That is true.
The mysterious being in the water gave it to me.
Stretch out your hand before the face of my grandfather.
Having a quadruped, stretch out your hand to him.
The celebration of the medicine-dance, is the extraordinary part of a system of Dakota superstition, of which the medicine-feast is the ordinary and every day part. A very large portion of the adults belong to this fraternity.
THE WAKINYAN.
This name signifies “flyer,” from kinyan, to fly. Lightning emanates from this flyer, and the thunder is the sound of his voice. This is the universal belief.
The existence of thunder is a matter of fact, apparent to all people. It must be explained and accounted for by the savage as well as by the sage, and by the first with as much confidence as by the latter, and more; for he who is not supported in his tenets by reason, must of necessity be confident or fail. He must evince seven times as much confidence as one who has the support of reason, which the wise man observed to be the case in his day. The Indian has no more doubt, apparently, of the correctness of his religious tenets, than he has that a hungry man wants to eat. He is as confident of the correctness of his theory, in relation to the thunder, as we are that it is caused by the passing of electricity from one cloud to another.
The lightning, which is so terrible in its effects to destroy life, or to shiver the oak to atoms, is to the Dakota simply the tonwan of a winged monster, who lives and flies through the heavens shielded by thick clouds from mortal vision.