Dakota, a family of American Indians. In their day the Dakotas extended from the evergreen region of the Great Lakes to the Rocky Mountains. In numbers, mental qualities, and influence, the Dakotas may be ranked as inferior to the Algonquins and Iroquois only. They appear to be related to the now extinct Catawba Indians of the South and to the Assiniboins of Manitoba. They were called Sioux by the French, but their native name is as given. Six tribes are recognized: the Santee, Sisseton, Yankton, Wahpeton, Yanktonnai, and Teton. These again are subdivided into a number of bands, some of the more prominent of which are the Ogillallah, the Omaha, the Osage, the Winnebago, Mandan, and Crow. When settlers began to pour into the upper Mississippi Valley the Chippewas in the evergreen region and the Sioux of the prairie were hereditary enemies. The Chippewas were skilled in the use of the birch bark canoe; the Dakotas in the management of ponies, of which they maintained great droves. A piece of buffalo hide served for a saddle; a thong of the same for a surcingle; a twisted rope of horsehair, lashed to the lower jaw, served for a bridle. The Dakota lodge or tepee consisted of buffalo skins upheld by lodge poles meeting at the top in the form of a cone. Parkman, the historian, visited them in 1847. We make room for two characteristic paragraphs: The buffalo supplies them with the necessaries of life; with habitations, food, clothing, beds, and fuel; strings for their bows, glue, thread, cordage, trail-ropes for their horses, coverings for their saddles, vessels to hold water, boats to cross streams, and the means of purchasing all that they want from the traders. When the buffalo are extinct, they too must dwindle away. The wild cavalcade that defiled with me down the gorges of the Black Hills, with its paint and war-plumes, fluttering trophies and savage embroidery, bows, arrows, lances, and shields, will never be seen again. The Indian of today, armed with a revolver and crowned with an old hat; cased, possibly, in trousers or muffled in a tawdry shirt, is an Indian still, but an Indian shorn of the picturesqueness which was his most conspicuous merit. The later history of the Dakotas is that of other Indian tribes. First came white trappers and fur traders, then cessions of territory. Thousands of settlers thronged in driving away or exterminating game and forcing the Indians to retreat to more remote hunting grounds. The Dakotas were a warlike race and made at least two notable attempts to stem the tide of the invader. In 1862 Little Crow deemed the absence of the Great Father's young men in the Civil War a favorable opportunity. He organized a general outbreak in the valley of the Minnesota. Several hundred persons were massacred with frightful atrocities. The white troops appeared and the Indians fled to join their Western brethren. Of a number who surrendered themselves, thirty-eight were hanged from a single scaffold at Mankato. In 1876 the Dakotas made their last stand under Sitting Bull in the valley of the Little Big Horn in Montana. See CUSTER. Despite the attempts of the general government to care for the Dakotas on reservations, and really considerable payments in the form of cattle and money, their number has diminished steadily. The total Dakota population in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Montana, and Canada is said not to exceed 4,000. Various religious denominations have maintained missions with great faithfulness. The Bible has been translated into the Dakota language. On some of their reservations, particularly at Yankton, Pine Ridge, and Goodwill, churches and schools are maintained, and a considerable degree of civilization has been attained. The Dakota Indian Presbyterian Synod includes twenty-nine Indian churches and nearly 2,000 communicants, but for all that, even to the most ardent friend of the Dakotas, the outlook seems disheartening. Left to themselves, the Dakotas might prosper; but the whiskey and vice of the white man are too powerful for the weak red man. The Dakota names of the months are of interest not only for themselves, but for the hints they give of former Indian life: January--Hard month. Crusty snow, ice. February--Raccoon month. On a bright day the raccoon comes out. March--Sore-eyes month. The dazzling snow and the smoke of the tepees caused sore eyes, even blindness. April--Goose-laying month. Wild geese arrive. May--Planting month. The squaws plant corn. June-Strawberry month. Named probably by the children. July--Choke-cherry month. August--Harvest month. Corn. September--Rice-gathering month. October--Deer month. After the fall of leaves. November--When-deer-shed-antlers month. December--Drying-corn month. See INDIAN; CUSTER.