li)S THE SIOUAN INDIANS |etii. asn. 15 



("Fricmlly,"' implying contVderated or allied ), and was an abbreviation 

 of \aih))C('.iiiiou.r, a (Canadian- French eorruittion of Xadoice snitraf/ 

 ("tlie snake-like ones" or "enemies"), a term rooted in the Alf;()n(iuian 

 iiadoirc ("a snake"'); and some writers have applied the designation to 

 dilfeient portions of the stock, while others have rejected it becanse of 

 the ortensive iini)lication or lor other reasons. Si> long ago as 18;56, 

 however, Gallatin employed the term "Sioux "to designate collectively 

 "the nations which speak the Sioux language,"' and used an alterna- 

 tive term to designate the subordinate confederacy — i. e., he used the 

 term in a systematic way for the lirst time to denote an ethni<- 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 prescrip. 

 tion, and has been used in the original sense in various standard 

 publications.' 



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 comi)osed, i. e., the group or confederacy styling them- 

 selves 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," "Yanktonuai-Sioux," " Si ssetou Sioux," etc. As acquaintance 

 between white men and red increased, the stock name was gradually 

 disjilaced 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 peo- 

 ple bearing a euphonious appellation of their own. Moreover, colloquial 

 usage was gradually inthicnced by the usage of scholars, who accepted 

 the native name for the Dakota (spelled Dahcota by Gallatin) confed- 

 eracy, 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 tiie 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 



*'*A synopsiB of the Indian tribes ... in North America," Trans, and Coll. Ain. .Vntiij. Soc, 

 vol. II, p. 120. 



• ■■ Indijin liiic;iiiMtirfiiiiiilii'8of AnuTica north of Mexico," Seventh Annual Keport of the Bureau of 

 Ethnulog}-, for liiSS-SO (1891), pp. 111-118. Johnson's Cyclopedia, 18D3-95 tilition, vol. vii, p. 510, etc. 



