§ 114. The Teton Dakota tell of the Miniwatu, Wamnitu,[114] and Mini waśiću, all of which are probably names for the same class of monsters, the last meaning “Water God or Guardian Spirit.” These powers are said to be horned water monsters with four legs each. “They make waves by pushing the water toward the lowlands; therefore, the Indians prefer to encamp on or near the bluffs. They fear to swim the Missouri River on account of the water monsters, who can draw people into their mouths.” Can these be the Unkteḣi, whom the Teton call Uŋkćeġila? § 115. “Long ago,” according to Bushotter, “the people saw a strange thing in the Missouri River. At night there was some red object, shining like fire, making the water roar as it passed upstream. Should any one see the monster by daylight he became crazy soon after, writhing as with pain, and dying. One man who said that he saw the monster described it thus: ‘It has red hair all over, and one eye. A horn is in the middle of its forehead, and its body resembles that of a buffalo.’[115] Its backbone is like a cross-cut saw, being flat and notched like a saw or cog wheel. When one sees it he gets bewildered, and his eyes close at once. He is crazy for a day, and then he dies. The Teton think that this matter is still in the river, and they call it the Miniwatu or water monster. They think that it causes the ice on the river to break up in the spring of the year.”[116] The Teton say that the bones of the Uŋkćeġila are now found in the bluffs of Nebraska and Dakota. THE WAKIᴺYAᴺ (WAKIŊYAŊ), OR THUNDER-BEINGS. § 116. The name signifies the flying ones, from kinyan, to fly. The thunder is the sound of their voices. The lightning is the missile or tonwan of the winged monsters, who live and fly through the heavens shielded from mortal vision by thick clouds. By some of the wakan men it is said that there are four varieties of the form of their external manifestation. In essence, however they are but one. One of the varieties is black, with a long beak, and has four joints in his wing. Another is yellow, without any beak at all; with wings like the first, except that he has six quills in each wing. The third is scarlet, and remarkable chiefly for having eight joints in each of its enormous pinions. The fourth is blue and globular in form, and it is destitute of both eyes and ears. Immediately over the places where the eyes should be there is a semicircular line of lightning resembling an inverted half moon from beneath which project downward two chains of lightning diverging from each other in zigzag lines as they descend. Two plumes like soft down, coming out near the roots of the descending chains of lightning, serve for wings.[117]