)
October--Wa-zu-pee-wee or Wee-wa-zu-pee--the moon when wild rice is
gathered and laid up for winter.
November--Ta-kee-yu-hra-wee--the deer-rutting moon.
December--Ta-he-cha-psung-wee--the moon when deer shed their horns.
[72] Oonk-to-mee--is a bad spirit in the form of a monstrous black spider.
He inhabits fens and marshes and lies in wait for his prey. At night he
often lights a torch (evidently the ignis fatuus or Jack-o' lantern) and
swings it on the marshes to decoy the unwary into his toils.
[73] The Dakotas have their stone-idol, or god, called Toon-kan--or Inyan.
This god dwells in stone or rocks and is, they say, the oldest god of
all--he is grandfather of all living things. I think, however, that the
stone is merely the symbol of the everlasting, all-pervading, invisible
Ta-ku Wa-kan--the essence of all life,--pervading all nature, animate
and inanimate. The Rev. S.R. Riggs, who for forty years has been a
student of Dakota customs, superstitions, etc., says, Tahkoo Wahkan, p.
55, et seq.: "The religious faith of the Dakota is not in his gods as
such. It is in an intangible, mysterious something of which they are
only the embodiment, and that in such measure and degree as may accord
with the individual fancy of the worshiper.
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