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 It began in 1962. I was 32. Fate had allowed me a visit to Japan. A very unlikely place for this journey to begin since my roots were on the plains of South Dakota where the mysteries of suspensions, the Mandan’s O-Kee-Pa ceremony, had actually taken place for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years.
In the Kanda book sellers section of Tokyo, I found a lost book that few people had seen for nearly a hundred years: George Catlin’s original volume "O-KEE-PA, a Religious Ceremony of the Mandans". I opened the red Morocco leather and gold gilded cover. This was a rare original published in London by Trubner & Co., Paternoster Row in 1867! Years later I found out this was only one of several extant copies; one of the others, in the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., was tattered, faded and not in mint condition like the one I held in my hand. I leafed through its pages. My heart pounded and my whole body began to shake. There it was, Catlin’s color lithos of young Mandan boys suspended by two piercings in the chest or in the back! How had this treasure gotten to Japan? Perhaps as a gift to some Japanese person by the British, or in a missionary’s trunk? Who knows. My chances of finding this rarity were one-in-a-million. OR MORE! That day, some force greater than myself seems to have directed me to the path up the mountain to the Great White Light. The bookseller, not knowing the rarity of his book, sold it to me for a song. I had the ancient guide to my destination and I lived with it constantly for the next year. The description of the ceremony and the vivid Catlin drawings sketched on-the-spot etched themselves into my consciousness. I HAD TO DO THE O-KEE-PA!! But there were no living humans I knew who could show me the way. To the best of my knowledge, none of the few remaining Mandans had ever done this in my lifetime. And I had lived among them. I was on my own and my sole guide had to be the same larger force that had drawn me to that book on a hot August day.
I had to be very cautious. As the Mandans had learned, and Catlin mentioned in his O-Kee-Pa book, one can only hang by two piercings in the chest for about twenty minutes. After that, strangulation can begin and one can die! Over the next thirty minutes I managed to kick one after another of the books from under my feet. At last I was standing on tiptoes with about 80% of my weight on the piercings. My breathing was shallow and forced. The pain was intense to the point where I didn’t think I could continue. I had "gone out of my mind" and all that existed in the universe was the glowing fire in my heart center. At that moment, I tripped my camera, stepped off the last book almost unconsciously and swung free. The pain stopped and I started to drift off. I knew I had to come back immediately or I was gone forever. So I struggled mightily to get my feet back on a solid surface. I had done it, even if for only three or four minutes! I was glowing, radiant and absolutely obsessed to try again. |
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By July 1963, I was ready for my first attempt. In the attic room of a small house in Palo Alto, California, I screwed up my courage and began the piercing. I was not prepared to pierce myself in quite the style of the Mandans - cutting a deep incision in the chest. So I was guided to make a deep piercing through my entire breast area, in as much flesh as I could gather up. I used some wire clamps I had made to hold the skin. The piercings themselves were made by slowly screwing a long, 1/16" thick wire through the breast with yet another homemade device. As the blunt wire tips slowly forced their way through my body (it took several hours to make each piercing), I went into a light trance. At this point, I was glad I had fasted for two days and made other physical and mental preparations. The sensation was intense but bearable. Then, not having anyone to help me, I stood on a pile of books beneath a suspension frame I had made in advance, I gradually let my weight (140 pounds then) be "taken" by the piercings.