The Dakota (or Sioux) people are a Native American group living primarily in Minnesota and South Dakota, but also in North Dakota, neighboring Canada, and other places. They are divided into three main groups: the Santee, Yankton (or Nakota), and Teton (or Lakota). While these groups do have different dialects, most are mutually intelligible. Around 20,000 people speak the language, making it one of the largest Native American tongues.

Missionaries from the Episcopal Church were quite active among the Dakota, with the result that many today are practicing Episcopalians. Approximately half the Epicopalians in South Dakota today are Dakota.

Portions of the American Book of Common Prayer were first translated into Dakota in 1865; the text presented here is the second, from 1870, and appears in David Griffiths' Bibliography of the Book of Common Prayer as 24:2. It is in the Santee dialect. Since this time translations have been made of all editions of the U. S. BCP, including the present 1979 edition. Two of these, one a 1900 printing of an 1875 edition (Griffiths 24:3), and another an 1891 printing of an 1878 edition (Griffiths 24:4, the first time an American BCP was translated in full into a Native American tongue) are available from Google Books.

Like most languages, Dakota has evolved over the years, and today is spelled somewhat differently than is seen here. In particular, a number of diacritical marks are used now, but were not when this book was published.