Dakota people in the Mankato ("Maka To" – Earth Blue/Blue Earth) region of southwestern Minnesota along the Blue Earth River. Contemporary Sioux people are also listed under the tribes to which they belong: Dakota people The Dakota people are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government in North America. They compose two of the three main subcultures of the Sioux people, and are typically divided into the Eastern Dakota and the Western Dakota. The Eastern Dakota are the Santee ("Isáŋyathi" or "Isáŋ-athi"; "knife" + "encampment", ″dwells at the place of knife flint″), who reside in the eastern Dakotas, central Minnesota
The Payne Family Native American Center student meeting rooms. Keeping with Native American tradition, the center's main entrance faces east. The roof features a long skylight, which resembles the slit of a teepee's smoke hole. Carved into exterior walls are the seals of Montana's seven reservations and the landless Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Montana, as well as quotes from former University President George Dennison and Native American elders such as Earl Barlow and Joseph Medicine Crow. Seven native plant and herb gardens circle the center and symbolize the state's reservations and the seven stars of the big dipper. According to project superintendent Todd