The Lakotas (or Lakhota or, better:Lak’ota), are a Native American tribe better known in French as the Sioux. They are a group of seven tribes ("the Great Sioux Nation").
The Lakotas live in North Dakota and South Dakota (USA). The seven Lakota branches are:Brulé, Oglala, Sans Arcs, Hunkpapa, Mnikowoju, Siksika (Pieds-Noirs and Chaudière).
History
The Sioux adopted the horse in the early 18th century. Their society was centered around the bison. Only 20,000 Lakotas remained by the mid-18th century. Their number is now 70,000, of which 20,500 speak their ancestral language.
The Lakotas experienced epidemics and then massacres with the arrival of the Whites. Several treaties were signed over time between their Nation and the settlers, but they did not respect them, and the territory allocated to the Lakotas continued to decrease, this reduction, added to the massacre of the bison, resulting in famines.
Today, the Lakota mostly live on the five reservations in Southwest Dakota:Rosebud (where the Sicangu or Brûlés live), Pine Ridge (where the Oglala live), Lower Brulé (where the Lower Sicangu live), Cheyenne River (home to several other of the seven Lakota tribes, including the Blackfoot and Honkepapa), and Standing Rock (which is also populated by several tribes).
But there are also Lakotas in the North on the Fort Peck reservation in Montana, the Fort Berthold reservation in northwest North Dakota, and on several small reservations in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, where their ancestors arrived after the war of the Americans. Black Hills. Large numbers of Sioux also live in Rapid City and other towns in the Black Hills and in the Denver area.
Etymology
The word lakhóta originally means “feeling of affection, friendship, unity, ally”.
Social organization
Historically the Lakota have 7 "sub-tribes" divided into communities and sub-communities.