Rituals of the Great Plains Indians

The Plains Indians were a different world from that of the forest tribes back East.  Iowa, Omaha, Arikara, Mandan, Otto and Hidatsa tribes were semi-sedentary people who led a fairly settled life, growing corn, weaving and making pottery.  In the summer they took their horses for expeditions to track down buffalo.  They traded with nomadic tribes from further west.

These Plains Indians admired physical courage, reflected in their ceremonies.  For example, in the
sun dance of the Hidatsa, warriors reenacted their victorious battles.  In the Mandan tribe, the most sacred religious ritual was the Okipa, dramatization of the creation of the Earth and history of the tribe.  The ritual was performed to modify the spirits to ensure the welfare of the Mandan tribe, and it was a test of courage and endurance for young braves.

To begin the Okipa was fasting and ceremony dances. 
The initiates crawled to the medicine man who used a knife to pass through and under the skin on each arm above and below the knee.  Through these  wounds the medicine man passed splints, then a cord of raw hide was lowered down through the top of the wigwam and fastened to the splints on the breasts or shoulders.  The person then hung, raised and suspended, from the top of the lodge.  They quietly endured the pain until the pain rendered them unconscious.

All I can say is Ouch!....

Next time...More Ritual and Visions
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On this Day in Pioneer History: On April 18, 1906, the San Francisco earthquake and resulting fire started.  The first of two vicious tremors shook San Francisco at 5:13 a.m., and a second followed not long after. The quake was powerful enough to be recorded thousands of miles away in Cape Town, South Africa, and its effect on San Francisco was cataclysmic. Thousands of structures collapsed as a result of the quake itself. However, the greatest devastation resulted from the fires that followed the quake. The initial tremors destroyed the city’s water mains, leaving overwhelmed firefighters with no means of combating the growing inferno. The blaze burned for four days and engulfed the vast majority of the city.