James Mooney - Native Americans - 22 Books on History, Mythology, Culture & Linguistic Studies

Mandan (their own name is questionable; Catlin says they called themselves See-pohs-kah-nu-mah-kah-kee, "People of the pheasants;"13 Prince Maximilian says they called themselves Numangkake, "Men," adding usually the name of their village, and that another name is Mahna-Narra, "The Sulky [Ones]," applied because they separated from the rest of their nation;14 of the latter name their common appellation seems to be a corruption); on Fort Berthold reservation, North Dakota, comprising in 1804 (according to Lewis and Clark15) three villages—

6. Hidatsa

7. Biloxi

8. Monakan

Monakan confederacy.

Tutelo.

?Manahoac confederacy, extinct.

9. Catawba or Ni-ya ("People")

10. Sara (extinct)

11. ? Pedee (extinct)

The definition of the first six of these divisions is based on extended researches among the tribes and in the literature representing the work of earlier observers, and may be regarded as satisfactory. In some cases, notably the Dakota confederacy, the constitution of the divisions is also satisfactory, though in others, including the Asiniboin, Mandan, and Winnebago, the tabulation represents little more than superficial enumeration of villages and bands, generally by observers possessing little knowledge of Indian sociology or language. So far as the survivors of the Biloxi are concerned the classification is satisfactory; but there is doubt concerning the former limits of the division, and also concerning the relations of the extinct tribes referred to on slender, yet the best available, evidence. The classification of the extinct and nearly extinct Siouan Indians of the east is much less satisfactory. In several cases languages are utterly lost, and in others a few doubtful terms alone remain. In these cases affinity is inferred in part from geographic relation, but chiefly from the recorded federation of tribes and union of remnants as the aboriginal population faded under the light of brighter intelligence; and in all such instances it has been assumed that federation and union grew out of that conformity in mode of thought which is characteristic of peoples speaking identical or closely related tongues. Accordingly, while the grouping of eastern tribes rests in part on meager testimony and is open to question at many points, it is perhaps the best that can be devised, and suffices for convenience of statement if not as a final classification. So far as practicable the names adopted for the tribes, confederacies, and other groups are those in common use, the aboriginal designations, when distinct, being added in those cases in which they are known.

The present population of the Siouan stock is probably between 40,000 and 45,000, including 2,000 or more (mainly Asiniboin) in Canada.

Table of Contents

In the Siouan stock, as among the American Indians generally, the accepted appellations for tribes and other groups are variously derived. Many of the Siouan tribal names were, like the name of the stock, given by alien peoples, including white men, though most are founded on the descriptive or other designations used in the groups to which they pertain. At first glance, the names seem to be loosely applied and perhaps vaguely defined, and this laxity in application and definition does not disappear, but rather increases, with closer examination.

There are special reasons for the indefiniteness of Indian nomenclature: The aborigines were at the time of discovery, and indeed most of them remain today, in the prescriptorial stage of culture, i.e., the stage in which ideas are crystallized, not by means of arbitrary symbols, but by means of arbitrary associations,18 and in this stage names are connotive or descriptive, rather than denotive as in the scriptorial stage. Moreover, among the Indians, as among all other prescriptorial peoples, the ego is paramount, and all things are described, much more largely than among cultured peoples, with reference to the describer and the position which he occupies—Self and Here, and, if need be, Now and Thus, are the fundamental elements of primitive conception and description, and these elements are implied and exemplified, rather than expressed, in thought and utterance. Accordingly there is a notable paucity in names, especially for themselves, among the Indian tribes, while the descriptive designations applied to a given group by neighboring tribes are often diverse.