Josephine McCarthy Waggoner, 1871 – 1943, was a Hunkpapa Lakota historian whose groundbreaking research was published in Witness: A Hunkpapha Historian's Strong-Heart Song of the Lakotas.
Nothing wrong with being called Sioux
By Dave Archambault Sr. Conventional historic wisdom about American Indians really does need to be reviewed with chokecherry colored glasses. Most everything we supposedly know about ‘back in the day’ comes from older white haired men who ventured into Indian Country. These primed linear thinking gentlemen collected an Indian history over several centuries and now their words are the all of it. For example, we Indians of the 21st Century understand that the word Sioux comes from a French spelling of the Algonquin word “Nadowe Su.” Their original tale says Su, now spelled Sioux, was the sound that a rattlesnake makes. We are told, the Ojibwa and French dropped the front part of the word and the Su sound was the slang word used to describe Nation(s) of American Indians that spoke the Siouxian tongue. Today this origin spin written about by white historians, tightens the jaws of a lot of Sioux folks as the word is understood to connote that we are a den “ snakes,” which we are told comes from what the Algonquin speakers thought of us and called us. Hence, everyone is led quite authoritatively to know that, Su or Sioux is the explanation of how and why we are called Sioux’s.
Read the rest of the story on the all new Native Sun News website: Nothing wrong with being called Sioux (Dave Archambault is a Hunkpapa Lakota and education consultant from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. He can be reached at joebuckinghorse@gmail.com) Copyright permission Native Sun News
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