wakaŋ

Dakota[edit]

Derived from the Dakota word kan, "anything that is old or has existed a long time" or an incomprehensible but wonderful experience.^{[cite 1]}

wakaŋ

sacred; holy
- 2012, Colette Hyman, Dakota women's work : creativity, culture, and exile (in English):
  The wakan nature of these objects also came from the belief that the women creating them were inspired by a spirit being: the Double Woman, or the Two-Women.
- 2012, Gwen Westerman, Bruce White, Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota (in English), page 19:
  Water that comes from within the earth is pure and as such is considered wakaŋ or sacred.
a sacred item, location, or person
1. affixed to proper nouns to indicate holiness
- 2012, Gwen Westerman, Bruce White, Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota (in English), page 20:
  Other accounts place Dakota people even farther north than Bde Wakan.
- 1894, Sunkawakan Wicayuhapi‎^[1], Santee Agency, Nebraska: Synod of Lakes and Prairies (Presbyterian Church), Santee Normal Training School Press, page 6:
  Śunkawakan cinca kin tohanyan icagapi kte cin iyehanyan icagapi śni qa kan waśake śni kinhan ecen wowidagwicunyanpi iyecece śni.
  (please add an English translation of this quotation)

^ Hyman, 2012. Chapter 1: The term wakan, which is conventionally translated as “sacred,” holds many meanings for the Dakota, reflecting both its etymology and its use to describe many different beings and phenomena. George Sword, a Lakota elder, explained in the late nineteenth century that wakan derived from the word kan, meaning “anything that is old or that has existed for a long time.” He also noted that kan “may mean a strange or wonderful thing or that which cannot be comprehended.” Little Wound, another Lakota elder, added to this definition the notion of power. Food is wakan, he explained, “because it makes life,” and medicine is wakan because “it keeps life in the body.”