Disease-Giver (Hošereʼųwahira) is the Ho-Chunk spirit who dispenses both life and death and is the source of sickness — in effect the god of death. He is one of the great spirits honored in the war-bundle ceremony, named alongside Earthmaker, the Thunderbirds, the Night Spirits, the Sun, the Moon, the Morning Star, the Earth, and the Water, and dogs were sacrificed to him as messengers in time of illness. His narrative profile is preserved in stories such as 'The Man who Defied Disease Giver'. He stands as an independent power in the Ho-Chunk pantheon, with no genealogical kinship to the other spirits attested in the sources.