Buying is the honorable way of taking a wife among the Dakotas. The proposed husband usually gives a horse or its value in other articles to the father or natural guardian of the woman selected—sometimes against her will. See note 75.
The Dakotas believe that the Aurora Borealis is an evil omen and the threatening of an evil spirit (perhaps Waziya, the Winter-god—some say a witch, or a very ugly old woman). When the lights appear danger threatens, and the warriors shoot at, and often slay, the evil spirit, but it rises from the dead again.
Se-só-kah—The Robin.