Dakota people were created in Mni Sota Makoçe, and Minnesota has always been their home, shaping their ways of thinking and being, their language, history, and culture for countless generations before Europeans arrived around 1680. The seven divisions of the Oyate, or Dakota people, are historically allied as the Oçeti Ṡakowiŋ, or Seven Council Fires; all are related, each has a unique history and culture, and they speak three dialects of the same language. The four Santee, or Eastern bands, speak Dakota: the Bdewankantuŋwaŋ (Mdewankanton), Wahpekute, Wahpetuŋwaŋ (Wahpeton), and Sisituŋwaŋ (Sisseton); their Western Dakota cousins, the Ihnanktuŋwaŋ (Yankton) and Ihnanktuŋwanna (Yanktonai), speak Nakota; and the westernmost council fire, the Titunwaŋ (Titon), speak Lakota. Today, tribal government centers for these Nations are located in Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. At Lac qui Parle, known by its French name as “the lake that speaks,” Joseph Nicolet was the first to try to write down its Dakota name, producing the place name now spelled “Bde Iyedan,” though Waŋbdiokiya said Nicollet misunderstood “Bde Iyahde,” a Dakota reference to the Minnesota River connecting to the lake. When missionaries arrived at Lac qui Parle in 1835, they settled among the western bands of the Wahpetuŋwaŋ, a nation 1,500 strong, with summer villages stretching downriver to present-day Belle Plaine. In 1838, Waŋbdiokiya made the earliest written Dakota census of this place, recording 105 heads of families living in seven villages on both sides of the lake. After the Treaties of 1851, Lac qui Parle lay within the Upper Sioux Reservation; during the reservation era, some Dakota maintained villages here while others continued to come and go. Dakota people did not leave this place until they were exiled from Minnesota in 1863, and in 1938 the Upper Sioux Indian Community was established about 30 miles away, reaffirming Dakota sovereignty in the area.