DORSEY] PRAYER. 435 



most general and implying depemlence, respect, anil the recognition of authority. 

 (See v\v3 9, 100.) 



One of the simplest and most picturesque explanations of the use of the varied ' 

 forms of life in the Indian worship was given to me by a thoughtful Indian chief. 

 He said: "Everything as it moves, now and then, here and there, makes stops. 

 The bird as it flies stops in one place to make its nest, and in another to rest in its 

 flight. A man when he goes forth stops when he wills. So the god has stopped. 

 The sun, which Is so bright and beautiful, is one place where he has stopped. The 

 moon, the stars, the winds, he has been with. The trees, the animals, are all where 

 he has stopped, and the Indian thinks of these places and sends his jirayers there to 

 reach the place where the god has stopped and win help and a blessing.'' 



The vagne feeling after unity is here discernible, but it is like the cry of a child 

 rather than the articulate speech of a man. To the Indian mind the life of the 

 universe has not been analyzed, classified, and a great synthesis formed of the parts- 

 To him the varied forms are equally important and noble. A devout old Indian 

 said: "The tree is like a human being, for it has life and grows ; so we pray to it 

 and put our ofterings on it that the god may help us." In the same spirit the apol- 

 ogy is otfered over a slaughtered animal, for the life of the one is taken to supple- 

 ment the life of the other, "that it may cause us to live," one formula expresses it. 

 These manifestations of life, stopping places of the god, cannot therefore be accu- 

 rately called objects of worship or symbols; they appear to be more like media of 

 communication with the permeating occult force which is vaguely and fearfully 

 apprehended. As a consecjuence, the Indian stands abreast of nature. He does 

 not face it, .and hence can not master or coerce it, or view it scientitically and apart 

 from his own mental and emotional life. He appeals to it, but does not worship it."^ 



PRAYER. 



§ 100. Every poTver is prayed to by .some of the Dakota and Assini- 

 boin. Among the accessories of prayer the Dakota reckons the fol- 

 lowing: {a) Ceremonial wailing or crying (ceya, to weep, wail; whence, 

 cikiya, to cry, to pray, and wocekiye, prayer), sometimes accompanied 

 by articnlate speech (§§ 177, 208) ; (b) the action called yuwi"tapi (ynwiij'- 

 tapi) described in § 21; (c) holding the pipe with the montlipiece toward 

 the power invoked, as the Heyoka devotees sometimes do (§§ 223, 221) ; 

 (d) the use of smoke from the pipe or the odor of burning cedar needles 

 (§§159, 168); (e) the application of the kinship terms, "grandfather" 

 ^or its alternative, ''venerable man") to a male power, and " grand- 

 mother" to a female one (§§ 99, 107, 239); (/) sacrifice, or offering of 

 goods, animals, or pieces of one's own tiesh, etc. (see § 185). 



SACRIFICE. 



§101. The radical forms of worship among the Dakota, according to 

 Lyud, are few and simple. One of the most primitive is that of Wo- 

 cnapi ( Wosnaj)i) or Sacrifice. To every divinity that they worship they 

 make sacrifices. Even upon the most trivial occasions the gods are 

 either thanked or supplicated by sacrifice. The religious idea it carries 

 with it is at the foundation of the every-day life of the Dakota. The 

 wohduze or taboo has its origin there; the wiwaijyag wadipi or sun- 



1 Kept. Peabody Museum, vol. ra, p. 276, note. 



