Wakinyan is a material God whose substance is visible only when He so wills. His properties are akan and anti-natural. He abides in his lodge on the top of the mountain at the edge of the world where the Sun goes down to the regions under the world. He is many, but they are as only one; he is shapeless, but has wings with four joints each; be has no feet, yet he has huge talons; be has no head, yet has a huge beak with rows of teeth in it, like the teeth of the wolf; his voice is the thunder clap and rolling thunder is caused by the beating of His wings on the clouds; he has an eye, and its glance is lightning. In a great cedar tree beside His lodge He has His nest made of dry bones, and in it is an enormous egg from which His young continuously issue. He devours His young and they each become one of His many selves.

Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 16, Part 2, The Sun Dance and Other Ceremonies of the Oglala Division of the Teton Dakota, p. 83