CH ARE Mie ve 
THE SUPERHUMAN. 
The existence of spirits and the necessity for the superhuman are facts 
fully recognized by the Dakotas. The unknown and unknowable form a 
broad belt in which humbuggery can be practiced by the Dakotas as well 
as other nations. The powers are evil. The lightning strikes suddenly 
and kills. The thunder god is angry and merciless. The north god 
sweeps down upon them with terrible snow storms, and buries their 
encampments, killing their ponies, and making buffalo hunting impossible. 
Or in the spring floods, the Unktehi, or god of the waters, is malignant and 
kills now and then a man or a child. And all through the year the demon 
spirits of the wolf and the bear and the lynx and the owl and the snake are 
doing their mischievous work, scattering disease and death everywhere. 
Who shall cope with these evil-minded powers? How shall deliverance 
come to the people? Will not fasting and praying and self-inflicted sutfer- 
ing bring the needed power? To the Dakota thought this is surely among 
the possibilities. Hence, naturally, grows up. the wakay man, or the so- 
called ‘medicine man.” His applied power and skill are denominated 
renewing or fixing over—* waplyapi;” and the man is called a renewer. He 
works rather by magic than by medicine. His singing, and rattling the 
gourd shell, and sucking the place where the pain is, are all for the purpose 
of driving out the evil spirits. It is a battle of spirits. The greater a man’s 
spirit power is the more successful he is as a doctor. And the secret of 
spirit power is the alliance with other spirits. Hence the efficacy of fasting 
and praying. Praying is “crying to.” Hence also the augmented power 
obtained in the Sun Dance. The singing, the back cuttings, the thongs, 
the buffalo head, the dancing unto entire exhaustion, all these bring one 
into the realm of the spirits. Also the experiences in passing through the 
death and the resurrection of the Mystery Dance must bring added super- 
human power. Still more, the vision seeking, the fasting, the prayer to the 
night winds, the standing on a mound where men have been buried, or 
getting down into a hole nearer the bones, this will surely bring communi- 
214 
