My grandfather created for me mysterious medicine. That is true. The mysterious being in the water gave it to me. Stretch out your hand before the face of my grandfather. Having a quadruped, stretch out your hand to him. The celebration of the medicine-dance, is the extraordinary part of a system of Dakota superstition, of which the medicine-feast is the ordinary and every day part. A very large portion of the adults belong to this fraternity. THE WAKINYAN. This name signifies “_flyer_,” from _kinyan_, to fly. Lightning emanates from this _flyer_, and the thunder is the sound of his voice. This is the universal belief. The existence of thunder is a matter of fact, apparent to all people. It must be explained and accounted for by the savage as well as by the sage, and by the first with as much confidence as by the latter, and more; for he who is not supported in his tenets by reason, must of necessity be confident or fail. He must evince seven times as much confidence as one who has the support of reason, which the wise man observed to be the case in his day. The Indian has no more doubt, apparently, of the correctness of his religious tenets, than he has that a hungry man wants to eat. He is as confident of the correctness of his theory, in relation to the thunder, as we are that it is caused by the passing of electricity from one cloud to another. The lightning, which is so terrible in its effects to destroy life, or to shiver the oak to atoms, is to the Dakota simply the tonwan of a winged monster, who lives and flies through the heavens shielded by thick clouds from mortal vision. 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, only that he has but six quills in each wing. The third is of scarlet color, and remarkable, chiefly, for having eight joints in each of its enormous pinions. The fourth is blue and globular in form, and is destitute both of eyes and ears. Immediately over where the eyes should be, is a semi-circular line of lightning resembling an inverted half-moon, from beneath which project downward two chains of lightning, zigzaging and diverging from each other as they descend. Two plumes, like soft down, coming out near the roots of the descending chains of lightning serve for wings. These thunderers, of course, are of terrific proportions. They created the wild rice and a variety of prairie grass, the seed of which bears some resemblance to that of the rice.