Lakota language lessons every Wednesday night at the Old Mill Studio.  Starts at 6:30pm

FOURTH ANNUAL EASTERN WOODLAND GATHERING and PRE-1840 ENCAMPMENT
June 5-6, 2010   10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Saturday   .    10 a.m. – 4p.m. Sunday   Fundraiser for  the Seneca County Park District.

Native American drumming and dancing.   Historical mountain man rendezvous. Primitive skills demonstrations. Children’s activities, Wagon tours. and much more.

$:3:00 donation requested at the gate.

MC: Brian Darst. Arena Director:

doug Walking Man hodges. Head Veteran Dancer:

Martin Tall Horse. Head Female Dancer:

Shelly Lightning Laughing Oros. Head Male Dancer:

Allen Bird Dancing Martello. Host Drum: Friendly Voices.

Co-Host Drum: South Eastern Water Spider.

Photo Credit: US Fish and Wildlife Service
Cypress Creek National Wildlife Refuge in Illinois

Treat the Earth and all that dwell thereon with respect.
Remain close to the Great Spirit.
Show great respect for your fellow beings.
Work together for the benefit of all Mankind.
Give assistance and kindness wherever needed.
Do what you know to be right.
Look after the well being of mind and body.
Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater good.
Be truthful and honest at all times.
Take full responsibility for your actions.

Great Spirit,
give us hearts to understand;

never to take from creation’s beauty more than we give;
never to destroy wantonly for the furtherance of greed;
never to deny to give our hands for the building of earth’s beauty;
never to take from her what we cannot use.

Give us hearts to understand

that to destroy earth’s music is to create confusion;
that to wreck her appearance is to blind us to beauty;
that to callously pollute her fragrance is to make a house of stench;
that as we care for her she will care for us.

We have forgotten who we are.
We have sought only our own security.
We have exploited simply for our own ends.
We have distorted our knowledge.
We have abused our power.

Great Spirit, whose dry lands thirst,
help us to find the way to refresh your lands.

Great Spirit, whose waters are choked with debris and pollution,
help us to find the way to cleanse your waters.

Great Spirit, whose beautiful earth grows ugly with misuse,
help us to find the way to restore beauty to your handiwork.

Great Spirit, whose creatures are being destroyed,
help us to find a way to replenish them.

Great Spirit, whose gifts to us are being lost in selfishness and corruption,
help us to find the way to restore our humanity.

  More information coming soon.

More information forth coming.

The Lakota (pronounced [laˈkˣota]; also Lakȟóta, Teton, Tetonwan, Teton Sioux) are a Native American tribe. They are part of a confederation of seven related Sioux tribes (the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ or seven council fires) and speak Lakȟóta, one of the three major dialects of the Sioux language.

The Lakota are the western-most of the three Sioux groups, occupying lands in both North and South Dakota. The seven branches or “sub-tribes” of the Lakota are:

• Sičháŋǧu (a.k.a. Brulé, Burned Thighs)
• Oglála
• Itázipčho (a.k.a. Sans Arc, No Bows)
• Húŋkpapȟa
• Mnikȟówožu (a.k.a. Miniconjou)
• Sihásapa (a.k.a. Blackfoot Sioux)
• Oóhenuŋpa (a.k.a. Two Kettles)

Notable persons include Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (Sitting Bull) from the Hunkpapa band and Tȟašúŋke Witkó (Crazy Horse), Maȟpíya Lúta (Red Cloud), Heȟáka Sápa (Black Elk) and Billy Mills from the Oglala band as well as Touch the Clouds.

History

Akta Lakota Museum in Chamberlain, South Dakota.

The Lakota were originally referred to as the Dakota when they lived by the great lakes, however, because of European American settlement they were pushed away from the great lakes region and later called themselves the Lakota which became part of the Sioux. After their adoption of the horse, šúŋkawakȟáŋ ([ˈʃũka waˈkˣã]) (’dog [of] power/mystery/wonder’) their society centered on the buffalo hunt with the horse. There were 20,000 Lakota in the mid-18th century. The number has now increased to about 70,000, of whom about 20,500 speak the Lakota language^[3].

