Wakan Tanka - Iyotake Payabya
The changes started during the last days of the rule of his grandfather, Iyotake Payabya. The old and respected chief sent his icimanis (news-walkers) to other three Dakota tribes: Iowa, Duluth and Mesabi. All brave warriors, scouts and hunters were called to come to the great meeting of Buffalo Lodge. The meeting was held in the field in front of the Holy Standing Rock, near chief’s village Mni Sota (centralisation up = +1).
The old man had several special guests too, that could be easily distinguished by their different and rich clothes, polite manners and a lot of strange, unknown things laying around them on the ground. These were the merchants from far away land of Aztec. After the Buffalo Dance, the old man talked to his people:
“Brave warriors of Mni Sota, Iowa, Duluth and Mesabi. The Father of all of us, the Creator of our Mother Maka (the Earth) and the Great Spirit and the Supreme Judge Skan (the Sky); our Father Inyan (the Rock) had spoken to me. He told me that my time is going to end. I called you, my friends, to ask you for the support and loyalty to my son, Wagluhe. Skan made the decision that Wagluhe should lead our people.”
All of the warriors agreed by acclamation, as Wagluhe was known to be both brave and wise.
“People of Dakota – Iyotake continued – our Father Inyan gave me another, more important message. He explained me that the way our way of life must be changed.”
Rumours in the crowd.
“Yes, my friends. Our way of life, but not our believes. Inyan explained me what was going to be the role of Dakota in the future. He revealed me one secret that is part of Wakan Tanka (the Great Mystery). Although we live in the old way, although we are still people of the Nature, the sons of Maka, the world was already changed. Other people forgot how to live in harmony with Wakan Tanka. Other people became people of artefacts.”
The Aztec merchants exchanged few comments among themselves, but did not openly complained. Finally, they were guests in unknown land, far away from home, and their boss had additional personal reason to stay several weeks more in Dakota land, and participate the meeting.
“The new role of Dakota in the Great Mystery is to teach people of artefacts and show them the way back to the harmony. Dakota should become a new bridge between them and the nature. However, in order to accomplish this new role, we must change ourselves too. We must learn the way of artefacts, but never forget the way of nature. We must defeat Iya (the chef of all evil things) and his son Gnaski by blocking his own way. We must show other people how to include the way of artefacts into the harmony of Wakan Tanka.”
The message was becoming more and more understandable to the warriors. They talked to each other, and also made some consultation with medicine men. After a while, a well known and appreciated medicine man, Oglala the Standing Bear talked: (people believed that he spent 3 years in the mountain, alone with Hu Nonp –the Bear God – who was his teacher)
“Brave warriors of Dakota. What are the skills of a real medicine man ? How do you recognise a real holy man ? All of you think that such a man can cure, talk to herbs, command the stones and animals, even change the weather. But, these are merely the phases he has to pass through. The real wicasa wakan has gone beyond all of this. The real holy man has the Wakaya Wowanyanke – the Great Vision. Our leader Iyotake Payabya is such a man. He had his sun-dance vision and saw the future and the new way. We should listen to him, as he is neither doing that for himself nor commanding to us. He is just letting his wisdom and power to work for his people.” – said the Standing Bear.
All of the people agreed.
The chief Payabya continued:
“My people. I have introduced to you my guests from a far away land of Aztec. They are people of artefacts, but nevertheless our dear friends. You know some of them already, as they were coming to us for several summers. We trade our excess of grain to some of the new tools that helped us a lot in harvesting the wild rice. That is an example how artefacts can be in harmony with the way of nature. Our friends from Aztec land are ready to teach us their way of life. They see as the first priority the improving of the so-called infrastructure. I am sure that you do not know what is that at all. Just few examples, and you will see that the term infrastructure is easy to understand. We could build stone roads between important buildings, instead of using pathways. We could build new building near our fields, to store rice and wheat faster during the harvest, and to keep necessary tools. Later, when more people are free after the harvest, we can bring the food to villages, again using better roads. Along the roads, we could build several tents for our brave warriors, to protect passengers from animals. Our Aztec friends gave me much more examples, but for me these were the most important. Winter in Dakota land is long and strong. Very often we lacked food, if harvest was poor and winter too long. If we organize our food production better, Dakota nation can grow. I recommend to build one central stone building in Mni Sota; we will call it the House of Inyan. At the end of each summer, after the harvest, leaders of our four tribes would meet in the House, to report if harvest was good in their fields, to help villages that do not have enough food, an discuss other important topics.”
The chiefs of other three tribes agreed. Together with the chief Payabya, and later his son Wagluhe and grandson Mingo, they were part of The Wise Four.
“Finally, I am asking you to agree to give my daughter Panaka to be wife of our guest Ramanocatl from Aztec land, to confirm our friendship.”
That proposal caused a long a furious discussion. For the first time a Dakota girl would be given to another tribe. That cost of changes was too personal for many of people. Many of them disagreed, but at the end the majority saw it as necessary. For Panaka, going to Tenochtitlan was the adventure of the life. Impressed by all the presents given by Ramanocatl, she was hardly waiting to get married. The mothers of young Dakota girls were very upset that their daughters could also go away, never to be seen again. Their fears were calmed down after two summers, when Panaka was already far away. The life in Dakota was normalized again.
During the first two years of the new way of collecting and controlling the amount of harvested grain, new phenomena occurred. People realized that the grain became everybody’s concern and much more important. Even brave warriors and hunters were talking about the grain more and more often, although they did not want to be involved. Each summer, the excess of 36 big bags of grain was reported to the House. People started to measure the value of all other things in terms of bags of grain. The traditional barter was gradually disappearing. This trend had its negative effect too. As brave warriors did not want to take duties of distribution of grain, less brave men took control over it. Having such a power and possibility of misconduct, some of them abused their appointments and took some grain for their families. That was immediately reflected in the relative value of other good that were exchanged trough barter. The Wise Four did not notice or understand at the very beginning what was going on, so the problem makers were not found and punished. The Aztec merchants explained that we had, for the first time, the problem with “corruption” and “inflation”.