TRIBAL NOMENCLATURE
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.
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