Among these tribes the creation and control of the world
and the things thereof are ascribed to "wa-kan-da" (the term varying
somewhat from tribe to tribe), just as among the Algonquian tribes
omnipotence was assigned to "ma-ni-do" ("Manito the Mighty" of
"Hiawatha"); yet inquiry shows that wakanda assumes various forms, and is
rather a quality than a definite entity. Thus, among many of the tribes
the sun is wakanda--not _the_ wakanda or _a_ wakanda, but simply wakanda;
and among the same tribes the moon is wakanda, and so is thunder,
lightning, the stars, the winds, the cedar, and various other things; even
a man, especially a shaman, might be wakanda or a wakanda. In addition the
term was applied to mythic monsters of the earth, air, and waters;
according to some of the sages the ground or earth, the mythic
under-world, the ideal upper-world, darkness, etc, were wakanda or
wakandas. So, too, the fetiches and the ceremonial objects and decorations
were wakanda among different tribes. Among some of the groups various
animals and other trees besides the specially wakanda cedar were regarded
as wakandas; as already noted, the horse, among the prairie tribes, was
the wakanda dog. In like manner many natural objects and places of
striking character were considered wakanda. Thus the term was applied to
all sorts of entities and ideas, and was used (with or without
inflectional variations) indiscriminately as substantive and adjective,
and with slight modification as verb and adverb.
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