American Indian Culture and Research Journal

The O-Keepa: A Reprinting Error From the Original Translation A. E. Johnson, Jr. Some of the most colorful pagentry of North American history was recorded by George Catlin in 1832 when he witnessed, wrote about and painted the O-Keepa Ceremony of the Mandan Indians of North Dakota. So graphic were Catlin's depictions of the O-Keepa that Schoolcraft (1851:254) suggested, "the scenes described by Catlin existed almost entirely in the fertile imagination of that gentleman." It is of course now widely acknowledged that it was Schoolcraft and not Catlin who was mistaken regarding the various aspects of this Ceremony. Notwithstanding, shortly after Catlin's visit, Maximilian, Prince of Wied, spent the Fall and Winter of 1833 and 34 with the Mandans. He, like Catlin, also detailed the O-Keepa Ceremony in his journals, Maximilian (1841). In a recent rereading of both the original German text of Maximilian and the first English translation (H . Evans Lloyd, 1843), I found the translation to be virtually without error. However, when Lloyd's translation was reprinted and redistributed as part of the Early Western Travels series edited by Reuben Thwaites (1906), an error was made regarding the torture activity on the fourth and final day of the Ceremony. Those familiar with this Mandan festival will know that the final candidates for torture were attended to on the fourth day. The following passage is taken from the Thwaites edition: "The candidates for the torture are out about two-o'clock in the afternoon; and when they have suffered to the utmost of their powers ... " Thwaites, (1906:332).