return to their original nothingness. § 290. There are different persons who regard themselves as wakaŋ, says Bushotter. Among these are those who practice medicine, those who act as Heyoka, those who boil for the grizzly bear feasts, those who take part in the mystery dance, those who foretell the future, those who detect wrong-doers and find what has been lost or stolen, and those who do various things in a cunning manner. It happens thus to them: A man hears a human voice during the day and he does what the voice directs to be done, or on a certain night a tree converses with him, and the two talk about their own affairs, and what the tree tells him to do, that he does, so he says, or, it orders him to keep some law or custom as long as he lives. Among these superstitious notions are the following: Some men direct the pipe to be handed around the lodge from the left side to the right, and others vice versa. Some men dare not gash a firebrand with a knife; and should a visitor do so heedlessly, they say that he “cuts his finger.” Others will not kill a swallow, lest thunder and hail ensue. Some do not allow a knife to be passed above a kettle. § 291. The wakan men claim that they are invulnerable. To prove this they assemble at stated intervals, having painted themselves in various styles. Each one has a flute suspended over the chest by a necklace. They wear long breechcloths, and march in single file. Two men armed with bows and arrows rush suddenly towards the waken men and shoot at them; but instead of wounding them they merely bend the arrows! Sometimes the men fire guns at them, but the bullets fall to the ground, and when they are examined they are flattened! No visible mark of a wound can be found on the bodies of these wakan men, though when they were hit by the bullet or arrow blood pours from their mouths. After they wash off the paint from their bodies their flesh becomes tender and is vulnerable. This is the excuse urged when an ordinary person succeeds in wounding a wakan man. It is supposed that the wakan men rub themselves with some kind of medicine known only to themselves, making them invulnerable, and that perhaps the bullets or arrows are rubbed with the medicine prior to the shooting. It is also supposed that the playing of the flute aids in rendering them invulnerable. (See § 306, etc.)