8 BULLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SUKVEY. 



Dakota, a region including over 470,000 square miles. The extent of 

 this range can be forcibly presented to the Eastern mind by observing 

 that it is equal to the whole of the ]S'ew England and Middle States, with, 

 in addition, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Caro- 

 lina, Georgia, and Florida. Comparing with the Old World, its area is 

 about those of France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, and Greece 

 united. This summary "will explain the difficulty experienced by the 

 United States troops, from the mere magnitude of the district, apart 

 from its physical impediments, in surprising any bodies of the " hos- 

 tiles" who do not see fit to be found except when posted at points and 

 occasions selected for their own advantage. To subsist a large invading 

 force during any long period in the Sioux country is of itself a hard taslr, 

 and an almost impossible feat to overtake with it the nimble and cun- 

 ning natives of the soil, while detached expeditions possessing sufficient 

 mobility to accomplish that object are always liable to the fate of Custer. 

 This may recall to military students the words of Henry IV. of France, 

 when considering the waste tracts and guerrilla facilities of Spain, that 

 "large armies would starve there and small ones would be beaten". 



The word Dakota is translated in Eiggs's Dictionary of that language 

 as " leagued, or allied ". Dr. J, Hammond Trumbull, the distinguished 

 ethnographer and glossologist, gives the meaning to be more precisely ' ' as- 

 sociated as comrades " ; the root being found in other dialects of the same 

 group of languages, for instance, in the Minitari, where ddJci is the name 

 for the clan or band, and dciMe means friend or comrade. In the Sioux 

 dialect, cota or coda means friend, and Dakota may, liberally translated, 

 signify "our friends". It is, however, interesting to note that the Da- 

 kota Indians met by the writer always insisted upon the meaning of their 

 national appellation to be simply " men", or "Indian men", as distinct 

 from white men. This assumption in the tribal name of predominance 

 in race has been noticed among other divisions of the aborigines where 

 it is better warranted by the etymology. Beal men is the meaning of 

 " Onkwe Honwe", used by the Hurons and Iroquois; of "Rennappe", 

 "Lenni", "Illiniwek", "Irini", and "Nethowuck", names of Algonquin 

 tribes; also of "Tinne", of the Athabascans, and probably of Apache. 

 The title Sioux, which is indignantly repudiated by the nation, is either 

 the last or the last two syllables, according to pronunciation, of " Nado- 

 wesioux", which is the French plural of the Algonquin name for the Da- 

 kotas, " Nadowessi", " enemy", though the English word is not so strong 

 as the Indian, "hated foe" being nearer. The Chippeways called an 

 Iroquois " Nadowi ", which is also their name for a rattlesnake (or, as Dr. 

 Foster, the Indian historiographer, translates, adder); in the plural, Na- 

 dowek. A Sioux they called Nadowessi, which is the same word with a 

 contemptuous or diminutive termination; plural, Nadowessiwak or i!^a- 

 dawessyak. The French gave the name their own foi-m of the plural, 

 and the voyageurs and trappers cut it down to " Sioux ". The name We- 

 nepekoak, corrupted into Winnebago, given by the Chippeways to the 



