Sioux Nations: Nakota

Name

Nakota (pronounced nah-KO-tah) is the tribe’s name for themselves and may mean “friends” or “allies.” It comes from the Yankton word, Nakhota, sometimes translated as “alliance of friends.” Another meaning for the name is “those who consider themselves kindred.” The two Nakota bands are also known as the Yankton and the Yanktonai.Ihanktunwan (Yankton) means “end village,” and Ihanktunwanna (Yanktonai) means “little end village.”

The Sioux tribes (Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota) were once given the name nadowe-is-iw-ug, which means “little adders (snakes)” by their enemies, the Ojibway. The French mispronounced the Ojibway word as nadewisou and shortened it to “Sioux,” the name by which the tribes are collectively known. Because the name was intended as an insult, many of the Nakota dislike being called Sioux.

Location

Both the Yankton and Yanktonai bands of Nakota inhabited the region near present-day Mille Lacs, Minnesota, in the seventeenth century. They traveled westward into parts of modern North and South Dakota and Iowa over the course of the eighteenth century. Today many live for at least part of the year on the Yankton Reservation in South Dakota returning to live in urban areas in South Dakota and Iowa for the rest of the year. Some live with the Lakota people on the Standing Rock and Crow Creek reservations in South Dakota, at the Devil’s Lake Reservation in North Dakota, and at the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana.

Population

In the early 1800s there were about four thousand Nakota. In the 1990s Nakota-speakers were no longer counted separately from the Sioux; there were probably at least ten thousand Nakota. In 2000 the U.S. Census, 113,713 people reported that they were Sioux. Of those, 22,988 did not indicate whether they were Dakota, Lakota, or Nakota, nor did they indicate to which reservation they belonged. The Nakota share most of their reservations with the Dakota or Lakota, so those figures will reflect both populations. The count for the Yankton alone was 5,579.

Language family

Siouan.

Origins and group affiliations

The Nakota and the Lakota peoples were originally part of the Dakota tribe; the Nakota were the smallest of the three divisions. The Yankton, Yanktonai, and a third group, the Assiniboin (uh-SIN-uh-boin), called themselves Nakoda or Nakota. The Assiniboin left in the sixteenth century and moved north into Canada and west into Montana. The Nakota divided into three bands: Yankton, Upper Yanktonai, and Lower Yanktonai. They fought mostly with the Cree and Ojibway in Minnesota, but were on good terms with neighboring tribes after their move to the prairies.

The Nakota were the only one of the three Sioux tribes who never officially took up arms against the United States. In spite of the friendly relations between them, the Nakota were forced to give up more than 13 million acres to Americans. On the reservations they managed to retain many of their traditions.

History

Driven from their homeland

During the 1600s the Nakota, as part of the larger Dakota tribe that also included the Lakota, occupied the area near Mille Lacs in what is now Minnesota. Explorers in north-central Minnesota noted their location on a map in 1683. In 1700 the French trader-explorer Pierre Charles LeSueur (c. 1657–1704) encountered the Sioux near a quarry in Minnesota, where they may have been collecting stone to make their sacred pipes.

In response to hostility from nearby Cree and Ojibway (see entries), the three Sioux groups (Dakota, Lakota, Nakota) moved south and west in the 1700s. The Nakota settled in a region east of the Missouri River in South Dakota. They built their villages along the Missouri and controlled the areas around the Big Sioux, Des Moines, and James rivers.

Important Dates

1700: Pierre Charles LeSueur encounters the Sioux.

1804: Lewis and Clark visit Nakota tribes in the upper Missouri River region and find them friendly.

1858: The Yankton give all lands, except for a reservation on the Missouri River, to the United States.

1865: The Yanktonai sign peace treaty with the U.S. government and give up lands.

1887–90: Reservation lands divided into individual allotments (plots).

1932: A tribal constitution is adopted.

1961: Tribal constitution is amended; the Yankton Sioux Tribal Business and Claims Committee becomes the governing body at Yankton Reservation.

Friendship with whites

Because of their control of the rivers, the Nakota were ideally situated for trading furs with the French. They quickly became familiar with white ways and enjoyed the European goods they acquired in trade.