After 1720, the Lakota branch of the Seven Council Fires split into two major sects, the Saone who moved to the Lake Traverse area on the South Dakota–North Dakota–Minnesota border, and the Oglala-Sicangu who occupied the James River valley. By about 1750, however, the Saone had moved to the east bank of the Missouri River, followed 10 years later by the Oglala and Brulé (Sičangu).

The large and powerful Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa villages had prevented the Lakota from crossing the Missouri for an extended period, but when smallpox and other diseases nearly destroyed these tribes, the way was open for the first Lakota to cross the Missouri into the drier, short-grass prairies of the High Plains. These Saone, well-mounted and increasingly confident, spread out quickly. In 1765, a Saone exploring and raiding party led by Chief Standing Bear discovered the Black Hills (which they call the Paha Sapa). Just a decade later, in 1775, the Oglala and Brulé also crossed the river, following the great smallpox epidemic of 1772–1780, which destroyed three-quarters of the Missouri Valley populations. In 1776, they defeated the Cheyenne as the Cheyenne had earlier defeated the Kiowa, and gained control of the land which became the center of the great Lakota universe.

Initial contacts between the Lakota and the United States, during the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804–1806 was marked by a standoff involving the Lakota refusing to allow the explorers to continue upstream countered by the Expedition preparing to battle.^[4] More than half a century later, after the building of Fort Laramie on the Lakota’s land, the Fort Laramie treaty was introduced to protect travelers on the Oregon Trail. This measure was taken in order to reduce the number of goods and lives taken by the Lakota in revenge for wrongs done to them by the settlers.^[5] Formally, the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 acknowledged native sovereignty over the Great Plains in exchange for free passage along the Oregon Trail, for “as long as the river flows and the eagle flies”. In Nebraska on September 3, 1855, 700 soldiers under American General William S. Harney avenged the Grattan Massacre by attacking a Lakota village, killing 100 men, women, and children. Other wars followed; and in 1862–1864, as refugees from the “Dakota War of 1862″ in Minnesota fled west to their allies in Montana and Dakota Territory, the war followed them.

Because the Black Hills are sacred to the Lakota, they objected to mining in the area, which had been attempted since the early years of the 19th century. In 1868, the U.S. government signed the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, exempting the Black Hills from all white settlement forever. ‘Forever’ lasted only four years, when gold was publicly discovered there, and an influx of prospectors descended upon the area, abetted by army commanders like Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer. The latter tried to administer a lesson of noninterference with white policies, resulting in the Great Sioux War of 1876-77. Hunting and massacre of the buffalo were urged by General Philip Sheridan as a means to “destroying the Indians’ commissary.”^[6]

The Lakota with their allies, the Arapaho and the Northern Cheyenne, defeated General George Crook’s army at the Battle of the Rosebud and a week later defeated the U.S. 7th Cavalry in 1876 at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, killing 258 soldiers, wiping out the entire Custer battalion, and inflicting more than 50% casualties on the regiment. Their victory over the U.S. Army would not last, however. The Lakota were defeated in a series of subsequent battles by the reinforced U.S. Army and eventually confined onto reservations, prevented from hunting buffalo and forced to accept government food distribution.

January 17, 1891: Camp of Oglala tribe of Lakota at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, 3 weeks after Wounded Knee incident, when 150 scattered as 153 Lakota Sioux and 25 U.S. soldiers died.

Lakota storyteller: painting.

The Lakota signed a treaty in 1877 ceding the Black Hills to the United States, but a low-intensity war continued, culminating, fourteen years later, in the killing of Sitting Bull (December 15, 1890) at Standing Rock and the Massacre of Wounded Knee (December 29, 1890) at Pine Ridge.

