For remarks upon this statement see Lone-Dog’s Winter Count for 1850-’51, supra.
Graphic representations of Atotarka and of the Great Heads are shown in Mrs. Erminie A. Smith’s Myths of the Iroquois, in the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Several illustrations of myths and mythic animals appear in the present work in Chap. IX, Secs. [4] and [5].
THUNDER BIRDS.
Some forms of the thunder bird are here presented:
Fig. 673.—Thunder-bird, Dakota.
Fig. 674.—Thunder-bird, Dakota.
Figs. 673 and 674 are forms of the thunder bird found in 1883 among the Dakotas near Fort Snelling, drawn and interpreted by themselves. They are both winged, and have waving lines extending from the mouth downward, signifying lightning. It is noticeable that Fig. 673 placed vertically, then appearing roughly as an upright human figure, is almost identically the same as some of the Ojibwa meda or spirit figures represented in Schoolcraft, and also on a bark Ojibwa record in the possession of the writer.