Their relationship with the French ended with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 when the United States acquired a vast parcel of land from France, including Nakota territory. The next year President Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826; served 1801–9) sent Meriwether Lewis (1774–1809) and William Clark (1770–1836) to explore the region. Their orders were to make friends with the Sioux and enlist them as partners in a new American trading system. The Nakota people were the first Sioux encountered by the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Lewis and Clark found the Nakota to be very friendly. They admired their orderly camps and their handsome cone-shaped tepees. They passed out inexpensive presents and designated one Native American man as “first chief” in charge of relations with the U.S. government. In spite of the American’s insensitivity to their tribal government and the Nakota’ displeasure with the presents, the tribe accepted the Americans’ offer of friendship.

Land giveaways begin

Although the Nakota were friendly toward the Americans, other tribes were not, and the Nakota joined American soldiers in fighting these other tribes. In 1830, in an effort to make peace in the area and keep the warring tribes apart, the Yankton band agreed to give up a large piece of their land—about 2.2 million acres—to the U.S. government.

Trading posts sprang up throughout Nakota territory. Visitors came from the East to travel in steamboats up and down the Missouri River. When they returned home they spread the word about the wonderful farming land there. Settlers flocked in, and pressure grew for the government to move the Nakota out of the way and place them on a reservation. The Nakota had to decide whether to go peacefully or join the other Sioux tribes in resisting. The Nakota chose peace.

In 1858 more than 11 million acres of Yankton land were turned over the United States in exchange for $1.6 million in money and services to be paid out in installments over fifty years. The tribe retained 430,000 acres of reservation land between the Missouri River and Chouteau Creek in southern South Dakota.

On the reservations

Other Sioux tribes were furious that the Yankton had given up the land. The Yanktonai claimed ownership of the land and said they had merely loaned it to the Yankton when that tribe had given up its land to the United States in 1830. But the Yankton were determined to keep the peace. They again displayed their loyalty to the United States in 1862 by refusing to join their kinsmen in the Sioux wars against whites in Minnesota. (For more information on the Sioux Wars, see Dakota entry.)

The Yanktonai fought until 1865 when they signed a peace treaty and gave up their lands to the United States. The people were split between the Crow Creek, Devils Lake, and Standing Rock reservations in the Dakotas and the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana.

The Yankton settled on their reservation in 1859, and government agents were sent to teach them farming and ranching methods. Although the Yankton had been friendly to the Americans, many early photos show armed soldiers guarding the people on the reservations. The army also distributed food rations. Because the Native Americans were forbidden to trade or sell food or other goods, they became dependent on government handouts. Some officers took advantage of this to control the tribes by withholding supplies.

Allotment period

In 1887 Congress passed the General Allotment Act (also known as the Dawes Act). The purpose of this act was to make Native Americans on reservations assimilate (become like whites) faster. It also made vast areas of Native lands available to settlers. The act divided reservation lands into individual farms ranging from 40 to 160 acres in size. The land left over was sold to whites. This division of land meant that tribes who had always owned their land communally (as a group) must now work on their own separate farms, responsible for themselves. This was a complete reversal of traditional ways.

For the Nakota the process was completed over the next three years, and by the time it was over, the 435,000-acre Yankton Reservation in South Dakota was reduced to 40,000 acres. For the next several decades the U.S. government encouraged Native Americans to abandon their traditional culture. The government hoped that the Yankton and Yanktonai would become productive farmers and ranchers, but the federal policy did not work. Unable to support themselves, many Nakota left the reservation and moved to urban centers in the Great Plains and the West.

Nakota in the twentieth century and beyond

By the 1930s the U.S. government realized that its policies toward reservation Indians were ineffective. The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934 was passed, which encouraged American Indian tribes to adopt written constitutions and establish their own governments. But the new tribal governments would be under federal supervision. The Yankton refused to accept the terms of the IRA, and ever since they have been slighted when government funds are being distributed to Native American tribes. In their search for ways to make a living, the Nakota finally achieved considerable success when they opened the Fort Randall Casino in 1991.

In the early twenty-first century the Nakota goals and lifestyle are best expressed in these lines from the Vision Statement of the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation in Alberta, Canada:

We will walk in both worlds without compromise. We will educate ourselves holistically while protecting the integrity of our inherent and Treaty Rights. Our right to lands, independence and freedom. This right … will exist throughout eternity. As long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the rivers flow our treaties will be sacred.