Today, the Lakota are found mostly in the five reservations of western South Dakota: Rosebud Indian Reservation (home of the Upper Sičangu or Brulé), Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (home of the Oglala), Lower Brule Indian Reservation (home of the Lower Sičangu), Cheyenne River Indian Reservation (home of several other of the seven Lakota bands, including the Sihasapa and Hunkpapa), and Standing Rock Indian Reservation, also home to people from many bands. But Lakota also live on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in northeastern Montana, the Fort Berthold Reservation of northwestern North Dakota, and several small reserves in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, where their ancestors fled to “Grandmother’s [i.e. Queen Victoria's] Land” (Canada) during the Minnesota or Black Hills War.

Large numbers of Lakota live in Rapid City and other towns in the Black Hills, and in metro Denver. Lakota elders joined the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO) seeking protection and recognition for their cultural and land rights.

The Lakota name now joins Sioux (H-13), Kiowa (OH-58), Apache (AH-64), Chinook (H-47), Iroquois (UH-1), and other American Indian names that have been given to aircraft. The UH-145 has been selected as the United States Army’s new Light Utility Helicopter, and has been named the Lakota.

PROVIDED BY WIKIPEDIA

Lakota

The language was first put into written form by missionaries around 1840 and has since evolved to reflect contemporary needs and usage.

Vowels

Lakota has five oral vowels, /i e a o u/, and three nasal vowels, /ĩ ã ũ/ (phonetically [ɪ̃ ə̃ ʊ̃]). Lakota /e/ and /o/ are said to be more open than the corresponding cardinal vowels, perhaps closer to [ɛ] and [ɔ]. Orthographically, the nasal vowels are sometimes written with a following <ƞ>, <ŋ>, or , and sometimes with ogoneks underneath, <į ą ų>. Writing with is unambiguous and simplest, since no syllables end with consonantal /n/.
Front Central Back
high oral i u
nasal iŋ uŋ
mid e o
low oral a
nasal aŋ

Consonants
Bilabial Dental Alveolar Post-alveolar Velar Uvular[2][3] Glottal
Nasal m [m] n [n]
Plosive unaspirated p [p] t [t] č [tʃ] k [k] ’ [ʔ]
voiced b [b] g [ɡ]
aspirated ph [pʰ] / pȟ [pˣ] th [tʰ] / tȟ [tˣ] čh [tʃʰ] kh [kʰ] / kȟ [kˣ]
ejective p’ [p'] t’ [t'] č’ [tʃ'] k’ [k']
Fricative voiceless s [s] š [ʃ] ȟ [χ]
voiced z [z] ž [ʒ] ǧ [ʁ]
ejective s’ [s'] š’ [ʃ'] ȟ’ [χ']
Approximant w [w] l [l] y [j] h [h]

The voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/ becomes a uvular trill ([ʀ]) before /i/[2][3] and in fast speech it is often realized as the voiced velar fricative /ɣ/. The voiceless aspirated plosives have two allophonic variants each: those with a delay in voicing ([pʰ tʰ t͡ʃʰ kʰ]), and those with velar friction ([pˣ tˣ kˣ]), which occur before /a/, /ã/, /o/, /ĩ/, and /ũ/ (thus, lakhóta, /laˈkʰota/ is phonetically [laˈkˣota]; [t͡ʃˣ] does not occur). For some speakers, there is a phonemic distinction between the two, and both occur before /e/. Some orthographies mark this distinction; others do not. The uvular fricatives /χ/ and /ʁ/ are commonly spelled <ȟ> and <ǧ>.

