Tokahe’s ambition to be a leader may have prevented him from carefully considering the prescient words of Tatanka and the old woman. But he and the other scouts had seen with their own eyes that this world was a veritable paradise, so the warnings of his elders might have sounded like the overly cautious words of uninformed persons. Tokahe coveted the presents of Anunk Ite and nothing could stop him from seeking to acquire them.

Artist and scholar Arthur Amiotte paints the broader context within which this passage of the emergence narrative is situated. According to Arthur, “There is a before and an after, and there are characters who have a beginning and a middle and an end, and mythologically they still exist.” The narrative itself, he continues, “is not only happening in mythological time but has persisted over the ages and been told in temporal time, and when it is told it is taking place again in the immediate world because many of the events and characters are also reflections of the human condition. This material is part of our tribal consciousness because inherent in the materials are the values of our people.”

Arthur uses imagery from petroglyphs and pictographs on his two canvases because they represent “the oldest visual record on the Plains.” In the lower horizontal piece, the pantheon of Lakota beings is represented, including Anunk Ite, Tatanka, and the thunder beings, plus other land and water creatures. One of those is Keya, an ancient long-legged giant turtle who frightens Anunk Ite. That is why traditionally a piece of a child’s umbilical cord was enclosed in an amulet shaped like a turtle and kept by women as protection against the powers–such as pains during pregnancy and following birth–of Anunk Ite.

The upper vertical piece depicts the Pte people and other animals working their way through the caves to this world. Arthur reminds us that “it is believed that the animals are perpetually coming from the earth and regenerating.” Toward the top of this canvas he depicts a ceremonial prototype for the Sun Dance grounds, represented by a quartered circle of four colors with a square reddish altar in its western quadrant, because during the Sun Dance, “sacrifices and prayers are offered for the ongoing regeneration of the people, the animals and all things.”

Tokahe and his friends showed their presents to the people and told them that they had been to the world and had seen plenty of game; that the people on the world ate meat and appeared as young men and beautiful women even when they were very old. An old woman warned the people that these things were done by a wizard, and they wrangled, for some wished to follow Tokahe and some said he was a wizard. Tokahe said he would lead those who wanted to go with him where they could get these things. Then the chief warned the people that they who passed through the cave could never again find the entrance and must remain on the world; that the winds blew on the world and were cold; that game must be hunted and skins tanned and sewed to make clothes and tipis.