156 DAKOTA GRAMMAR, TEXTS, AND BTHNOGRAPIHY. 
they are now gathered at the various agencies, viz, Cheyenne River, Crow 
Creek, Devils Lake, Lower Brule, Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Sisseton, Stand- 
ing Rock, and Yankton, in Dakota Territory, with Poplar River in Mon- 
tana, and Santee in Nebraska, they are reported at a little less than 30,000. 
This does not include the more than 100 families of homesteaders at Flan- 
dreau and Brown Earth. Nor does it include Sitting Bull’s party, the 
ereater part of which has recently returned to the United States. In addi- 
tion to these, are, Dakota-speaking people beyond the line, the Stoneys, 
and Assiniboin, besides at least 1,000 of the refugees from our war of 
1862, who have become permanent residents in the Queen’s dominions. 
We now conclude that 40,000 will be a low estimate of those who speak 
the Dakota language. 
Secondly, as regards habitat: This will be made plain by a brief state- 
ment of the migrations and history of the different tribes which constitute 
the Dakota nation. 
TRIBES. 
Their name, the Dakota say, means /eagued or allied; and they some- 
times speak of themselves as the ‘Oéeti Sakowiy,” Seven council fires. 
These are the seven principal bands which compose the tribe or nation, viz: 
1. The Mdewakantoyway, Village of the Spirit Lake. heir name is 
derived from a former residence at Mdewakay (Spirit or Sacred Lake), Mille 
Laes, which are in Minnesota, at the head of Rum River. This was the 
old home of the nation, when Hennepin and Du Luth visited them two 
hundred years ago. As these so-called Spirit Lake villagers occupied the 
gateway of the nation, they were for a long time better known than the 
other portions of the tribe, and came to regard themselves as living in the 
center of the world. Thirty years ago this record was made of them: 
They are divided into seven principal villages, three of which are still on the 
western bank of the Mississippi, and the others on or near the Minnesota, within 25 
or 30 miles of Fort Snelling. This portion of the Dakota people have received an- 
nuities since the year 1838, and their number, as now enrolled, is about 2,000. They 
plant corn and other vegetables, and some of them have made a little progress in 
civilization. 
In that same year of 1851 they sold their land to the Government 
and were removed to a reservation on the upper Minnesota, and were the 
principal actors in the emeute of 1862, which resulted in their capture and 
dispersion. Those who fled to the Dominion of Canada with Little Crow 
have, for the most part, remained there, while those who lived through the 