All monomorphemic words have one vowel which carries primary stress and has a higher tone than all other vowels in the word. This is generally the vowel of the second syllable of the word, but often the first syllable can be stressed, and occasionally other syllables as well. Stress is generally indicated with an acute accent: <á>, etc. Compound words will have stressed vowels in each component; proper spelling will write compounds with a hyphen. Thus máza-ská, literally “metal-white”, i.e. “silver; money” has two stressed vowels, the first a in each component. If it were written without the hyphen, as mazaska, it could only have one stress.
[edit] Orthography

Of the differing orthographies currently used, the writing system of the New Lakota Dictionary is most widely used. It has been adopted as the standard orthography by the Sitting Bull College, by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and is also used in a large number of schools on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations.[4]

The vowels are a, e, i, o, u; nasal vowels are aŋ, iŋ, uŋ. Pitch accent is marked with an acute accent: á, é, í, ó, ú, áŋ, íŋ, úŋ on stressed vowels (which receive a higher tone than non-stressed ones)[5]

The following consonants approximate their IPA values: b, g, h, k, l, m, n, p, s, t, w, z. Y has its English value of /j/. An apostrophe, ’, is used for glottal stop.

A caron is used for sounds which are not written with Latin letters in the IPA: č /tʃ/, ǧ /ʁ/, ȟ /χ/, š /ʃ/, ž /ʒ/. Aspirates are written with h: čh, kh, ph, th, and velar frication with ȟ: kȟ, pȟ, tȟ. Ejectives are written with an apostrophe: č’, ȟ’, k’, p’, s’, š’, t’.

The spelling used in modern popular texts is often written without diacritics. Besides failing to mark stress, this also results in the confusion of numerous consonants: /s/ and /ʃ/ are both written s, /h/ and /χ/ are both written h, and the aspirate stops are written like the unaspirates, as p, t, c, k.

A practical orthography without diacritics has been proposed and is simple to use: mark nasal vowels with a trailing <-n>, mark aspiration with a trailing <-h>, spell some consonants with digraphs , and mark initial stress with an apostrophe (since default stress falls on the second syllable).
[edit] Alphabet

Standard Lakota Orthography, as used by majority of schools, is in principal phonemic, which means that each character (grapheme) represents only one distinctive sound (phoneme), except for the distinction between glottal and velar aspiration which is treated phonetically.
Lakota alphabet Letter Name of the letter Usual phonetic value (IPA)
A a a [a]
Aŋ aŋ aŋ [ã]
B b be [b]
Č č ču [tʃ]
Čh čh čhi [tʃʰ]
Č’ č’ č’ó [tʃ']
E e e [e]
G g gli [ɡ]
Ǧ ǧ ǧu [ʁ] / [ʀ]
H h ha [h]
Ȟ ȟ ȟe [χ]
I i i [ɪ]
Iŋ iŋ iŋ [ĩ]
K k ku [k]
Kh kh khi [kʰ]
Kȟ kȟ kȟa [kˣ]
K’ k’ k’o [k']
L l la [l]
M m ma [m]

Letter Name of the letter Usual phonetic value (IPA)
N n na [n]
O o o [o]
P p pu [p]
Ph ph phi [pʰ]
Pȟ pȟ pȟa [pˣ]
P’ p’ p’o [p']
S s sa [s]
Š š še [ʃ]
T t tu [t]
Th th thi [tʰ]
Tȟ tȟ tȟa [tˣ]
T’ t’ t’o [t']
U u u [ʊ]
Uŋ uŋ uŋ [ʊ̃]
W w wa [w]
Y y ya [j]
Z z za [z]
Ž ž že [ʒ]
’ khéze [ʔ]

All digraphs (i.e. characters created by two letters, such as kh, kȟ, k’) are treated as groups of individual letters in alphabetization. Thus for example the word ‘čhíŋ’ precedes ‘čónala’ in a dictionary.
[edit] Phonological processes

A common phonological process which occurs in rapid speech is vowel contraction, which generally results from the loss of an intervocalic glide. Vowel contraction results in phonetic long vowels (phonemically a sequence of two identical vowels), with falling pitch if the first underlying vowel is stressed, and rising pitch if the second underlying vowel is stressed: kê: (falling tone), “he said that,” from kéye; hǎ:pi (rising tone), “clothing,” from hayápi. If one of the vowels is nasalized, the resulting long vowel is also nasalized: čhą̌:pi, “sugar,” from čhąhą́pi[2].

