The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Siouan Indians by W. J. McGee

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license

Title: The Siouan Indians

Author: W. J. McGee

Release Date: October 23, 2006 [Ebook #19628]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SIOUAN INDIANS***

The Siouan Indians

A Preliminary Sketch - Fifteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology
to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1893-1894, Government
Printing Office, Washington, 1897, pages 153-204

by W. J. McGee

Edition 1, (October 23, 2006)

CONTENTS

THE SIOUAN STOCK
DEFINITION
EXTENT OF THE STOCK
TRIBAL NOMENCLATURE
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
PHONETIC AND GRAPHIC ARTS
INDUSTRIAL AND ESTHETIC ARTS
INSTITUTIONS
BELIEFS
THE DEVELOPMENT OF MYTHOLOGY
THE SIOUAN MYTHOLOGY
SOMATOLOGY
HABITAT
ORGANIZATION
HISTORY
DAKOTA-ASINIBOIN
cEGIHA
{~LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED T~}OIWE'RE
WINNEBAGO
MANDAN
HIDATSA
THE EASTERN AND SOUTHERN TRIBES
GENERAL MOVEMENTS
SOME FEATURES OF INDIAN SOCIOLOGY

THE SIOUAN INDIANS

A PRELIMINARY SKETCH(1)

BY W.J. McGEE

THE SIOUAN STOCK

DEFINITION

EXTENT OF THE STOCK

Out of some sixty aboriginal stocks or families found in North America
above the Tropic of Cancer, about five-sixths were confined to the tenth
of the territory bordering Pacific ocean; the remaining nine-tenths of the
land was occupied by a few strong stocks, comprising the Algonquian,
Athapascan, Iroquoian, Shoshonean, Siouan, and others of more limited
extent.

The Indians of the Siouan stock occupied the central portion of the
continent. They were preeminently plains Indians, ranging from Lake
Michigan to the Rocky mountains, and from the Arkansas to the
Saskatchewan, while an outlying body stretched to the shores of the
Atlantic. They were typical American barbarians, headed by hunters and
warriors and grouped in shifting tribes led by the chase or driven by
battle from place to place over their vast and naturally rich domain,
thoug