Nakota Population: 2000 Census

In the 2000 U.S. Census, a total of 113,713 people identified themselves as Sioux. Some further classified themselves as members of specific bands or reservations, but 22,988 failed to do so. They simply called themselves Sioux, without indicating whether they were Dakota, Lakota, or Nakota. Members of Nakota bands or reservations are shown below. To further complicate the count of the people, Dakota and Lakota live on most of these reservations as well.

“2000 Census of Population and Housing. Matrix 7: American Indian and Alaskan Native summary file.” Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Data User Services Division, American FactFinder, 2004.

Religion

The Nakota shared many religious customs with the Dakota and Lakota. They worshipped the Great Spirit, Wakan Tanka, and performed the Sun Dance. All three Sioux groups conducted the ceremony of the sacred pipe, which was originally taught to the Sioux by a holy woman they called White Buffalo Calf Woman. The Nakota performed the ceremony in a sweat lodge. It began with a period of fasting (not eating or drinking) and consisted of prayers to the Great Spirit for cleansing and guidance. Successful participants of the ritual were rewarded with a dream vision.

Other religious ceremonies that all Sioux groups conducted included the Vision Cry, the Ghost Keeper, the Buffalo Chant, and the Foster-parent Chant. The most important Nakota ritual was the Mystery Dance, a chance for medicine men to demonstrate their power (see “Healing practices”).

The Sacred Pipe ceremony was discouraged by white missionaries who arrived in the late 1830s, but many Yakton performed it in secret. In recent years the ceremony has been held openly on the Yankton Reservation, where some residents also practice the Peyote (pronounced pay-OH-tee) Ceremony. In this ceremony people consume peyote, a substance obtained from cactus; in the trance state peyote induces, users hope to experience visions with spiritual meaning.

By the mid-2000s approximately 90 percent of the population had Christian backgrounds, with the majority being Catholic. At the same time many people also retain their Native customs and beliefs.

The Yankton Sioux and the Great Red Pipestone Quarry

The famous writer and painter George Catlin (1796–1872) traveled through Yankton Sioux country in the early 1800s. He heard tales of a quarry where a fantastic kind of red clay stone (called pipestone) could be found, and decided to see it for himself. As he came upon the area his party found “great difficulty in approaching, being stopped by several hundred Native Americans who ordered us back and threatened us very hard, saying ’that no white man had ever been to it, and that none should ever go.’” Catlin painted the Native Americans at the quarry, wrote about his findings, and sent a sample of the red stone to the nation’s capitol to be analyzed. The new stone was called catlinite in his honor.

Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) heard about the pipestone and mentioned it in his 1855 poem, “The Song of Hiawatha.” What Catlin and Longfellow described was the Red Pipestone Quarry in Minnesota, the place, according to Sioux oral tradition, where the Great Spirit sent a flood that cleansed the Earth and left behind only the blood of the Sioux ancestors—in the form of red pipestone.

The Sioux believed the quarry was sacred. Historians say that many different tribes came to it in the summer to quarry stone for use in making their sacred pipes. The Dakota Sioux ceded (gave away) the pipestone quarry in a treaty signed with the U.S. government in 1851. The Yankton Sioux objected to the giveaway. When they signed over their lands to the United States in 1865, they insisted that 648 acres in Minnesota be handed over to them as the Pipestone Reservation. The tribe sold Pipestone Reservation in 1929 on the condition that they could have access to the stone quarry. In 1937 the land was designated a national monument. The Upper Midwest Indian Cultural Center now located on the site preserves the ancient craft of pipemaking.

Language

Originally the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota spoke the same language. But as the Lakota and Nakota moved away from the Dakota, each tribe began to speak its own form of the language. People from all three tribes could still understand one another because the languages remained similar. In modern times five divisions of the original Dakota language exist: Dakota (Santee-Sisseton), Dakota (Yankton-Yanktonai), Lakota (Teton), Nakoda (Assiniboine) and Nakoda (Stoney). The Nakota, or Nakoda, language is also called Hohe and is tied to the Assiniboin language (see entry). The Nakoda language is spoken in the traditional territories of Saskatchewan and Montana.

