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 Eastern Dakota (or Santee), Western Dakota (or Yankton), and Lakota (or Teton). While these groups do have different dialects, most are mutually intelligible. Around 30,000 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 Episcopalians in South Dakota today are Native American.

Portions of the American Book of Common Prayer (BCP) were first translated into Dakota in 1865. Since this time translations have been made of all editions of the U. S. BCP, including the present 1979 edition. Several of these of these are available from Google Books. The 1878 edition (Griffiths 24:4 was the first time an American BCP was translated in full into a Native American tongue.

The book presented here is a 1918 translation of the 1892 BCP. It is listed in David Griffths' Bibliography of the Book of Common Prayer as 24:6. It is a bilingual book: English on the left-hand pages and Dakota on the right. As may be seen from the Table of Contents below, some parts of the 1892 BCP are left out. These include the Ordinal, Tables and some little-used services. A Selection of Psalms rather than the entire Psalter is given, and Bible readings are given only by reference. Two services at the end are unique to this edition.

Like most languages, Dakota has evolved over the years, and that, plus a history of different writing systems, means that texts today will likely be spelled somewhat differently than is seen here.

The entire book available in a single file as PDF graphics. This file does have extractable text, but this text has not been corrected and undoubtedly contains errors. Four pages at the beginning of the Catechism are unfortunately missing in my copy.