Dictionary of the American West

D

thunderbolt. She broke in alarm, trying to avoid desperately the rush. There ensued an exciting contest of dodgings, turnings, and doublings. Wherever she turned Little G was before her. Some of his evolutions were marvellous. All I had to do was to sit my saddle, and apply just that final touch of judgment denied even the wisest of the lower animals. . . . At last the cow, convinced of the uselessness of further effort to return, broke away on a long lumbering run to the open plain. There she was held by men forming the new herd, called a cut herd. D D ring A metal ring on a saddle, used to attach the cinch or a martingale. It may be flat on one side (like a D) or completely round. dab To toss, as in “Just dab your rope on.” Dakota A large, powerful Native tribe commonly known as the Sioux that became celebrated because of their fierce resistance to white encroachment on the Northern Plains. Dakota leaders like Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, and Sitting Bull and events like the Little Bighorn battle and the Wounded Knee massacre have become legendary in Anglo and Native cultures. Dakota is a word in their Siouan language meaning “alliance of friends.” The language has two other dialectical forms, Nakota and Lakota; the latter may now be the word they most commonly use to refer to themselves. Historically, they also called themselves the Seven Council Fires. The word Sioux is a French version of their Ojibway foes, meaning “adder” or “enemy.” Historically they lived near the western Great Lakes but, because of pressure from the Ojibway, gradually migrated further and further onto the Plains, as far west as modern Wyoming. The Dakota divided themselves into seven tribes: Mdewakanton, Sisseton, Wahpekute, and Wahpeton (these four known to whites as the Santee); Yankton and Yanktonai (these two known to whites as the Yankton); and Teton. The Santee were Minnesota farmers, the Yankton a semi-agricultural culture in the eastern Dakotas, and the Teton (much the largest group) a nomadic, buffalo-hunting culture in the Dakotas and Wyoming. The Teton Sioux themselves comprised seven tribes—the Blackfoot (not to be confused with the Blackfeet), Brulé, Hunkpapa, Miniconjou, Oglala, Sans Arc, and Two Kettle. These were the best-known Dakota combatants of the Indian wars of the 1860s and ’70s. Dakota
113 Their religion is centered around the vision quest, the Sun Dance, and other ceremonies seeking blessings from the spiritual power they see in nature, and emphasizes an individual gaining of rightness with that divine spirit. The Teton Lakota fought against the U.S. government, especially about the Bozeman Trail and use of the Black Hills, during the middle and late 1860s. After an 1868 treaty, many accepted reservation life; others continued to fight. They inflicted defeats on troops led by George Crook and then George Custer in the spring and summer of 1876, but during the following winter they suffered severely from lack of food. Many surrendered the following summer; others stayed in Canada until 1881. The government ended the ghost dance fervor in 1890 with a slaughter of unarmed men, women, and children at Wounded Knee Creek. Since that time the Dakota have lived principally on reservations in South Dakota; other reservations are in North Dakota and Nebraska. They have suffered under government policies that suppressed their culture, their religion, even their language. In their terms, the sacred hoop was broken. In the 1970s and ’80s, a new consciousness of Indian rights has helped them to reassert their customs and values. In 1973 some occupied the village at Wounded Knee for two months against opposition from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and brought international attention to their circumstances. Now the Dakota are fighting to regain the Black Hills. combinations: Dakota sandstone, a common rock formation in the Black Hills and on the eastern slope of the Rockies; Dakota Territory (formed in 1861 with Yankton as its capital and continuing until the admission of North Dakota and South Dakota to the union in 1889), Dakota turnip (the prairie turnip). Dall sheep A mountain sheep primarily of Alaska and the Yukon, much sought by those who hunt for trophies. See also bighorn. Dalles (DALZ, with the a as in corral) The name of a tribe of Chinookan Indians living on the east side of the Columbia River near The Dalles, Oregon, near the falls. Dalle was a word of the voyageurs for rapids in a river, and they...