Okipa

Common card · No. 420112

The Okipa (Mandan pronunciation: [o'kipa]), sometimes rendered as Okeepa or O-kee-pa, was the most important religious ceremony among the Mandan people in what is now North Dakota. The ceremony was a partial retelling and reenactment of Mandan mythology, and was done to provide good fortune and ensure the tribe had plentiful buffalo to hunt. It took place mainly in a ceremonial clearing at the center of a Mandan village and a large earth lodge, known as the Medicine Lodge or Okipa Lodge, dedicated exclusively for the purpose. It was led by a prominent member of the tribe, known as the Okipa Maker, who had earned the right to host, and two men who represented important figures in Mandan mythology. During the Okipa, young men in the tribe submitted to extreme ritual torture, including scarification and dismemberment, as a rite of passage and to induce supernatural visions. The men starved themselves for as long as all four days before being cut through their bodies, suspended from the lodge...

Read on Wikipedia · Image George Catlin (1796-1872), Public domain