Spirit Lake Tribe 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 the southern shores of Devils Lake. It is made up of people of the Pabakse ("Iháŋkthuŋwaŋna"), Sisseton ("Sisíthuŋwaŋ") and Wahpeton ("Waȟpéthuŋwaŋ") bands of the Dakota tribe. Established in 1867 in a treaty between Sisseton-Wahpeton Bands and the United States government, the reservation, at , consists of of land area, primarily in Benson and Eddy counties. Smaller areas extend into Ramsey, Wells and Nelson counties. According to
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