Of note: The referral of Native people as Indians is not from the theory that Christopher Columbus thought he was in India. When Columbus set sail in 1492 the country that is known today as India was called Hindustan. He wrote that the people he had met in the "New World" were "una gentre en dio"; meaning "a people in with God". The term "en dio" somehow got changed to Indian thus the common belief held that Columbus called the Native people "Indians" because he thought he was in India.
The Native Indian People that are called the "Sioux" have always called themselves the Dakota, Nakota or Lakota, meaning "friends, allies."
The name "Sioux" is a French misspelling of the Ojibwa word nadewisou which means snakes. It is worthy to note that some Elders say it means "Along the Snake River."
The Dakota, also called the Santee Sioux, occupied a region east of the Mississippi in what is currently Minnesota. There are four bands: the Mdewakantonwon,in Minnesota, Flandreau, South Dakota, and the Santee Reservation in Nebraska; the Wahpeton, who are now at the Devil's Lake Reservation, North Dakota, Flandreau, South Dakota, and Sisseton, South Dakota; the Wahpekute, at the Santee Reservation in Nebraska and Fort Peck, MT; and the Sisseton who are at Devil's Lake in ND and Sisseton, SD.
The Nakota, also known as the Yanktonai or Yankton
Sioux live in southeast South Dakota. They are divided into three bands: Yankton who are now on the Yankton Reservation in South Dakota; the Upper Yanktonai who live on the Standing Rock Reservation in SD and the Devil's Lake Reservation in North Dakota; Lower Yanktonai who live on the Crow Creek Reservation in SD and the Fort Peck Reservation in MT.
Some Nakota people would rather be known as Dakota. There are Nakota people, the Assiniboine, who moved north into Canada and the Nakoda people, the Stoney.
The Lakota, known as the Teton Sioux, are west of the Missouri River. The Lakota are the largest of these three. There are seven bands: the Oglala on the Pine Ridge Reservation in SD, Sicangu or Brulé,on the Rosebud and the Lower Brulé Reservation in SD, Hunkpapa of the Standing Rock Reservation SD & ND, Miniconjousat the Cheyenne River Reservation, SD, Sihasapa or Blackfeet at Standing Rock and Cheyenne River; Itazipacola or Sans Arc of Cheyenne River and Oohenupa or Two Kettle also of Cheyenne River.
I am of the Two Kettle Band, or Oohenupa. Many of the people live off the rez as well. Some, like me, are a long way from home.
~Some Interesting Native American Facts~
The average European is more knowledgeable about American Indian culture than the average American.
Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado is Native American.
What do the countries of Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru have in common? They all have a Native American language as an official language, in addition to Spanish.
During World War II, the Japanese army could not break the "secret code" of the U.S. Military. The "secret code" was a group of Navajo volunteers speaking their Native American Indian language on their field radios. The Navajo (Diné) didn't have a word for "tank" so they called them Chay-Da-Gahi: Large Turtles or Tortoise.
Many of the names of the states in the USA came from Native American languages. For example, "Utah" is the Ute tribe's name for themselves in their language. "Oklahoma" means "red people" or "home of the red people" in the Choctaw language. "Kentucky" means "planted field" in the Iroquois language.
Washington DC, our nation's capital, is built on the banks of a river called the "Potomac," which is a Native American word for "where the goods are brought in." "Miami," "Cuba" and "Chicago" are a few more examples of the many familiar names that are derived from Native American words.
Pocahontas was known as Lady Rebecca when she went to England.
Since Christopher Columbus had never seen anyone smoking before he was very surprised to observe "Indians" holding "burning leaves" in their mouths. The "Indians" called these "tobacos."
Native Americans used pine sap to help heal cuts and they found that witch hazel tea was a good remedy for sprains and bruises.
"Barbecue" also comes from a Native American Indian word.
On January 23, 1907
Charles Curtis became the first US Senator of Native American ancestry.
A Republican congress member from Kansas, Curtis spent
part of his youth in a Kaw Indian reservation.
He proposed legislation in defense of self-government for Indian reservations.
In 1929 he became US vice president under the Herbert Hoover administration.
Jim Thorpe of the Sac and Fox Nation won gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon in the 1912 Olympic games in Sweden and played both professional football and professional baseball.
In 1920 he became the first president of the American Professional Football Association (later to become the NFL).
On May 10, 1967, nurse, journalist and writer Betty Mae Jumper became the first woman chair in the Seminole Council in Florida and the first woman to
assume the position of Chief of a federally-recognized tribe. In 1995 she was inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame of Florida.
In 1985, Wilma Mankiller became the first woman chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. In 1988, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
When space shuttle Endeavour launched in the evening of Nov. 23, 2002, on flight STS-113, mission specialist John Bennett Herrington made history as the first Native American Indian in space. To honor his Native American heritage, Herrington, a Chickasaw, carried the Chickasaw Nation flag on his eleven-day trip.
