CUSTOMS OF THE DAKOTAS. 253 



bo believiMl that the j;rizzly-bear claws worn as a necklace are marks 

 of distinction ; bnt as they arc costly it is merely a matter of wealth and 

 not a symbol of chieftainship. In former days it may have been so used, 

 bnt not within the recolltction of those now livini;. 



RELIGION. 



The I)akot;ihs have many i;ods; their visible and invisible world is 

 peo[»lod with spiritual beings, iidiabitinii' evcrythin<;- in nature; onse- 

 queutly ubuost everything- is an object of worship), lie renders homage 

 to the sun and moon, sacriticing as often to the bad as to the great or 

 good spirit. His gods are of air, water, and of the prairies; tluir le- 

 ligions ceremonies consist of dances. The god of the waters, Un kte-hi, 

 a fabled monster of the deei>, ])robably a whale, the tradition hande<l 

 down from tiieir ancestors who may have lived near the great waters. 

 Wa-zi-ya, the ice god, or god of winter, he who a])i)roaches the haunts 

 of men in winter and returns to the laml of ice in sumnuM-. Can-o le-dan, 

 or forest god, as it is said to resend)le a. man; it may have been a 

 monk'cy. lle-yo ka, god of the prairies, whose home is supi)osed to be 

 in the little liills upon the prairies. lie wraps his ermine robes around 

 him in summer and goes naked in winter. Wa-kin-yan, the god of 

 thunder, a fabled giant who rides upon the clouds, whose thundering 

 voice they hear. He causes the lightning Hashes l>y rubbing tv/o sticks 

 together. 



MORTtTARY CUSTOMS. 



Upon the decease of a. member of a family the survivors alh/w their 

 friends, relatives, and the mcMlicine men to take away tln^ best- they have 

 of (nerythiiig. Their hair is allowed to grow uidcemi)t; they besmear 

 their faces and bodies with earth, and wear old and ragged <;lotlies ; the 

 women gash themselves with knives. The body is draped in the best 

 of everything — robes, blankets, and line cloth — and phiced n})on a scaf- 

 fold, until, in tln^ course of time, the bones fall to the ground; they are 

 then taken and buried. The mourning is kept np one year, amidst diit 

 and ragged garments ; then they wash themselves, put on clean clothes, 

 and never mention the name or allude to the dead i^erson, and it is con- 

 sidered a deadly insult that the name of the departed should be men- 

 tioned in their presence. Immediately after a death they leave their 

 homes and can not be induced to retnrn to them. They have been 

 known to leave the corpse in the house for months, erecting a tent near 

 by. In either case when the corpse is removed a new opening is made, 

 through which it is carried. Gray Thunder, a noted Dakotah chief, died 

 in 1874 — a man said to have been over 7 feet in height. The army sur- 

 geon then stationed at Fort Totten, Dak., offered the widow quite a large 

 sum of money for the corpse, in order to articulate the skeleton. The 

 offer was refused. The widow had a stout box made at the agency, and 

 every year up to 1877, in her migratory visits to the IMission River 



