forced the Lakota to move west. By the 1700s, the Lakota had acquired horses and flourished hunting buffalo on the high plains of Wisconsin, Iowa, the Dakotas, and as far north as Canada. The Tetons, the largest of the Lakota tribes dominated the region.

As white settlers continued to push west onto Sioux lands and multiple treaties were made and broken, the Sioux retaliated, resulting in three major wars and numerous other battles and skirmishes.

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Also See:

The Great Sioux Nation

Myths & Legends of the Sioux

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