In Miss Fletcher’s article on “The Shadow or Ghost Lodge: A ceremony of the Ogallala Sioux,” we read that 2 yards of red cloth are “carried out beyond the camp, to an elevation if possible, and buried in a hole about 3 feet deep. This is an offering to the earth, and the chanted prayer asks that the life, or power in earth, will help the father” of the dead child “in keeping successfully all the requirements of the ghost lodge.”[111] (See § 146.) SUBORDINATES OF THE UNKTEḢI. The subordinates of the Unkteḣi are serpents, lizards, frogs, ghosts, owls, and eagles. The Unkteḣi made the earth and men, and gave the Dakota the mystery sack, and also prescribed the manner in which some of those pigments must be applied which are rubbed over the bodies of their votaries in the mystery dance, and on the warrior as he goes into action. THE MYSTERY DANCE. § 113. Immediately after the production of the earth and men, the Unkteḣi gave the Indians the mystery sack and instituted the Wakan waćipi or mystery dance. They ordained that the sack should consist of the skin of the otter, raccoon, weasel, squirrel, loon, one variety of fish, and of serpents. It was also ordained that the sack should contain four species of medicines of wakan qualities, which should represent fowls, medicinal herbs, medicinal trees, and quadrupeds. The down of the female swan represents the first, and may be seen at the time of the dance inserted in the nose of the sack. Grass roots represent the second, bark from the roots of the trees the third, and hair from the back or head of a buffalo the fourth. These are carefully preserved in the sack. From this combination proceeds a wakan influence so powerful that no human being, unassisted, can resist it. Those who violated their obligations as members of the Mystery dance, were sure of punishment. If they went into forests, the black owl was there, as a servant of the Unkteḣi; if they descended into the earth, they encountered the serpent; if they ascended into the air, the eagle would pursue and overtake them; and if they ventured into the water, there were the Unkteḣi themselves.[112] An account of the mystery or medicine dance is given by Pond, op. cit., pp. 37-41. “Those Dakotas,” said Lynd, “who belong to the medicine dance esteem the Unkteḣi as the greatest divinity. Among the eastern Dakotas the medicine dance appears to have taken the place of these more barbarous ceremonies (i. e., the self-tortures of the hanmdepi, piercing of the flesh, etc.)--among the Winnebagoes entirely.” The Omaha do not have the sun dance, but the wacicka aȼiⁿ, answering to the Dakota mystery dance, is said to be of ancient use among them. “Indeed, the medicine dance, though an intrusive religious form, may be considered as an elevating and enlightening religion in comparison with the hanmdepi.”[113] THE MINIWATU.