Transcript Chapter 3: The Dakota - Minneota Elementary School

NAMES FOR THE DAKOTA
 Also called ‘Sioux’
 Ojibwe word meaning ‘adder’ or
‘snake’
 Dakota—friend or ally
 Related to Lakota and Nakota
tribes
LANGUAGE AND DIALECT
 Until 1700s the seven council fires or bands
of Great Sioux Nation were in contact
 Shared traditions and language
 As Ojibwe came in, they moved
Result: 3 dialects (Dakota, Nakota, Lakota)
Kept moving when settlers came
 No written language until 1830
Many different sounds and phonetics than
English
WOODLANDS AND PLAINS PEOPLE
 MN has 2 culture areas (geographic region
in which peoples share certain traits)
Woodlands (NE, Central) & Plains (SW)
 Woodlands: move w/ season
 After horses, were able to adapt to plains
 Rely on bison
FOOD SOURCES
 East: hunting and fishing
Fish, deer, fish, ducks, geese, elk,
etc.
 Lots of land—fought off
 Plants: wild rice, roots, berries, nuts
 Farming—Dakota women
DWELLINGS
 Tipis in winter
Cone shape-warm
Dew cloth
Wood poles & animal hides
Pad w/ grasses or skins
 Bark houses in summer
DAKOTA EDUCATION
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Viewed education differently (observation &
adaptation)
Taught children through example—independent and
self-reliant
taught them to be naturalists, hunters, and
gatherers
Taught to be good listeners (stories & questions)
Children spoken kindly to
Named after great ancestors or tribal members
KINSHIP
 One must obey kinship rules; one must be a good relative. No
 Dakota who has participated in that life will dispute that . . .
Without that aim and the constant struggle to attain it, the
people would no longer be Dakotas in truth. They would no
longer even be human. To be a good Dakota, then, was to be
humanized, civilized. And to be civilized was to keep the rules
imposed by kinship for achieving civility, good manners, and a
sense of responsibility toward every individual dealt with
 Tiyospaye—extended family
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INTRODUCTION
Dakota have lived in MN longest
Minnesota comes from a Dakota word: Mni Sota Makoce
How can we understand people that lived so long ago?
• Listen to their stories
• History kept alive through oral history
• Oral history used to connect Dakota to each other and
the past
Storytellers (living books)—make stories come alive
• Must remain quiet until story is over
NAMES FOR THE DAKOTA
• “Sioux” comes from the Ojibwe (adder or snake)
•Nadouessioux
• “Dakota” means ally or friend in Dakota
language
• Great Sioux Nation or Dakota Oyate used to
include all subgroups of Dakota
ORAL HISTORIES RECORDED
• Dakota mainly use spoken word
• Ohiyesa—Dakota descent; at 15 went to
live with Euro Americans
• Wrote 10 books about Dakota
• Have several oral traditions in them
THE BADGER & THE BEAR
• Badgers are very generous—invite him in and feed
him—when the bear comes to their house for dinner
over weeks
• One day, bear shows up with his family and kicks the
badgers out
• Badgers leave without fight
• Father returns for food, but bear refuses
• Avenger learns about the bear—starts going to tipi
• Bear family runs away; badger family moves back in
THE BADGER & THE BEAR
• LESSON: Generosity/ohanwaste
•Dakota would give out food, hold nothing for
selves; 1 starves, they all starve
• LESSON: kinship
•Treat neighbors like family
•Honorship—giving gifts in someone else’s name
• To give is better than to receive
• Never expected anything back
HUMAN CAPITAL IN EARLY DAKOTA CULTURE
• Income: money or other benefits received in payment for goods or services
• Use for food, clothes, shelter
• More money=improve knowledge and skills
• Human capital: the knowledge and skills individuals have that enhance their
ability to earn income
1.Practicing their skills
2.Receiving education and training
3.Staying healthy and being productive
4.Connecting with people who can help
• Dakota got what they needed by gathering, making, or trading not money
• Dakota human capital: hunting skills, generosity
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THE GHOST WIFE
Young man who liked to be away from the village
Sees a young woman—falls in love with her
Remembers she died 10 days ago
Become husband and wife—he wants to move to village
She agrees if he will never raise his voice in the tipi
Move to village, have 2 children
After a long day, husband comes home and yells
His family disappeared from him
THE GHOST WIFE
• LESSON: respect/wo ohoda
• Speaking softly, move carefully in the home,
no watching someone sleep
• Children: eyes lowered, kinship terms (my
uncle Swift Cloud)
• Even use kinship terms to people they
weren’t related to—treat strangers like
relatives
THE CIRCLE OF HISTORY
• Dakota view history as a circle—things keep
coming back
• Heal wounds so they don’t come back
• Past, present, and future all affect each other
• If things from the past aren’t resolved, they
affect the future
THE DAKOTA NATION
• Dakota lived from St. Croix River to Rocky
Mountains
• Seven Council Fires of the Dakota—each group
named for where they lived
• Spoke 1 of the 3 dialects
• All Dakota groups were part of one large
nation called the Dakota Oyate
• Dakota today live in: MN, ND, SD, NE, Canada