Many claim that the Great Spirit, or, more properly, the Great Mystery, is a deity of the modern Indian only. I have certainly heard some old and very conservative Minnetarees speak of Mahopa as if they meant thereby an influence or power above all other things, but not attaching to it any ideas of personality. It would now be perhaps impossible to make a just analysis of their original conceptions in this matter.[218] POLYTHEISM. Instead of believing in one Great Spirit, the Mandan and Hidatsa “believe in a multitude of different beings in the heavenly bodies; offer sacrifices to them; invoke their assistance on every occasion; howl, lament, fast, inflict on themselves acts of penance to propitiate these spirits; and, above all, lay very great stress upon dreams.”[219] § 312. The most sacred objects in the eyes of the Crow or Absaroka, a nation closely related to the Hidatsa, are “the sun, the moon, and tobacco,” that is, the leaves of the genuine tobacco (_Nicotiana_); and all their children wear a small portion of this herb, well wrapped up, round their neck, by way of an amulet.[220] WORSHIP. § 313. Full information respecting worship has not been obtained; but we know that among its accessories are the following: prayer, fasting, and sacrifice. The different writers tell us of petitions offered to the gods for help. FASTING. § 314. When a young Mandan wishes to establish his reputation as a brave man, he fasts for four or seven days, as long as he is able, goes to the bluffs, cries to the Omahank-Numakshi, calls incessantly on the higher powers for aid, and goes home at night to sleep and dream. They fast before taking part in the Okipa, before organizing a war party, etc.[221] SACRIFICE. § 315. Said a Mandan to Lewis and Clarke, “I was lately owner of seventeen horses, but I have offered them all up to my medicine, and am now poor.” He had taken all his horses to the plain, where he turned them loose, committing them to the care of his “medicine,” thus abandoning them forever.[222] “Around the burial scaffolds of the Mandans were several high poles, with skins and other things hanging on them, as offerings to the lord of life, Omahank-Numakshi, or to the first man, Numank-Machana.”[223] § 316. _The Okipa._--That form of self-sacrifice called Okipa by the Mandan has been described in detail by Catlin and Maximilian. It differs in some respects from the sun dance of the Dakota and Ponka, as well as from the Daḣpike or Naḣpike of the Hidatsa.[224] § 317. _The Daḣpike._--According to Matthews, the most important ceremony of the Hidatsa is that of--