The picture is of a chief, but probably not Chief Drifting Goose.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/5579/dakota.html
As we look back at history as part of the celebration or our towns’ founding, we know that until the mid and later 1800’s, our land was the land of the Native Americans.
The terms Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota refer to dialects of the Siouxan language and also groups of people. Lakota, for example, is generally spoken in the western part of South Dakota (The Oglala on the Pine Ridge Reservation are an example). Nakota is spoken in the eastern part of South Dakota, Montana, and Canada and Dakota is generally spoken in Minnesota. The original homeland during historic times for the Dakota people was in Minnesota. The dialects changed as the Dakota people moved west. The word “Sioux” is thought by many to be a disparaging term created by the Ojibway meaning “snakes” and is generally not now preferred by Dakota people for that reason although it so permeated the historical literature that it is still used in terms like the “Siouxan language family.” The Eastern Dakota were woodland people with canoes, wild rice harvesting, etc. The later plains culture resulted in part from the wars with the Ojibway and partly from the Dakota Conflict in 1862 (the largest Indian War in American history with about 500 white casualties. The number of Dakota casualties is not known) and the subsequent removal of the Dakota from Minnesota. It has been estimated that about 500 treaties were entered into with the United States government by Native Americans. About 270 these were never ratified. About 230 treaties were ratified but then the edicts were broken.
http://www.curriculum.k12.sd.us/AT008/arikara_village.htm
1. Many men have loved the James River; many still do. But, Magabobdu, a Dakota Indian known as Drifting Goose was the original steward of this rich valley in east-central South Dakota, with its river like a chocolate ribbon threading through the prairie grasses and isolated stands of cottonwoods and cedar. Born near his people’s traditional hunting grounds north of Redfield in 1821, Drifting Goose was chief of his Hunkpati bank for 45 years, providing his people with a good livelihood and protecting them against danger. His is a story that keeps returning to the river against all odds. (Early maps show trails through Sanborn County as he and his band traveled from the Huron area to the Sioux Falls area.)
2. Drifting Goose lived most of his life in the free area of eastern South Dakota. His people, the lower Yanktonai, migrated there in the late 1600’s from Minnesota, the final stage in a westerly migration of over 400 years. French traders were the first white men to hear about and meet the Sioux, or Dakota, Indians. The name Sioux was a French term for snakes or enemies, given to the Dakota Indians by their enemies the Chippewas. Although the Sioux were the most feared Indians on the continent, and known to have been there since time immemorial, after years of bloody battle, the Chippewa pushed the Sioux west.
3. Drifting Goose and his people originally spoke the Nakota dialect but over time this merged with the Dakota, an Indian term for allies or friend. It was also the name given to this powerful nation of seven council fires. The Yanktonai were the “end people,” on the edges of the area lived and hunted by the Dakota people; and, the Hunkpati were the most westerly of this group. That is why Drifting Goose was able to keep his band hidden in the James River Valley, away from the encroaching white settlers, and one of the last of the great Sioux to capitulate and move to the reservation.
http://www.forbes.com/leadership/innovation/2007/10/25/workplace-exercise-levine-lead-innovation-cx_tw_1025walkmaster.html