Like many Native American languages, Nakota nouns are often more than just names for objects. They describe the object and have special meanings. For example, a newborn baby is called waken yeja, which actually means “sacred little one.” The Nakota word for water, mini, means “my life.” When Native Americans first saw the horse, many tribes called it a “mysterious dog.” It was also known as “big-grass-eater-dog-that-runs-on-the-prairie.” Descriptive words such as these are chosen with care. Pulitzer-Prize winning Kiowa novelist Scott Momoday explains:

At the heart of the American Indian oral tradition is a deep and unconditional belief in the efficacy [power to produce an effect] of language. Words are intrinsically powerful. They are magical. By means of words can one … quiet the raging weather, bring forth the harvest, ward off evil, rid the body of sickness and pain, subdue an enemy, capture the heart of a lover, live in the proper way, and venture beyond death.

Nakota Words

• ade … “father”
• Daya ya u? … “Are you well?”
• Doken ya u? … “How are you?”
• gaga … “to make”
• hoga … “fish”
• ina … “mother”
• Mak?u … “Give me”
• ni …“life”
• peda …“fire”
• pinamiya … “thank you”
• sunka wakan … “horse”
• Tin U! … “Come in!”
• washuya … “cookies”

Government

Nakota bands were governed by a council, which consisted of a hereditary chief (the position passed from father to son or another related heir) and other important leaders and warriors from the clans. (A clan is a group of related families who trace their heritage back to a common ancestor.) Once the Nakota people were on reservations, federal agents appointed chiefs to be in charge of distributing goods and money. Agents also set up a tribal police force, formed a new Nakota band whose members were people of mixed Native American and white blood, and generally oversaw all aspects of Native American life. Meanwhile the Nakota’s old chief, Struck-by-the-Ree, encouraged his people to accept this government interference and adapt to white ways.

In the 1930s the government returned control of their own affairs to Native American tribes. Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) in 1934. The act allowed the tribe to write a new constitution under the supervision of the federal government. If they agreed, they became eligible to receive federal money for development. The tribe at the Yankton Reservation had already adopted their own constitution in 1932 and decided to remain independent.

In the early twenty-first century the Yankton Reservation is governed by the Yankton Sioux Tribal Business and Claims Committee, whose members are elected to two-year terms. The committee looks for ways to make the reservation an attractive place for members of the tribe to live and work.

Economy

To their early hunting-gathering economy, the Nakota added fur trade with the French and then the Americans in the 1700s and 1800s. They received blankets, cloth, beads, clothing, cooking utensils, tools, and guns in exchange for pelts.

In the early days on the reservations the Nakota continued many of their old hunting-gathering ways. When there was not enough food they could go off the reservation to hunt buffalo. Slowly they adopted white ways of farming, but they faced obstacles such as frequent floods, drought, plagues of grasshoppers, and blizzards. Their economy gradually came to rely heavily on farming, but in the 1920s prices for farm goods fell, and many Yankton could no longer afford to farm. More economic and natural disasters followed. People sold off their plots of land and moved away to work in the non-Native economy. The traditional Nakota way of life seemed to have disappeared.

In the 1960s the federal government expanded federal funding for Native American programs, and some money found its way to the Yankton Reservation. Efforts to modernize the reservation economy using those funds included an electronics industry in the 1960s and the construction of a pork-processing plant in the 1970s. These ventures worked for a time, but later failed. More people left the reservations in the 1960s to find jobs in cities and towns.

The economy improved when the Yankton Reservation introduced gaming in 1991. The casino was an immediate success in terms of jobs and money, and some people returned to live on the reservation. In the mid-2000s the major employers there were the casino, the Indian Health Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Marty Indian School (Marty is the city in South Dakota where tribal headquarters is located), and the tribal government. Agriculture, fisheries, construction, and tourism also supply jobs and income.

The Legends

Nakota elders told stories to pass on tribal history and teach the young. Here, Zitkala-Sa explains how much she enjoyed inviting neighbors for dinner when she was a child, knowing that afterwards she would enjoy the legends they told.

I was always glad when the sun hung low in the west, for then my mother sent me to invite the neighboring old men and women to eat supper with us. Running all the way to the wigwams, I halted shyly at the entrances. Sometimes I stood long moments without saying a word. It was not any fear that made me so dumb when out upon such a happy errand; nor was it that I wished to withhold the invitation, for it was all I could do to observe this very proper silence. But it was a sensing of the atmosphere, to assure myself that I should not hinder other plans. My mother used to say to me, as I was almost bounding away for the old people: “Wait a moment before you invite any one. If other plans are being discussed, do not interfere, but go elsewhere.”

