Nakota

The term Nakota (or Nakoda or also Nakona) is the endonym used by the native peoples of North America who usually go by the name of Assiniboine (or Hohe), in the United States, and of Stoney, in Canada.

They are Dakotan-speaking tribes that broke away from the main branches of the Sioux nation in earlier times. They moved farther from the original territory of present-day Minnesota into the northern and northwestern regions: Montana and North Dakota of the present-day United States and Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta of present-day Canada. Later they became competitors for resources and enemies of their former language-family "allies". (In each of the dialects, nakota, dakota and lakota means "friend" or "ally".)

History of misnomer

Historically, scholars classified the tribes belonging to the Sioux nation (or Dakota in a broad sense) into three large language groups: