Talk: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)

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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).

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)

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

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)

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)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Okipa/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: ThaesOfereode (talk · contribs) 15:28, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Kimikel (talk · contribs) 00:19, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Hello, I will be reviewing this article as part of the February GAN backlog drive. It may take me a few days to leave my comments. Kimikel (talk) 00:19, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

No worries. Thanks for taking on this monster of a page; I look forward to your comments. ThaesOfereode (talk) 01:19, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

@ThaesOfereode: Please see my comments below. The quality of this article is pretty self-evident so what I've written is mostly nitpicky, pardon me for that. There's very few issues with this article; it's unfortunate you had to wait so long for a review. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns with my suggestions, thank you! Kimikel (talk) 02:19, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

I certainly prefer a nitpicker over a lazy reviewer; thank you for the effort. I have responded below. ThaesOfereode (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

I went ahead and updated the licenses on those images. All of your explanations make sense to me; I'm not going to contest anything you said. Thanks for your quick work here and for making this review very easy, and congratulations on another good article! Kimikel (talk) 23:31, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Much appreciated, Kimikel. As usual, you have been a pleasure to collaborate with. ThaesOfereode (talk) 23:33, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Well-written

Mythos

• merging of two moieties A brief definition/explanation of moieties would be helpful

•  Done ThaesOfereode (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Dog Den Butte conflict

• but Whirlwind blew it from Speckled Eagle's possession and a group of Mandans took the robe back to Lone Man.[23][c] > just a question, is there a reason to give the version in which Whirlwind takes it primacy over the Thunder version?

• Yep, Bowers is an anthropologist, Fenn is a popular writer. Typically, I prefer scientific writers over popular ones, and in this case, the older source might actually shed better light on the topic. ThaesOfereode (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

• One of the drums escaped into the Missouri River near Heart River > is this important enough to include? it doesn't get referenced again so i'm wondering if there's more significance to this than i realize

• It does, obliquely. Mandan tradition holds that there are four turtle drums and one is missing (cf. "Purpose"), but also demonstrates that they were viewed as animate spirits, not just drums per se. Not terribly attached, but that is the rationale. If memory serves, there was some non-Okipa reason it was important too, but I'd have to re-borrow Fenn from my library system to confirm. ThaesOfereode (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

• typically in the summer though winter ceremonies were sometimes held > I would add a comma after summer

•  Done ThaesOfereode (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Clan and band structure

• I question the necessity of this section, as it relates more to the Mandan people as a whole than to the Okipa ceremony in particular. I feel it would belong more in the Mandan article than this one. If you disagree, feel free to let me know.

• It helps to frame the society at large and demonstrate the scope of the shifting changes in "Evolution". It also helps to express the complexity of the event and why certain roles were held by certain people. ThaesOfereode (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Personnel

• To earn this position, the candidate for the role had to acquire "at least a hundred" kinds of robes, dresses, and other assorted goods, which were to be doled out during the ceremony. > direct quote needs citation

•  Done ThaesOfereode (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

In popular culture

• the 1970 Western movie, A Man Called Horse, > remove first comma

•  Done ThaesOfereode (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Verifiable

• How are the last three of your references (those without authors) sorted?

• Date, with "n.d." being considered last (i.e., 2002 → 2020 → n.d.). ThaesOfereode (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Spot check:

1. 46: Verified
2. Denver_Art_Museumn.d.-146 133: Not verified. source doesn't specify location

• It was certainly that village, but I agree I need to find a more direct source. For now, I've edited it in a way I think works for the source invoked. ThaesOfereode (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

1. 75: Verified
2. 88: Verified
3. 118: Verified, but technically only relies on information from page 150, not 149. Also the sentence structure is very similar to the original, only paraphrased

• Got me on the pagination, good catch. As for the wording, I spent more time trying to rephrase that than might be reasonable. I think it comes down to an obvious sequence being difficult to rephrase tersely. If you have a better way to do it, I'm all ears. ThaesOfereode (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Broad

• Certainly

Neutral

• Neutral

Images

• I'd move the Foolish One image next to the text about the Foolish One

• Only real complaint is that it looks terrible if you're still on the Vector Legacy system like I am. More practically, it sets up the rest of the section, but I can do a multi-image capture if you want, too. ThaesOfereode (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

• Following images should be marked public domain due to 1864 publication:

• File:A Test of Magic (cropped).jpg
• File:The Foolish One mimics buffalo breeding.jpg
• File:Mandan women drive off The Foolish One.jpg
• File:Rejoicing over the defeat of O-ke-hee-de (cropped).jpg

• I'll get on these tomorrow, but I wanted to respond to the above first. ThaesOfereode (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Stable

• No issues with instability.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.