Editing Lakota people (section)

===Early history===
[[File:VOALoguetipidetail300.jpg|thumb|Scenes of battle and horse raiding decorate a [[Calico|muslin]] Lakota [[tipi]] from the late 19th or early 20th century]]
Early Lakota history is recorded in their [[winter counts]] ([[Lakota language|Lakota]]: ''waníyetu wówapi''), pictorial calendars painted on hides, or later recorded on paper. The 'Battiste Good winter count' records Lakota history to 900&nbsp;CE when [[White Buffalo Calf Woman]] gave the Lakota people the White Buffalo Calf Pipe.<ref>[http://wintercounts.si.edu/html_version/html/thewintercounts.html "Lakota Winter Counts."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120302222234/http://wintercounts.si.edu/html_version/html/thewintercounts.html |date=March 2, 2012 }} ''Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.'' Retrieved May 28, 2012.</ref>

[[Siouan languages|Siouan language]] speakers may have originated in the lower [[Mississippi River]] region and then migrated to or originated in the [[Ohio Valley]]. They were agriculturalists and may have been part of the [[Mound builder (people)|Mound Builder civilization]] during the 9th–12th centuries CE.<ref name=p329>Pritzker 329</ref> Lakota legend and other sources state they originally lived near the [[Great Lakes]]: 
"The tribes of the Dakota before European contact in the 1600s lived in the region around [[Lake Superior]]. In this forest environment, they lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering wild rice. They also grew some corn, but their locale was near the limit of where corn could be grown."<ref>{{Cite web|title=History of the Dakota Tribes|url=https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/lakota.htm|access-date=2020-12-10|website=www.sjsu.edu}}</ref>

In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Dakota-Lakota speakers lived in the upper Mississippi Region in territory now organized as the states of [[Minnesota]], [[Wisconsin]], [[Iowa]], and [[the Dakotas]]. Conflicts with [[Anishnaabe]] and [[Cree people]]s pushed the Lakota west onto the [[Great Plains]] in the mid- to late-17th century.<ref name=p329/> Around 1730 [[Cheyenne people]] introduced the Lakota to [[horse]]s,<ref name="cheyenne">{{cite web| last =Liberty | first =Dr. Margot | url = http://www.friendslittlebighorn.com/cheyenneprimacy.htm| title = Cheyenne Primacy: The Tribes' Perspective As Opposed To That Of The United States Army; A Possible Alternative To 'The Great Sioux War Of 1876'| publisher = Friends of the Little Bighorn| access-date =January 13, 2008}}</ref> which they called ''šuŋkawakaŋ'' ("dog [of] power/mystery/wonder"). After they adopted [[horse culture]], Lakota society centered on the [[American Bison|buffalo]] hunt on horseback. In 1660 French explorers estimated the total population of the Sioux (Lakota, [[Santee Dakota|Santee]], [[Yankton people|Yankton]], and [[Yanktonai]]) at 28,000. The Lakota population was estimated at 8,500 in 1805; it grew steadily and reached 16,110 in 1881. They were one of the few Native American tribes to increase in population in the 19th century, a time of widespread disease and warfare. By 2010 the number of Lakota had increased to more than 170,000,<ref>[https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-10.pdf]. Census.gov. Retrieved on May 4, 2016.</ref> of whom about 2,000 still spoke the [[Lakota language|Lakota language (''Lakȟótiyapi'')]].<ref>[http://lakhota.org/lakota-language-critically-endangered/] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160502145955/http://lakhota.org/lakota-language-critically-endangered/|date=May 2, 2016}}. Lakhota.org. Retrieved on May 4, 2016.</ref>

After 1720, the Lakota branch of the Seven Council Fires split into two major sects, the Saône, who moved to the [[Lake Traverse]] area on the South Dakota–North Dakota–Minnesota border, and the Oglála-Sičháŋǧu, who occupied the [[James River (Dakotas)|James River]] valley. However, by about 1750 the Saône had moved to the east bank of the [[Missouri River]], followed 10 years later by the Oglála and Brulé (Sičháŋǧu). The large and powerful [[Arikara]], [[Mandan]], and [[Hidatsa]] villages had long prevented the Lakota from crossing the [[Missouri River]]. However, the great [[smallpox]] [[epidemic]] of 1772–1780 destroyed three-quarters of the members of these tribes. The Lakota crossed the river into the drier, short-grass prairies of the High Plains. These newcomers were the Saône, well-mounted and increasingly confident, who spread out quickly. In 1765, a Saône exploring and raiding party led by Chief [[Standing Bear]] discovered the [[Black Hills]] (the ''[[Paha Sapa]]''), then the territory of the [[Cheyenne]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Kiowas|url=http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.na.055|encyclopedia= Encyclopedia of the Great Plains|access-date=2013-06-23|df=mdy-all}}</ref> Ten years later, the Oglála and Brulé also crossed the Missouri. Under pressure from the Lakota, the Cheyenne moved west to the Powder River country.<ref name="cheyenne" /> The Lakota made the Black Hills their home.