e., the group or confederacy styling themselves Dakota.
Sometimes the term was employed in its simple form, but as explorers and
pioneers gained an inkling of the organization of the group, it was often
compounded with the tribal name as "Santee-Sioux," "Yanktonnai-Sioux,"
"Sisseton-Sioux," etc. As acquaintance between white men and red
increased, the stock name was gradually displaced by tribe names until the
colloquial appellation "Sioux" became but a memory or tradition throughout
much of the territory formerly dominated by the great Siouan stock. One of
the reasons for the abandonment of the name was undoubtedly its
inappropriateness as a designation for the confederacy occupying the
plains of the upper Missouri, since it was an alien and opprobrious
designation for a people bearing a euphonious appellation of their own.
Moreover, colloquial usage was gradually influenced by the usage of
scholars, who accepted the native name for the Dakota (spelled Dahcota by
Gallatin) confederacy, as well as the tribal names adopted by Gallatin,
Prichard, and others. Thus the ill-defined term "Sioux" has dropped out of
use in the substantive form, and is retained, in the adjective form only,
to designate a great stock to which no other collective name, either
intern or alien, has ever been definitely and justly applied.
The earlier students of the Siouan Indians recognized the plains tribes
alone as belonging to that stock, and it has only recently been shown that
certain of the native forest-dwellers long ago encountered by English
colonists on the Atlantic coast were closely akin to the plains Indians in
language, institutions, and beliefs.
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