Wa-tanka—contraction of Wa-kan Tanka—Great Spirit. The Dakotas had no Wakan Tanka or Wakan-peta—fire spirit—till white men imported them. There being no name for the Supreme Being in the Dakota tongue (except Tâku Skán-skán.—See note 51)—and all their gods and spirits being Wakan—the missionaries named God in Dakota—"Wakan Tanka"—which means Big Spirit, or The Big Mysterious.
The Dakotas called Lake Calhoun, at Minneapolis, Minn.—Mdé-mdó-za—Loon Lake. They also called it Re-ya-ta-mde—the lake back from the river. They called Lake Harriet—Mdé-únma—the other lake—or (perhaps) Mdé-uma—Hazel-nut Lake. The lake nearest Calhoun on the north—Lake of the Isles—they called Wi-ta Mdé—Island-Lake. Lake Minnetonka they called Me-ne-a-tân-ka—Broad Water.
The animal called by the French voyageurs the cabri (the kid) is found only on the prairies. It is of the goat kind, smaller than a deer and so swift that neither horse nor dog can overtake it. (Snelling's "Tales of the Northwest," p. 286, note 15.) It is the gazelle, or prairie antelope, called by the Dakotas Ta-tóka-dan—little antelope. It is the Pish-tah-te-koosh of the Algonkin tribes, "reckoned the fleetest animal in the prairie country about the Assiniboin." Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner, p. 301.