When two vowels of unequal height contract, or when feature contrasts exist between the vowels and the glide, two new phonetic vowels, [æː] and [ɔː], result[2]: iyæ̂:, “he left for there,” from iyáye; mitɔ̂:, “it’s mine,” from mitáwa.

The plural enclitic =pi is frequently changed in rapid speech when preceding the enclitics =kte, =kį, =kštó, or =na. If the vowel preceding =pi is high, =pi becomes [u]; if the vowel is non-high, =pi becomes [o] (if the preceding vowel is nasalized, then the resulting vowel is also nasalized): hí=pi=kte, “they will arrive here,” [hiukte]; yatką́=pi=na, “they drank it and…,” [jatkə̃õna][2].

Lakota also exhibits some traces of sound symbolism among fricatives, where the point of articulation changes to reflect intensity: zí, “it’s yellow,” ží, “it’s tawny,” ǧí, “it’s brown” (Mithun 1999:33). (Compare with the similar examples in Mandan.)
[edit] Grammar
[edit] Word order

The basic word order of Lakota is Subject Object Verb, although the order can be changed for expressive purposes (placing the object before the subject to bring the object into focus or placing the subject after the verb to emphasize its status as established information). It is postpositional, with adpositions occurring after the head nouns: mas’óphiye él, “at the store” (literally ’store at’); thípi=kį ókšą, “around the house” (literally ‘house=the around’) (Rood and Taylor 1996).

Rood and Taylor (1996) suggest the following template for basic word order. Items in parenthesis are optional; only the verb is required. It is therefore possible to produce a grammatical sentence that contains only a verb.

(interjection) (conjunction) (adverb(s)) (nominal) (nominal) (nominal) (adverb(s)) verb (enclitic(s)) (conjunction)

[edit] Interjections

When interjections appear, they begin the sentence. A small number of interjections is used only by one gender, for instance the interjection expressing disbelief is ečéš for women but hóȟ for men, for calling attention woman say máŋ while men use wáŋ. Most interjections, however, are used by both genders. [6]
[edit] Conjunctions

It is common for a sentence to begin with a conjunction. Both čhaŋkhé and yuŋkȟáŋ can be translated as and; k’éyaš is similar to English but. Each of these conjunctions joins clauses. In addition, the conjunction na joins nouns or phrases.
[edit] Adverbs and Postpositions

Lakota uses postpositions, which are similar to English prepositions, but follow their noun complement. Adverbs or postpositional phrases can describe manner, location, or reason. There are also interrogative adverbs, which are used to form questions.
[edit] Nouns and Pronouns

As mentioned above, nominals are optional in Lakota, but when nouns appear the basic word order is Subject-Object-Verb. Pronouns are not common, but may be used contrastively or emphatically.

Lakota has four articles: waŋ is indefinite, similar to English a or an, and kiŋ is definite, similar to English the. In addition, waŋží is an indefinite article used with hypothetical or irrealis objects, and k’uŋ is a definite article used with nouns that have been mentioned previously.
[edit] Demonstratives

There are also nine demonstratives, which can function either as pronouns or as determiners.
Distance from speaker
near neutral far
singular lé hé ká
dual lenáos henáos kanáos
plural lená hená kaná

The demonstrative hé is the most neutral. Once a noun has been located, either by pointing or by description, in space or in the listener’s mind, hé can then be used. Before that, lé or ká is usually used to demonstrate exactly what is meant, although hé may also be used while pointing.
[edit] Verbs

Verbs are the only word class that are obligatory in a Lakota sentence. Verbs can be active, naming an action, or stative, describing a property. (Note that in English, such descriptions are usually made with adjectives.)