The old folks knew the meaning of my pauses; and often they coaxed my confidence by asking, “What do you seek, little granddaughter?”

“My mother says you are to come to our tepee this evening,” I instantly exploded, and breathed the freer afterwards.

“Yes, yes, gladly, gladly I shall come!” each replied. Rising at once and carrying their blankets across one shoulder, they flocked leisurely from their various wigwams toward our dwelling.

My mission done, I ran back, skipping and jumping with delight.…

At the arrival of our guests I sat close to my mother, and did not leave her side without first asking her consent. I ate my supper in quiet, listening patiently to the talk of the old people, wishing all the time that they would begin the stories I loved best. At last, when I could not wait any longer, I whispered in my mother’s ear, “Ask them to tell an Iktomi story, mother.”

Soothing my impatience, my mother said aloud, “My little daughter is anxious to hear your legends.” By this time all were through eating, and the evening was fast deepening into twilight.

As each in turn began to tell a legend, I pillowed my head in my mother’s lap; and lying flat upon my back, I watched the stars as they peeped down upon me, one by one.

Zitkala-Sa. Impressions of an Indian Childhood. Washington: Hayworth Publishing House, 1921. Available online at: (accessed on September 21, 2007).

Daily life

Education

Because the Nakota believed children had a close connection with the spirit world, they treated them respectfully. Children were allowed to explore, and parents did not set rules for them except to keep them safe. Adults encouraged children to be individuals. No child was forced to learn something that did not interest him or her; each one developed skills based on his or her interests. If a child showed a talent in a certain area, adults with expertise in that area helped the child become more proficient. At age seven boys and girls were taught separately by their aunts and uncles.

The first missionary arrived on the Yankton Reservation in 1839, and soon the first of many religious schools sprang up. Their goal was to discourage traditional practices and coax the people into accepting white ways. The federal government opened a boarding school in 1882 in nearby Greenwood, South Dakota, which operated for nearly forty years. School officials removed children from their homes and taught them reading, writing, and arithmetic for half the school day. The other half day, girls learned homemaking skills, and boys were taught to farm and raise livestock. Children were punished for speaking their native language.

In modern times the Yankton operate their own boarding high school and junior college and teach Nakota culture in buildings originally established by missionaries to teach white ways.

Food

The Yankton and Yanktonai adjusted their diet according to the different environments they found as they moved. While living in Minnesota, the Nakotas built dugout tree-trunk canoes and practiced spear-fishing in the nearby lakes and rivers. They also hunted large game, such as moose and deer, and grew grains and vegetables, including corn, squash, and pumpkins.

After they moved to the Great Plains and later acquired horses the Nakota adopted a Plains lifestyle. They hunted the buffalo that became the major source of food and raw materials for clothing and shelter. They continued to grow some crops, especially corn and squash, and rounded out their diets by gathering wild plums, cherries, and edible roots.

Buildings

In Minnesota the Nakota lived in houses covered with bark or in small earth-covered lodges. When they moved to the Great Plains to follow the buffalo herd, they built portable buffalo-skin tepees, painted various colors and sometimes decorated with drawings that recorded special events in their lives.

Healing practices

An important Nakota ceremony was the Mystery Dance of the medicine men. It was used to demonstrate their waka powers. As the men danced they struck each other with their medicine bags. The person who was hit fell to the ground to show the other dancer’s power, and spectators cheered. New people were initiated during the dance. One of the older, more experienced healers threw his bag at the novice, who fell to the ground, seemingly unconscious. Then the older healer restored him to consciousness.

A person received his medicine either through a revelation or by buying it. He then tested it to be certain it worked by tying a small bag of it to the wrist or moccasin of one of his relatives. If this relative survived in battle, it proved the medicine was powerful. Afterwards the owner of the medicine gave a Sacred Feast for other medicine men and, occasionally, their families. Each attendee brought a large wooden plate that the host piled with food. Following ritual prayers and songs, the host sang rapidly while his guests ate as quickly as possible, emptying their plates.

Warriors hung their medicine bags outside their lodge on a tripod of decorated poles. They covered the bag with a small red blanket or white wolfskin.

