MEANING OF “WAKAN.”
In the mind of a Dakota * * * this word Wah-kon (we write, wa-kan) covers the whole field of their fear and worship. Many things also that are neither feared nor worshiped, but are simply wonderful, come under this designation. It is related of Hennepin that when he and his two companions were taken captive by a Sioux war party, as they ascended the upper Mississippi one of the men took up his gun and shot a deer on the bank. The Indians said, “Wah-kon chi?”—Is not this mysterious? And from that day * * * the gun has been called Mah-za wah-kon, mysterious iron. This is shortened into Mah-za-kon. The same thing we may believe is true when, probably less than two centuries ago, they first saw a horse. They said “Shoon-ka wah-kon,” wonderful dog. And from that day the horse has been called by the Sioux wonderful dog, except when it has been called big dog, Shoon-ka tonka. These historical facts have satisfied us that the idea of the Great Spirit ascribed to the Indians of North America does not belong to the original theogony of the Sioux, but has come from without, like that (sic) of the horse and gun, and probably dates back only to their first hearing of the white man’s God.[90]
Taku Wakan.—This is a general term, including all that is wonderful, incomprehensible, supernatural—what is wakan; but especially covering the objects of their worship. Until used in reference to our God, it is believed that the phrase was not applied to any individual object of worship, but was equivalent to “the gods.”[91] As tuwe, who, refers to persons, and taku, what, to things, the correctness of Riggs’s conclusion can hardly be questioned, provided we add that the Dakota term, Taku Wakan, could not have conveyed to the Dakota mind the idea of a personal God, using the term person as it is commonly employed by civilized peoples.