structural:reformatting, stylistic:tone
Thiyóšpaye (community) kinship

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the different Očhéthi Šakówiŋ villages (oyáte, "tribe/nation") consisted of many thiyóšpaye ("camp circles"), which were large extended families united by kinship (thiwáhe, "immediate family"). Thiyóšpaye varied in size, were led by a leader appointed by an elder council and were nicknamed after a prominent member or memorable event associated with the band. Dakota ethnographer Ella Cara Deloria noted the kinship ties were all-important, they dictated and demanded all phrases of traditional life:

"I can safely say that the ultimate aim of Dakota life, stripped of accessories, was quite simple: one must obey kinship rules; one must be a good relative. No Dakota who participated in that life will dispute that… every other consideration was secondary—property, personal ambition, glory, good times, life itself. Without that aim and constant struggle to attain it, the people would no longer be Dakotas in truth. They would no longer even be human. To be a good Dakota, then, was to be humanized, civilized. And to be civilized was to keep the rules imposed by kinship for achieving civility, good manners, and a sense of responsibility toward every individual dealt with".

During the fur trade era, the thiyóšpaye refused to trade only for economic reasons. Instead the production and trade of goods was regulated by rules of kinship bonds. Personal relationships were pivotal for success: in order for European-Americans to trade with the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, social bonds had to be created. The most successful fur traders married into the kinship society, which also raised the status of the family of the woman through access to European goods. Outsiders are also adopted into the kinship through the religious Huŋkalowaŋpi ceremony. Early European explorers and missionaries who lived among the Dakota were sometimes adopted into the thiyóšpaye (known as "huŋka relatives"), such as Louis Hennepin who noted, "this help’d me to gain credit among these people". During the later reservation era, districts were often settled by clusters of families from the same thiyóšpaye.