All the thunder beings retreated to the top of their sacred mountain and took council together. The Great Wakinyan said: "Our country is the air. Our power comes from the sky. It was wrong to fight the Unktehi on their own ground, on the earth and in the water where they are all powerful. Come, my children, follow me!"

Then all the thunderbirds Hew up into the sky. 'When I give the signal," said the Wakinyan Tanka, "let's use our lightning and thunderbolts together!"

So the thunder beings shot off all their bolts at the same instant. The forests were set on fire, and flames consumed everything except the top of the rock on which the humans had taken refuge. The waters boiled and then dried up. The earth glowed red-hot, and the Unktehi, big and small, burned up and died, leaving only their dried bones in the Mako Sicha, the Badlands, where their bones turned to rock.

Until then the Unktehi had represented the water power, and now this power was taken by the Thunderbirds.

American Indian Myths and Legends, p. 221