Customs

Birth and naming

In some families the grandmother is present at the birth to greet each child. When a child is four months old the parents hold a gathering where family members welcome and offer prayers for the baby. A pipe carrier sends these prayers to God and his helpers. Some children are given spirit names at this ceremony, but others receive theirs later. A spirit name is the name a person is known by in the spirit world. The Nakota believe that because children are pure, they have a closer connection to the spirit world and often receive important teachings and stories.

Puberty

When a girl reached puberty all her female relatives gathered to honor her. They also taught her womanly duties and responsibilities. She learned how to behave during her moon time (menstrual period) and avoided attending ceremonies and gatherings at this time.

Boys learned survival skills from their uncles, who also taught them to be honorable and stay on the Red Road back toward the Creator. Some boys went on their vision quests before they reached manhood. For the Nakota, age did not matter in becoming a man. Men proved themselves as hunters or warriors. Taking part in the Sun Dance was also proof of manhood.

Festivals and ceremonies

The Round Dance was a healing ceremony that became a social dance. Usually held in the winter, the Nakota say that the dead join in the Round Dance. This dance reminds people that their relatives are always with them. Everyone joins hands and forms a circle; people dance clockwise, moving up and down like the Northern Lights. (The Northern Lights are said to be ancestors dancing.) The drummer and the singers sit in the center of the circle. The drumbeat symbolizes the heartbeat of the community, and all members move as one to show their unity.

The traditional Sioux religious ceremonies are still held (Sun Dance, Peyote rituals, ceremony of the Sacred Pipe; see “Religion”). They are accompanied by elaborate feasts requiring days of preparation. Large quantities of food and gifts are distributed for people to take home after these feasts. Now instead of ponies and guns, the gifts might include the beautiful star quilts and handcrafted, beaded jewelry still made by Yankton women.

The Yanktons also host large powwows, celebrations at which the main activities are traditional singing and dancing. In modern times, the singers and dancers at powwows usually come from many different tribes.

Current tribal issues

The Yankton Sioux Tribe was the subject of a Supreme Court decision in 1998 in a complicated case called South Dakota v. Yankton Sioux Tribe et al. The case arose after local officials planned to open a solid waste landfill on land that had been part of the 1858 reservation, but was later sold to a non-Native American. The tribe objected, claiming that asbestos, lime and waste water sludge, industrial waste, oil, lead-acid batteries, and other toxic waste would endanger their health and the health of their livestock. The tribe also believed they should have a say in whether such a landfill was built “within the territorial boundaries” of the Yankton Reservation.

The case that went to the Supreme Court did not involve the issue of the landfill. Rather, the issue that was argued was whether the 1858 reservation still existed. The state of South Dakota argued that the reservation ceased to exist when tribal members accepted the 1887 allotment act that divided up their 430,000 acres and sold the leftover land to settlers. The Supreme Court decided that the lands that were sold were indeed no longer part of a reservation, but the court refused to make a decision on whether a reservation now existed.

Meanwhile construction on the site went forward, and the Yankton Sioux are continuing their fight against its location on the lands they consider their own. The court’s decision gave the state control of the landfill. The Department of Justice indicated that the remaining acreage of the reservation, including extensive nonmember fee lands, is still Indian country. The State of South Dakota disagrees, and that case, United States v. Rainbow, was under litigation as of 2007.

Notable people

Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (1876–1938), also known as Zitkala-Sa or Red Bird, was a writer, educator, musician, activist, and feminist. She was born at the Yankton Sioux Agency in South Dakota and graduated from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. An accomplished musician and writer, Bonnin devoted her life to Native American reform issues, including speaking out for employment of Native Americans in the Indian Service, the preservation of accurate Native American history, and citizenship for all Native Americans. Her book Old Indian Legends was released in 1901. One of her final undertakings was composing an Native American opera with William F. Hanson entitled Sun Dance.

Other notable Nakota include: Yankton ethnologist, linguist, and novelist Ella Cara Deloria (1889–1971); Yankton writer Vine Deloria Jr. (1933–2005); and Yankton artist and professor Oscar Howe (1915–1983).

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Gordon L. Pullar, Director, Department of Alaska Native and Rural Development College of Rural and Community Development, UAF, Anchorage, Alaska

Laurie Edwards

Brian Wescott (Athabaskan/Yup’ik)

Laurie Edwards

Amanda Beresford McCarthy

Laurie Edwards