uoteKv.i PRAYER. 373 



PEATER TO WAKANDA. 



§ 24. Prayer to Wakanda, said La Fl^che and Two Crows, was not 

 made for small matters, such as going fishing, bnt only for great and 

 important undertakings, such as going to war or starting on a journey. 

 When a man wished to travel he first went alone to a blufi', where he 

 l)vaycd to Wakanda to help him and his family by protecting them 

 during his absence and by granting him a successful journey. At a 

 time when the Ponka were without food, Horse-with-yellow-hair, or 

 Cange-hi"-zi, prayed to Wakauda on the liill beyond the Stony Butte. 

 The latter is a prominent landmark in northern Nebraska (in what was 

 Todd county, Dakota, in 1871 -'73), about 7 miles from the Missouri 

 Eiyer and the Ponka Agency (of 187()-'77)'. Several Omaha said that 

 the i)laces for prayer were rocks, high bluffs, and mountains. " All 

 Omaha went to such places to pray, but they did not pray to the visible 

 object, though they called it Grandfather." — (Frank LaFleche.) They 

 smoked towards the invoked object and placed gifts of killickiunick, 

 etc., upon it. Compare with this the Dakota custom of invoking a 

 bowlder on the prairie, calling it Tuuka"cida" (Tuijkaijsidaij), or Grand- 

 father, symbolizing the Earth-being.'^ Though it has been said that a 

 high bluft' was merely a jihice for praying to Wakanda, and that it was 

 not itself addressed as Wakanda, the author has learned from mem- 

 bers of the Omaha and Ponka tribes that when they went on the 

 warpath for the first time, their names were then changed and one of 

 the old men was sent to the bluffs to tell the news to the various War 

 kandas, including the blutfs, trees, birds, insects, reptiles, etc' 



ACCESSORIES OF PHAYEK. 



Among the accessories of prayer were the following: (a) The action 

 called ^'istube by the Omaha and Ponka, rictowe by the three j^oiwere 

 tribes, and yuwi"tapi (yuwiijtapi) by the Dakota, consisting of the ele- 

 vation of the suppliant's arms with the palms toward the object or the 

 face of the being invoked, followed by a passage of the hand down- 

 ward toward the ground, without touching the object or person (see 

 §§ 28, 35, 36). (6) The presentation of the pipe with the mouthpiece 

 toward the power invoked (see §§ 29, 35, 40). (c) The use of smoke 

 from the pipe (See § § 27, 30), or of the odor of burning cedar needles, as 

 in the sweat lodge, (rf) The application of the kinship term, "grand- 

 father," or its alternative, "venerable man," to a male power, and 

 " grandmother" to a female power (see §§ 30, 31, 35, 39, 59, 60, etc.). 

 {(') Ceremonial wailing or crying (Xage, to wail or cry— Dakota ceya. 

 See § lOO).'' (/) Sacrifice or offering of goods, animals, pieces of the 



' See .Tour. Amer. Folk-lore, vol. i, 'No. 1, p. 73. 



'■^See i5 132-136, and TuijkaqSila, in Eigga's Dakota-Englisli Dictionary. Contr. N. A. Ethnology, 

 vol. VII. 



3 See Contr. N. A. Ethn., vol. VI, pp. 372, 373, 376, and Omaha Sociology, in 3d Ann. Kept. Bar. Ethnol- 

 ogy. i>p. 324, 325. 



«Contr. S. A. Ethn.. Vol. VI. p. 394, lines 10-19: p. 395, lines 14-16. 



