The wakan dance is represented as having been received from the family of gods above considered.
The onktehi, immediately after the production of the earth and men, to promote his own worship among them, gave to the Indians the medicine sack, and instituted the medicine dance. He ordained that the sack should consist of the skin of the otter, the raccoon, the weazel, the squirrel, the loon, one variety of fish, and of serpents. It was also ordained that the sack should contain four species of medicines, of wakan qualities, which should represent fowls, medicinal herbs, medicinal trees, and quadrupeds. The down of the female swan represents the first and may be seen at the time of the dance, inserted in the nose of the sack. Grass roots represent the second, bark from the root of trees the third, and hair from the back or head of a buffalo, the fourth. These are carefully preserved in the sack.
From this combination proceeds a wakan influence so powerful, that no human being, unassisted, can resist it.
At the institution of the dance, the god prepared a tent, four square, opening towards the east, with an extended court in front, and selecting four men for initiation, proceeded to instruct and prepare them for the reception of the mysteries. The rules of conduct which he gave them, were that “they should honor and revere the medicine sack, honor all who should belong to the dance, make frequent medicine feasts, refrain from theft, not listen to birds, (slander) and female members should not have a plurality of husbands.” The sum of the good promised to the faithful, was “honor from the members of the institution, frequent invitations to the feast, abundance of fowl, with supernatural assistance to consume it, and long life here, with a red dish and spoon in the life to come.”
The evils threatened against the unfaithful were as follows: “If unfaithful you cannot escape detection and punishment. If you enter the forest to hide yourself the black owl is there, if you descend into the earth serpents are there, if you flee into the air the eagle will pursue you, and if you go into the water there I am.”
The candidates thus instructed and charged were placed in the center of the tent to receive the tonwan of the sack, discharged at them by the god himself. It is said that they perished under the operation.
After consulting with his goddess, the god holding up his left hand, and pattering on the back of it with the other, produced myriads of little shells, whose virtue is to restore life to those who have been slain by the tonwan of the sack. (Each of the members of the medicine dance is thought to have one of these shells in his body.) After taking this precaution, the god selected four other candidates and repeated the experiment of initiation with success, following the discharge from the sack immediately with the shell cast into the vital parts, at the same time chanting the following words:
“Najin wo, Najin wo,
Mitonwan katapi do.