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Featured Site

• Lakota na Dakota Wowapi Oti Kin A Lakota Dakota Library: History, Language, Literature,



History and Culture

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Defines "Tribe"

Indian Identity: Who Is Drawing the Boundaries?

Western Definitions of Culture

Winter Counts A history-keeping device of the northern plains tribes

Lakota Oglala Society Demogarphics, History of Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires), Politics, Social Organization

Lakota History A cultural study and timeline of the Lakota Nation.

Condition of the Indian Tribes 1867 Original 1867 Joint Report of Congress on the civil and military treatment of the Indian tribes after the Civil War. (Begin Reading on page 3. View at 50-75%)

Fort Laramie Treaty 1868

The Dawes Act 1887 "Congress passes the Dawes Severalty Act, imposing a system of private land ownership on Native American tribes for whom communal land ownership has been a centuries-old tradition. Individual Indians become eligible to receive land allotments of up to 160 acres, together with full U.S. citizenship. Tribal lands remaining after all allotments have been made are to be declared surplus and sold. Proponents of the law believe that it will help speed the Indians¹ assimilation into mainstream society by giving them an incentive to live as farmers and ranchers, earning a profit from their own personal property and private initiative. Others see in the law an opportunity to buy up surplus tribal lands for white settlers. When the allotment system finally ends, Indian landholdings are reduced from 138 million acres in 1887 to only 48 million acres in 1934. And with their land many Native Americans lose a fundamental structuring principle of tribal life as well." (PBS, The West)

"The Sun-Dance of the Sioux" Frederick Schwartka, Century Magazine, New York: 1889-1890



Wounded Knee, South Dakota

Cankpe Opi: Wounded Knee

Lakota Accounts of the Massacre at Wounded Knee American Horse, Captain Sword, Turning Hawk, Spotted Horse. February 11, 1891

Big Foot The leader of the Miniconjou band massacred at Wounded Knee Creek on December 29, 1890

Wounded Knee, South Dakota

Understanding the History of Tribal Enrollment (Indian Reorganization Act of 1934) An important issue to understanding the perspective of much of the "as-told-to" Native American autobiographies of the day.

U.S. Indian Reservation Map Present-day locations of all US Indian reservations.

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Language and Literature



(Black Elk Speaks (1932) , according to Black Elk, Oglala Lakota (1863-1950)

Language

• The Siouan Family of Languages Includes Lakota
• Status of the contemporary Lakota language
• The Lakota Language and Culture Phonolgy, Grammar, Kinship

Literature

• Black Elk's World From the University of Nebraska: 1. The 21st-Century Electronic Edition of Black Elk Speaks, 2. Lakota and Dakota Lives. 3. Native Writers Speak, 4. The Traditional World of the Lakotas
• Black Elk's Vision Excerpts from Black Elk Speaks
• Black Elk Speaks as Postmodern Text Sioux culture challenging the hegemony of wetsern science
• An Analysis of Black Elk Speaks Interpretive themes
• A Bibliography of Critical Work on Black Elk Speaks
• A Bibliography of works by and about the Sioux Nation Traditional Stories, Histories, Autobiographies, Biographies, Traditions, Dictionaries, Fiction, Poetry, Music
• John Neihardt Background
• The Lakota Creation Story
• Lakota Oral History
• Lakota Oral Tradition To gain a perspective of reading texts within a literary context.Traditional Lakota rhetoric.
• Native Eyewitness Account of the Battle of the Greasy Grass (Little Bighorn) Lakota Chief Red Horse 1881 account (Recorded at Cheyenne River Reservation) This kind of story was recorded as Dream Visions by Black Hawk in ledgers both in pictographs and text.)
• Lakota Accounts of What Happened at Wounded Knee
• Raymond J. DeMallie: Director of Native American Studies Institute Publications include The Sixth Grandfather (1984) that provides commentary on and the original transcripts of Neihardt's interviews with Black Elk
• White Buffalo Calf Woman Brings the First Pipe
• Wounded Knee Oral History As told by Oglala Alice War Horse to her son, Bill War Bonnet

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Philosophy

Healing Songs

Wallace Black Elk Speaks An interview with Wallace Black Elk

Lakota Cosmology Creation of the Universe, Pte Cycle, Founding of the Four Directions, White Buffalo Calf Woman

Lakota Ghost Dance Shirt

Black Elk's Religion: The Sun Dance and Lakota Catholicism

Many Hawks: A Tribute to the Oglala Lakota Sioux A wealth of information on the Oglala Lakota. Text references and maps.

Lakota Spirituality

Lakota Theology American Indian Culture Research Center (Benedictine Monastary)

Teaching American Indian Religion

Wovoka and the Ghost Dance "Wovoka, a Paiute holy man, awakes from a three-day trance to teach his tribe the Ghost Dance, with which they can restore the earth to the way it was before the whites arrived in the West. His teachings will soon touch many tribes across the West, stirring a spiritual revival that whites nervously misinterpret as a return to hostilities." (PBS, The West)

Native Architecture

• The Plains Indian Tipi Luxton Museum of the Plains Indian: Banff, Alberta
• Sweatlodge Luxton Museum of the Plains Indian: Banff, Alberta
• The Sweat A description of the 19th-century Plains ritual

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