Verbs are inflected for first-, second- or third person, and for singular, dual or plural grammatical number.
[edit] Morphology
[edit] Verb Inflection

There are two paradigms for verb inflection. One set of morphemes indicates the person and number of the subject of active verbs. The other set of morphemes agrees with the object of transitive action verbs or the subject of stative verbs.[2]

Most of the morphemes in each paradigm are prefixes, but plural subjects are marked with a suffix and third-person plural objects with an infix.

First person arguments may be singular, dual, or plural; second or third person arguments may be singular or plural.

Subject of active verbs
singular dual plural
first person wa- uŋ(k)- uŋ(k)- … -pi
second person ya- ya- … -pi
third person unmarked -pi

Examples: máni “He walks.” mánipi “They walk.”

Subject of stative verbs
singular dual plural
first person ma- uŋ(k)- uŋ(k)- … -pi
second person ni- ni- … -pi
third person unmarked -pi

Object of transitive verbs
singular dual plural
first person ma- uŋ(k)- … -pi
second person ni- ni- … -pi
third person unmarked -wicha-

Example: waŋwíčhayaŋke “He looked at them.”
[edit] Enclitics

Lakota has a number of enclitic particles which follow the verb, many of which differ depending on whether the speaker is male or female.

Some enclitics indicate the aspect, mood, or number of the verb they follow. There are also various interrogative enclitics, which in addition to marking an utterance as a question show finer distinctions of meaning. For example, while he is the usual question-marking enclitic, huŋwó is used for rhetorical questions or in formal oratory, and the dubitative wa functions somewhat like a tag question in English (Rood and Taylor 1996; Buchel 1983). (See also Men and women’s speech below.)
[edit] Men and women’s speech

A small number of enclitics (approximatelly eight) differ in form based on the gender of the speaker. Yeló (men) ye (women) mark mild assertions. Kštó (women only according to most sources) marks strong assertion. Yo (men) and ye (women) mark neutral commands, yetȟó (men) and nitȟó (women) mark familiar, and ye (both men and women) and na mark requests. He is used by both genders to mark direct questions, but men also use hųwó in more formal situations. So (men) and se (women) mark dubitative questions (where the person being asked is not assumed to know the answer).

While many native speakers and linguists agree that certain enclitics are associated with particular genders, such usage may not be exclusive. That is, individual men sometimes use enclitics associated with women, and vice versa (Trechter 1999).

Examples of enclitic usage
Enclitic Meaning Example[7] Translation
hAŋ continuous yá-he “was going”
pi plural iyáyapi “they left”
la diminutive záptaŋla “only five”
ke attenuative wašteke “somewhat good”
kte irrealis uŋyíŋ kte “you and I will go” (future)
šni negative hiyú šni “he/she/it did not come out”
s’a repeating eyápi s’a “they often say”
séča conjecture ú kte séče “he might come”
ló assertion (masc) blé ló “I went there (I assert)”
yé assertion (fem) hí yé “he came (I assert)”
he interrogative Táku kȟoyákipȟa he? “What do you fear?”
huŋwó interrogative (masc. formal) Tókhiya lá huŋwó? “Where are you going?”
huŋwé interrogative (fem. formal, obsolete) Tákula huŋwé? “What is it?”
waŋ dubative question séča waŋ “can it be as it seems?”
škhé evidential yá-ha škhé “he was going, I understand”
kéye evidential (hearsay) yápi kéye “they went, they say”
[edit] Phrases

“Háu kola”, literally, “Hello, friend,” is the most common greeting, and was transformed into the generic motion picture American Indian “How!”, just as the traditional feathered headdress of the Teton was “given” to all movie Indians. As “háu” is the only word in Lakhota which contains a diphthong, /au/, it may be a loanword from a non-Siouan language.[2]

PROVIDED BY WIKIPEDIA

11:00 a.m.

Old Mill Studio, Fostoria

These are a few videos that I found that perhaps will be of interest to you.

May the Great Spirit talk to us all….

[bubblecast id=287090 thumbnail=475x375 player=475x375]

[bubblecast id=287091 thumbnail=475x375 player=475x375]

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