A puzzling aspect of the term tribe is its lack of a clear definition. Even the Department of the Interior, the last word on federal recognition, doesn’t have one. Most tribal communities do have an expression in their own language of what their community means to them and to their people. Take Lakota Oyate, which is often translated as nation. But appearances can be deceiving. In Western parlance, a nation is a group of individual citizens who share a common political government...