[22] See Mrs. Eastman’s Dacotah, pp. 225-8, describing the feast to Heyoka.

[23] This stone from which the Dakotas have made their pipes for ages, is esteemed wakan—­sacred.  They call it I-yan-ska, probably from iya, to speak, and ska, white, truthful, peaceful,—­hence, peace-pipe, herald of peace, pledge of truth, etc.  In the cabinet at Albany, N.Y., there is a very ancient pipe of this material which the Iroquois obtained from the Dakotas.  Charlevoix speaks of this pipe-stone in his History of New France.  LeSueur refers to the Yanktons as the village of the Dakotas at the Red-Stone Quarry.  See Neill’s Hist.  Minn., p. 514.

[24] “Ho” is an exclamation of approval—­yea, yes, bravo.

[25] Buying is the honorable way of taking a wife among the Dakotas.  The proposed husband usually gives a horse or its value in other articles to the father or natural guardian of the woman selected—­sometimes against her will.  See note 75.

[26] The Dakotas believe that the Aurora Borealis is an evil omen and the threatening of an evil spirit (perhaps Waziya, the Winter-god—­some say a witch, or a very ugly old woman).  When the lights appear danger threatens, and the warriors shoot at, and often slay, the evil spirit, but it rises from the dead again.

[27] Se-so-kah—­The Robin.

[28] The spirit of Anpetu-sapa that haunts the Falls of St. Anthony with her dead babe in her arms.  See the Legend in Neill’s Hist.  Minn., or my Legend of the Falls.

[29] Mee-coonk-shee—­My daughter.

[30] The Dakotas call the meteor, “Wakan-denda” (sacred fire) and Wakan-wohlpa (sacred gift).  Meteors are messages from the Land of Spirits warning of impending danger.  It is a curious fact that the “sacred stone” of the Mohammedans, in the Kaaba at Mecca, is a meteoric stone, and obtains its sacred character from the fact that it fell from heaven.

[31] Kah-no-te-dahn,—­the little, mysterious dweller in the woods.  This spirit lives in the forest, in hollow trees. Mrs. Eastman’s Dacotah, Pre.  Rem. xxxi.  “The Dakota god of the woods—­an unknown animal said to resemble a man, which the Dakotas worship:  perhaps, the monkey.”—­Riggs’ Dakota Dic.  Tit—­Canotidan.

[32] The Dakotas believe that thunder is produced by the flapping of the wings of an immense bird which they call Wakinyan—­the Thunder-bird.  Near the source of the Minnesota River is a place called “Thunder-Tracks” where the foot-prints of a “Thunder-bird” are seen on the rocks twenty-five miles apart. Mrs. Eastman’s Dacotah, p. 71.  There are many Thunder-birds.  The father of all the Thunder-birds—­“Wakinyan Tanka”—­or “Big Thunder,” has his teepee on a lofty mountain in the far West.  His teepee has four openings, at each of which is a sentinel; at the east, a butterfly;