The figure is carved on their totem posts and canoe stems and painted on the house fronts, and various implements with the belief, as among the Twanas, that it gives them power, courage and luck in hunting, fishing or war. A mask representing the head of the bird is worn in the Ta-mahn-a-wis dances and ceremonies, which have something to do with the Thunderbird, though just what this is has never been clearly ascertained, as the Indians will not allow whites to witness these Ta-mahn-a-wis practices, which are of the nature of a secret society among civilized people.
The Twanas and the Clallams also use a mask of a different design for the same purposes. No tribes tattoo the figure on their person, so far as known, outside of the Haidas.
OJIBWA FLYING THUNDERBIRD
Leaving the coast and going eastward we find the Thunderbird among the Sioux of Dakota and Eastern Montana again, this time being personified in an immense eagle, with four joints to the wing and which dwells in a lodge on the top of a high knoll or butte. The lodge has four doors, one for each cardinal point of the compass, and at each door there is a guardian spirit. These spirits are a beaver, a butterfly, an otter and one other animal not clearly defined, whose duty it is to guard and act as messengers for the Thunderbird.
As with the Twanas, the lightning is a glance from the eye, and a person who has a presentment that the Thunderbird is displeased with him and intends to kill him, retires to a high hill to await his doom, after having bid his friends farewell. Sometimes, owing to the isolated position of the individual, he is actually struck by lightning during some of the heavy thunder storms of the region, and that settles the myth all the firmer in the Indian mind, for the Thunderbird it was who killed him, just as he said it would. Here the myth assumes three or four, or rather a family of thunderers, some good, some evil, some who guard the destiny of the warrior and strike terror into the heart of the enemy, others who see that the hunter does not come home empty handed.
Some are headless and have wings, some are wingless but provided with heads, but the Thunderbird, with a big “T,” who is the rain god and thunder creater and good spirit-in-chief, is described as a very large bird which flies fast. This bird has a whole brood of little ones, who follow behind the big thunderer and make the long rumble noticeable in the prairie thunder peals. The old bird is wise and good, harming no one, and causing rain, which makes the plants grow, but the young ones are like young men, very mischievous, and will not listen to counsel and are continually doing a great deal of damage, and killing an occasional person purely in a playful way, for when they grow old, they settle down and become good spirits, too. Nothing can kill or destroy the Thunderbird but an immense giant, who can stride over rivers and mountains and can kill anything by a look. This giant still exists, but nobody knows where, and is always hunting for the thunderer, who has to fly from place to place to keep away from the evil giant, thus causing storms by flying about. The old bird starts with the loud crash of noise, and then the little ones rise in a swarm and make a lot more noise, but not so loud as the old one, which flies very fast.
HAIDA TATOOING—THUNDERBIRD HEAD.
The giant killed one of the old ones a long, long time ago, back of Little Crow’s village, near the head of the Mississippi river, and the medicine men still have totems made of the feathers and bones, and they are very strong medicine against evil.