Talk:Okipa

Okipa is currently a Culture, sociology and psychology good article nominee. Nominated by ThaesOfereode (talk) at 15:28, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

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Short description: Native American religious ceremony

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A fact from Okipa appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 9 July 2025 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the end of the Okipa involved Bull Dancers of the Mandan tribe (example pictured) having ritual sex with married women and then smoking a "pipe of reconciliation" with their husbands?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2025/July. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Okipa.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Kingsif talk 22:29, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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A Mandan Bull Dancer

... that at the end of the Okipa, Bull Dancers of the Mandan tribe (example pictured) had ritual sex with married women and then smoked a "pipe of reconciliation" with their husbands?

Source: Harrod (1995), p. 50: "After the first phase of the dance, the leading woman selected a man from the group, took him by the arm, and led him outside the village. The ritual intercourse of Trickster with dancing buffalo became incarnate in the intercourse between these women and men. At the end of the ritual, the men involved promised to give liberal gifts and to smoke a pipe of reconciliation with the husbands, which the husbands were bound by the norms of the group to accept."

ALT1: ... that during the annual Okipa, the women of the Mandan tribe would steal the massive wooden penis of its trickster spirit? Source: Fenn (2014), p. 127: "One woman seized [the trickster]'s wand and snapped it over her knee. With this, he made a dash for it, racing for the prairie with the women in pursuit. Soon they made a gleeful return, led by the young woman who had disarmed the miscreant. In her arms, she carried his penis [...]"
ALT2: ... that during the Okipa, the young men of the Mandan tribe used buffalo skulls as pillows? Source: Bowers (1950), p. 126: "Each carried in a buffalo skull for a pillow and sage brush for a bed."
ALT3: ... that after six of the thirteen Mandan clans died during the 1837 Great Plains smallpox epidemic, at least one village continued to call their names during the Okipa? Source: Bowers (1950), p. 114: "[An Okipa officer called Moves Slowly] had heard that the officers from the other village would formerly call the names of thirteen clans, but while at Fort Clark they dropped six extinct clans from the rites."
Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Papal inauguration of Pope Leo XIV
Comment: Template:Did you know nominations/2024 Summer Olympics boxing controversy

Created by ThaesOfereode (talk). Number of QPQs required: 2. DYK is currently in unreviewed backlog mode and nominator has 20 past nominations.

ThaesOfereode (talk) 14:19, 31 May 2025 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Everything looks good here. Great work! MallardTV ^{Talk to me!} 13:10, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@MallardTV: Much appreciated! Thanks for the review. ThaesOfereode (talk) 17:06, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

Hello - I know this is currently DYK, but I found the lead a bit confusing. The first sentence is: 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 modern-day North Dakota - which made me think it was still a modern-day practice. It was only when I got to the end of the (very long) lead that I saw that this ceremony ended in 1890. I don't want to change it, but maybe this is something to think about for those who have been working on this article. Blackballnz (talk) 08:07, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello - Seeing that this is a good article nominee, I think the first sentence could be clearer. How about:

'...among the Mandan people in what is now modern-day North Dakota.'?

Also, under Evolution, this sentence doesn't make sense grammatically to me: 'Six of the clans were wiped out by smallpox: the three unnamed clans, Masedomak, Amakadomak, and Manakasanumak.' Blackballnz (talk) 00:35, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]