SECTION 1.
SYMBOLS OF THE SUPERNATURAL.
This group shows the modes of expressing the idea of the supernatural, holy, sacred, or, more correctly, the mystic or unknown (perhaps unknowable), that being the true translation of the Dakota word wakan. The concept of “crazy,” in the sense of influenced by superior powers or inspired, is in the same connection. Not only the North American Indians, but many tribes of Asia and Africa, consider a demented person to be sacred and therefore inviolable. The spiral line is but a pictorial representation of the sign for wakan, which is: With its index finger extended and pointing upward, or all the fingers extended, back of hand outward, move the right hand from just in front of the forehead spirally upward nearly to arm’s length from left to right.
Fig. 640.
Fig. 640.—Crazy-Dog, a Dakota, carried the pipe around and took the war path. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1838-’39.
The waved or spiral lines denote crazy or mystic, as above explained.
Fig. 641.
Fig. 641.—Crazy-Horse says his prayers and goes on the war-path. Cloud-Shield’s Winter Count, 1844-’45.