*****Story and pictures from Time Life Books' Indians

The supreme ceremony in Plains Indian culture was a festival held each summer as a renewal of the life of the tribe and its relationship to nature. One such ritual was the Mandan's O-Kee-Pa, vividly shown in the following pictures in paintings made during the 1830's by Philadelphia artist George Catlin. While the so-called sun-dance ceremonies of the other plains tribes focused on fertility and the sun, the emphasis in the O-Kee-Pa was on placating the spirits of the waters, which the Mandans believed had once flooded the earth. In common with most other tribes, however, the Mandans also conducted dances to the buffalo. The elaborate O-Kee-Pa rites ended in an agonizing climax, when young men offered their flesh to the spirits in an ordeal of torture and amputation. Catlin's paintings provided whites with their first real look at the Western tribes. And his representations of the O-Kee-Pa were so shocking to Victorian eyes that they were attacked as morbid fantasies.

Mandan tribes wearing buffalo skins dance to ensure a year's supply of buffalo.

Other Mandan dancers, painted to symbolize night and day, re-created through the motif of their body decorations the tribal myth of a time long ago when the earth was born and light replaced darkness.

During the O-Kee-Pa, tribe members impersonated animal spirits whose favor the Mandans sought. The snake spirit was the source of rain, and the beaver, sometimes called the little buffalo, represented food.

As a final test, the mutilated young men were expected to run a circle outside the medicine lodge. Most initiates collapsed and had to be dragged, while the thongs holding the buffalo skulls tore out of their legs. Spectators followed the rites closely, for the men who had best withstood the pain and exhaustion were candidates for future leadership.

In the O-Kee-Pa torture rite two young men dangle from rawhide ropes attached by pegs skewered under their flesh. Buffalo skulls attached to their legs increased the weight, while older warriors prodded them. During this gruesome test of courage, most men fainted within 20 minutes. When they regained consciousness they dragged themselves to the masked warrior at lower right, who chopped off one or two fingers.