Spirit Lake Tribe of Mission Bay, North Dakota. After numerous renovations since its opening, it now has almost 150 hotel rooms, a 1,000-seat auditorium, a banquet hall, RV park, gift shop and a four-story aquatic center. In 2011 more job opportunities were added when the Spirit Lake Marina and Spirit Lake Grocery store were added to the grounds of the casino. The marina hosts a fishing tournament every summer. Spirit Lake Tribe The Spirit Lake Tribe (in Santee Dakota: "Mni Wakan Oyate", formerly known as Devils Lake Sioux) is a federally recognized tribe based on a reservation located in east-central North Dakota on
Native American identity in the United States However, many people who do not satisfy tribal requirements identify themselves as Native American - whether due to biology, culture, or some other reason. The United States census allows citizens to check any ethnicity without requirements of validation. Thus, the census allows individuals to self-identify as Indian, merely by checking the racial category, "Native American/Alaska Native". In 1990, about 60 percent of the more than 1.8 million persons identifying themselves in the census as American Indian were actually enrolled in a federally recognized tribe. Using self identification allows both uniformity and includes many different ideas of "Indianness". It also avoids