Dakota language

“ Much of my life has been spent in the Northwest—on the frontier of civilization, and I became personally acquainted with many of the chiefs and braves of the Dakota and Ojibway (Chippewa) Indians. I have written of them largely from my own personal knowledge, and endeavored, above all things, to be accurate, and to present them true to the life.
For several years I devoted my leisure hours to the study of the language, history, traditions, customs and superstitions of the Dakotas. ”

“ If I were to attempt an argument for original affinity between Dakota and Chippewa my argument would be that so great dissimilarity could not be the result of accident. Aside from the Cheyenne, an Algonkin language which has incorporated some Dakotan words, and the Pawnee group, the similarities east of the Rocky mountains are surprisingly few, though the Huron, Iroquois and Mobilian languages do not seem quite so strongly contrasted as the Algonkin. ”

“ The Dakota word Shante-suta—from shante, heart, and suta, strong—brave, not cowardly, literally strong-hearted, is made by several tribes of that stock, and particularly by the Brulé Sioux, in gestures by collecting the tips of the fingers and thumb of the right hand to a point, and then placing the radial side of the hand over the heart, finger tips pointing downward—heart ”

“ Language.—The Pawnee language is said to be altogether different from the languages of the surrounding prairie tribes. The Otoes, the Ioways, the Osages, the Kanzas or Caws, the Omahaws, the Puncaws, etc., seem all to speak dialects of the same language, the Dakota; while the Pawnee language seems, by its great difference, to point back to the earliest periods of the residence of the Indians in this country, when a disruption may have taken place, that formed them into a distinct nation. ”

“ The ideas of the Indian are not in all respects like those of the civilized European or those of the Australian. Nevertheless, the gestures that refer to specific concrete objects are frequently so similar that many of the signs employed by the gesture-language of the deaf-mutes of Europe may be found among the Dakota Indians. ”

“ Thunder-Bird, a supernatural winged creature which causes thunder and lightning by the flapping of its wings and the winking of its eyes.
[2] The name given by the Dakotas to the first-born, if a female.
[3] Tipi, skin tent.
[4] An edible root found on the prairies.
[5] The Crow Indians, hereditary foes of the Dakotas, call themselves Absaraka, which means crow in their language.
[6] Each Indian guest at a banquet carries with him his own wooden bowl and horn spoon.
[7] Many Indians believe in the transmigration of souls, and some of them profess to remember previous states of existence. ”

“ It does not have a multiplicity of verb forms to denote mode and tense, but when necessary does denote them with elegance and precision, by auxiliary verbs and adverbs, very much as we do in English. The Dakota is not made up chiefly of very long words. On the other hand it uses a great many little particles and connectives to express fine shades of meaning, wonderfully reminding one of the Greek. It fully agrees with other American languages in its wonderful facility for forming derivatives. ”

“ It seems to me therefor that it is not unscientific to inquire whether the similarities of the various Dakotan languages to various European languages, modern and ancient, so often remarked are or are not accidental. It is very easy to see that the Dakota resembles the English in vocabulary much more than it resembles the Chippewa. The similarities of the Dakota suffixes, pronouns and prepositions to those given by Bopp, and the general resemblance of Dakotan languages to Sanskrit, Gothic, etc., in vocabulary, made me certain of relationship before I ever saw Fick's dictionary. ”

“ Ugrian: a sub-dialect of Fin.
ADDENDA. Daco-Roman, see Wallachian.
Dakota, see Dacotah.
Danger Is.
Polynesian: language of the S. Pacific; a mixed dialect of Samoan and Tahitian. W. G.
Date.
African: a dialect of Akwapim. H. C.
Dauria.
Alatyan: a class of Tungus. H. C.
Dayak.
Correct form: the word is not “Dyak,” and “Dajak” is only a foreigner’s form of “Dayak.” H. C.
Dembo.
African: a branch of Shilluk. H. C.
Derbendian.
Sub-dialect of Turkish, spoken by certain tribes near the centre of the Caucasus. G. R.
Devanagari, Dewanagari, see under Di. ”

“ AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN, JANUARY, 1882.
THE DAKOTAN LANGUAGES, AND THEIR RELATIONS TO OTHER LANGUAGES. BY A. W. WILLIAMSON.
To the ethnologist and to the philologist the Dakotas and those speaking kindred languages are a very interesting people. There are four principal Dakota dialects, the Santee, Yankton, Assinniboin and Titon. The allied languages may be divided into three groups:
I. a, Winnebago; b, Osage, Kaw, and 2 Quapaw; c, Iowa, Otoe and Missouri; d, Omaha and Ponka.
II. Mandan. ”

“ McChesney requests that recognition should be made of the valuable assistance rendered to him by Mr. William Fielden, the interpreter at Cheyenne Agency, Dakota Territory.
Dakota II. A short list from Dr. Blair D. Taylor, assistant surgeon, United States Army, from recollection of signs observed among the Sioux during his late service in the region inhabited by that tribe. ”

“ Papa and mama in Dak., as in I. E. languages, occupy a subordinate position, having about the same scope as in Latin and Greek. Words apparently related to these are rare in N. A. languages, but frequent in S. A., African, Malay Polynesian and Turanian languages. The Semitic aba, etc., is perhaps related. The base ana, nana (Dak. ina) , though not very much used in I E languages appears to be more widely distributed than any of the others.
All the Dakota pronouns which show much similarity to other American forms are representative of Fick's I E bases, and appear to be widely disseminated. ”

“ The Dakotas swear by the sun, "As Anpétuwee hears me, this is true!" They call him Father and pray to him—"Wakán! Até, on-she-má-da"—"Sacred Spirit,—Father, have mercy on me." As the Sun is the father, so they believe the Earth is the mother, of life. Truly there is much philosophy in the Dakota mythology. The Algonkins call the earth "Me-suk-kum-mik-o-kwa"—the great-grandmother of all. Narrative of John Tanner, p. 193.
[71]
The Dakotas reckon their months by moons. ”

“ Their superstitions and religious ceremonies, with reference to this system of preparing the foundations for the establishment of the qualities required to enable a Dakota to fulfil his duties as a courageous and honourable member of his tribe, are most characteristic, and appear to be invaluable elements in the formation of the qualities required by a race dwelling in wild and desolate lands, surrounded by enemies. It was an invariable rule with all the Dakotas, that the youths upon reaching manhood, should pass through a probationary period of fasting. ”

“ In the long winter evenings, while the fire burns brightly in the centre of the lodge, and the men are gathered in to smoke, he hears the folk-lore and legends of his people from the lips of the older men. He learns to sing the love-songs and the war-songs of the generations gone by. There is no new path for him to tread, but he follows in the old ways. He becomes a Dakota of the Dakota. ”

“ BANSHEE OF THE BAD LANDS "Hell, with the fires out," is what the Bad Lands of Dakota have been called. The fearless Western nomenclature fits the place. It is an ancient sea-bottom, with its clay strata worn by frost and flood into forms like pagodas, pyramids, and terraced cities. Labyrinthine canons wind among these fantastic peaks, which are brilliant in color, but bleak, savage, and oppressive. Game courses over the castellated hills, rattlesnakes bask at the edge of the crater above burning coal seams, and wild men have made despairing stand here against advancing civilization. ”

“ The Dakotas have their stone-idol, or god, called Toon-kan—or Inyan. This god dwells in stone or rocks and is, they say, the oldest god of all—he is grandfather of all living things. I think, however, that the stone is merely the symbol of the everlasting, all-pervading, invisible Ta-ku Wa-kan—the essence of all life,—pervading all nature, animate and inanimate. The Rev. S.R. Riggs, who for forty years has been a student of Dakota customs, superstitions, etc., says, Tâhkoo Wahkan, p. 55, et seq.: "The religious faith of the Dakota is not in his gods as such. ”

“ Dakota society—an influence which bears with all its force on each individual of their victims, which tends to crush him down still deeper, if indeed there are depths below them, in ignorance, superstition, degradation and misery of soul and body, and force them into an unreserved surrender to their own whims and caprices. Of these wakan men there are from five to twenty five in each of the little clans of Dakotas. ”

