THE WIND-MAKERS.
§ 385. The Takuśkanśkan of the Dakotas has been described in a previous chapter (§§ 127-131). The Omaha tribe has the order of the Iⁿ-kugȼi or the translucent stone, in which order the Wind-makers were probably invoked. The Tiɔu old man addressed the four winds and as many mystic buffaloes when he laid down the four firebrands. And at a similar ceremony the old man of the Paⁿɥka gens addressed the four winds and as many mystic deer (§ 33). The Omaha evidently had a prayer, “Ho, ye four firebrands that meet at a common point!” (§ 40.) With this there may have been addresses to the winds. Four firebrands were used in a Winnebago ceremony (§ 84).
The Iñke-sabĕ (Omaha) belief as to the four winds has been related in § 366.[312] The winds and the sun were associated in the ceremony of raising the sun pole, judging from what Bushotter has written (§ 167). There was also some connection in the Dakota mind between the winds and the buffalo. Compare the figure of the winds on a buffalo skull as described by Miss Fletcher[313] in her account of the sun dance.