Note 834 — Chapter X

Wakonda is the term employed "when the power believed to animate all natural forms is spoken to or spoken of in supplications or rituals" by many tribes of the Siouan family. Manito is the Algonquian name for "the mysterious and unknown potencies and powers of life and of the universe." "Wakonda," says Miss Fletcher, "is difficult to define, for exact terms change it from its native uncrystallized condition to something foreign to aboriginal thought. Vague as the concept seems to be to one of another race, to the Indian it is as real and as mysterious as the starry night or the flush of the coming day," "Handbook of American Indians" (ed. F. W. Hodge), Bur. Am. Eth. Bull. 30, 1907.