DORSEY.I lYA AND IKTO. 4T1 



horse had been killed by the Thuuder-beiugs, so his relations were cry- 

 ing ere they reached the scene of the disaster. 



The horse had been burnt iti the very places where the man had deco- 

 rated him, and his sinews had been shriveled by the heat, so he lay 

 with each limb stretched out stiff. The man, too, had been burnt in 

 the very places where he had painted himself. The grass all around 

 appeared as if the Thunder-beings had dragged each body along, for it 

 was pushed partly down on all sides. So the people reached thei'e and 

 beheld the bodies. 



As the men in former days used to know events beforehand, as has 

 just been told, it has long been the rule for no one to reveal his per- 

 sonal mystery, which he regards as "wakan." 



HEYOKA WOMEN. 



§ 224. Bushotter gave the following account of a female Heyoka who 

 was killed by lightning : 



A certain woman whom I saw after she bad been killed by lightning belonged to 

 the Heyoka Society. When she walked, she carried a pipe with the mouthpiece 

 pointing upward, as she thought that the Thunder-beings would put the mouth- 

 piece into their mouths, though the act would immediiitely cause her death. 



^ 225. "Women used to dream about the Thunder-beings, just as the men did, and 

 in those dreams the Heyoka man or woman made promises to the Thunder-beings. 

 If the dreamers kept their promises, it was thought that the Thiinder-licings helped 

 them to obtain whatever things they desired ; but if they broke their promises, they 

 were sure to be killed by the Thunder-beings during some storm. For this reason 

 the Heyoka members worshiped the Thunder-beings, whom they honored, speaking 

 of them as wnkan.'' 



§ 226. Some of the women sing, and some do not; but all let their hair 

 hang loosely down their backs, and their dresses consist of a kind of 

 cloth or a robe sewed down the middle of the back. Sometimes the cloth 

 is all blue, at other times half is red and half is blue. Some times 

 there is beadwork on the dress. Even the Heyoka women wear the 

 long red cloth trailing on the ground before and behind them, in imita- 

 tion of the young dandies of the tribe. 



ITA, THE GOD OF GLUTTONY. 



§ 227. Lynd speaks of the " vindictive lya " as driving the hunters 

 " back from the hunt to the desolation of their lodges.' And Eiggs has 

 written :^ 



A peoi)le who feast themselves so abundantly as the Dakotas do, when food is plenty, 

 would necessarily imagine a god of gluttony. He is represented as extremely ugly, 

 and is called E-ya. He has the power to twist and distort the human face, and the 

 women still their crying children by telling them that the E-ya will catch them. 



IKTO, IKTOMI, OR UNKTOMI. 



§ 228. Ikto or Iktomi (in the Teton dialect) or TJuktomi (in the San- 



'Minn. Hiat. Soo. Coll., vol. ii, pt. 2, p. 67. 'Theogony of the Sioux, p. 270. 