“ Driven westward by the Dakotas, they were found by early explorers at the eastern base of the Black Hills, in Dakota. Subsequently part of them moved south, and allied themselves with the Arapahoes. Within a few years they have all been collected on a reservation in the western part of the Indian Territory. Their whole history has been a series of wars against their red neighbours and the whites. They are a large, powerful, athletic race, mentally superior to most of the other tribes. Their occupations are war and hunting. Thus far they have made little or no progress in civilization. ”

“ During the late civil war they were divided, part adhering to the Union and part joining the Confederacy. At present they number about 14,000.
The Dakota or Sioux nation is at present the most powerful of the Indian tribes in North America. Its warriors possess fine physique, great personal courage, and great skill in warfare. Though backward in adopting civilization, their intellectual powers contrast very favourably with those of most other tribes. The nation numbers 30,000 to 35,000 souls, divided into twenty-one bands or subtribes more or less independent of one another. ”

“ In the literature on the subject the great linguistic [97] stock or family embracing not only the Sioux or Dakotas proper, but the Missouris, Omahas, Ponkas, Osages, Kansas, Otos, Assiniboines, Gros Ventres or Minnitaris, Crows, Iowas, Mandans, and some others, has been frequently styled the Dakota Family. Major Powell, the Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, from considerations of priority, has lately adopted the name Siouan for the family, and for the grand division of it popularly called Sioux has used the term Dakota, which the people claim for themselves. ”

“ Now as I have shown above, exogamy in North America largely goes hand in hand with the Dakota principle. It is therefore rather remarkable that the more primitive clanless North American tribes of the Plateau and neighboring regions also lack the Dakota principle. The suggestion sometimes offered that a clan or gentile system has once existed and simply eluded the field worker’s scrutiny on account of the degeneration of aboriginal life under modern conditions thus breaks down. ”

“ The tepee’s gone, the peace pipe and the dance,
Gone, gone, alas! forever,
The Red Man’s fighting chance.
[Pg 17] For pale face came, and from Dakota’s plain
The Red Man drove, and claimed his vast domain;
No power on earth could stay the Viking’s son,
For “iron men” are born
In the land of midnight sun.
* * * *
Onward they came, these Northmen, feared of old,
Bold pioneers, to wrest the hidden gold
From North Dakota’s hills and virgin sod;
The ploughshare won the land
For these “master men” of God. ”

“ All those tumbling heights are dark and frowning through their beards of gloomy larch and pine. Black they stand against the eastern sky, from the jagged summits at the south to where the northernmost peak,—the Inyan Kara,—the Heengha-Kaaga of the Sioux, stands sentinel over the sisterhood slumbering at her feet. These are the Black Hills of Dakota, as we see them from the breaks of the Mini Pusa, a long day's march to the west. Here to our right, southeastward, rolls the powdery flood of the South Cheyenne, when earlier in the season the melting snows go trickling down the hill-sides. ”

“ The fact that this work shows a large proportion of pictographs from the Siouan linguistic family, and especially from the Dakota division of that family, may be explained partly by the greater familiarity of the present writer with it than with most other Indian divisions. Yet probably more distinctive examples of evolution in ideography and in other details of picture-writing are found still extant among the Dakota than among any other North American tribe. ”

“ Their subordinates are the serpent, lizard, frog, ghosts, owl and eagle. These all obey their will. The Onktehi made the earth and men, and gave the Dakotas the medicine-sack, and also prescribed the manner in which some of those pigments must be applied, which are daubed over the bodies of his votaries in the medicine-dance, and on the warrior when he goes into action. They are believed to possess a wakan and an amuletic power.
Among all the myriads of the Dakota gods, there are none more respectable, or more respected, than the one above mentioned. ”

“ The Dakota features are not found among the Eskimo, Nootka, Quileute, Chinook, various Salish tribes, the Kootenai, the Plateau Shoshoneans, nor in a large section of California to the north and east of the Miwok, and they are also absent from various Southwestern terminologies. The glib assumption of many writers that all of North America is characterized by a ‘classificatory system’ on the Dakota plan, is demonstrably false. ”