Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-06-19

They feel perfect confidence when beset
with dangers, and quake with fear and fly
when safe. With them truth and falsehood
are reversed; good is their evil, and vice
versa The picture sign of Ha-yo-sa is an
old man with q cap on and bow and arrows
In his hand
The sun and the moon are also worshiped.
To the sun the most dreadful sacrifices are
offered. The moon is wosshiped as a repre-
sentative Of the sun, and not separately.
The Dakota swears by the sun, and the Or
dinary oath is: Gas the sun hears me, this
is So"
The armor god, Eya. the god of gluttony,
Chan-o-pe-ban, the Spirit of the Medicine
vidual devotees, but all these gods which
have been mentioned are secondary to
Waukan-Tankar or the Great Spirit, and
herein lies the beauty of the Dakota re-
igion.
The Essence OF Dakota Religion.
This Is the Unknown God for which the
Athenians of old had been seeking in vain
among the multitude of their own divinities.
The religious faith of the Dakota Is not in
his gods as such; 1t is an Intangible mys-
terious something of which they are only
the embodiment The great object of all
their worship, whatever its medium, is the
Ta-soo-waukan, which is the supernatural
aud mysterious. No one term can express
the full meaning of the Dakota's Waukan.
1t is all mystery, secret power and divinity.
Awe and reverence are its due.
All life is Waukan. So also is every-
thing which exhibits power, whether in ac-
tion as the winds and drifting clouds: or in
passive endurance as the boulder by the
wayside. Even the commonest sticks and
stones have spiritual essence which must
be reverenced as a manifestation of the all
pervading mysterious power that fills the
universe. The Indian feels that he is in q
world OF mysteries, and is oppressed with
consciousness that all around him is beyond
his control and comprehensive. 1t is
Waukan, and it excites by turns his super
stitious hopes and fears-thrilling. with joy
or chilling him with tormenting anxiety
and dread.
Everything Attributed to waukan.
The forests, streams, lakes, springs, hills
and wales are to him full of awful mystery.
1t Is Waukan. When he enters the chase
to which stern necessity drives him for sub
sistence the animal he pursues to-day ap-
parently shuns his approach. with the
ability of an intelligent being; and to-mor-
row seems to be completely destitute of
even animal instinct and has no power to
And he pays his religious devotions to
the spirit of the beast whose body lies dead
at his feet He sees at one time strong
active hunter and warrior seized with pain
and in . few moments expire in awful
agony; and at another time he sees another
man waste away almost imperceptibly
through long years without pain and die in
utter stupidity. It is Waukan. Some
times he has excruciating pain in some part
of his own body and the next moment they
leap to another part and then perhaps
suddenly vanish altogether. 1t is Waukan,
and he hangs himself to the elevated pole
in honor to Ta.soo; Isl o;shkan-shksn, the moving
Indian all is Waukan. He is spiritualist
What Olympus was to the Greek. Mecca to
the Musselman atd Palestine to the Hebrew,
the Sisseton reservation is to the Dakota.
j. H. LEONARD.