A man told this story about himself: He said he was born as a dog. He went into the bush with a hunter and was lost. Unable to find its way home, the dog went about howling in the bush, night and day. Hu’ia, Thunderbird, found the dog, went to him, and asked what he was doing in the bush. The dog replied that he was lost and wished to find the way home. Hu’ia said he would take charge of the dog. He took hold of him, killed, and ate him. When Hu’ia had eaten the dog, he told its spirit that he would take it to a certain place and cause it to be transformed into a man, so that it would attain a happy life, and would not be compelled to undergo such hardships as it had been enduring.

[...]

Hu’ia traveled to the west with the spirit and stopped only when he arrived at a large tipi, in which all the Thunders lived. Hu’ia took the spirit to the leader, who invited all the others; they came and sat in the tipi in a circle. The head man told Hu’ia to stand in the center and explain all his desires. Hu’ia told them the dog had been wandering about in the bush, howling, as though it had no home, and was having many difficulties. He asked the Thunders to give the dog another life so that he might always be happy. They consulted one another about the course of action. All agreed that he might be born as a man, The head man of the Thunders told Hu’ia that the world was a circle [as represented by the horizon] and that he would be born in its very center. He said that all his children would be born among the people who lived in the center of the world. [The Thunders always refer to people as their children.] Hu’ia had eaten the dog; however, it had not passed through his body; the morsels were in his stomach. The head man of the Thunders asked him whether he had any portion of the dog, in addition to its spirit. “Yes,” said Hu’ia. He vomited various portions of its body and laid these before the head man of the Thunders. He asked all the Thunders to assist in putting the dog together. They accomplished this; then they transformed him into a Thunder, who was to remain among them. Before he went down to earth, they would instruct him in all that he was to do. Accordingly for a time he remained among them as a Thunder.

The Canadian Dakota, p. 94-95