Lone Man

Lone Man, in Mandan Numak-maxana and recorded by Catlin as Nu-mohk-muck-a-nah, 'the first or only man', is the central figure of Mandan sacred tradition and the protector of the village. With First Creator he raises and divides the primal earth, taking the level prairie country north of the Missouri with its lakes, scattered streams, and water animals. He preserves the people through the flood — in Catlin's eyewitness account of the 1832 ceremony the first man alone survives in his Big Canoe and visits each lodge relating the deliverance — and he founds the Okipa, the four-day midsummer ceremony that re-enacts creation and secures the return of the buffalo. The Okipa centers on his struggle with Hoita, the Speckled Eagle, master of the animals, which culminates in their reconciliation and joint establishment of the rite.

Domains

• creation of the land
• protection of the village
• ceremony and ritual

Powers

• to shape the level prairie country north of the Missouri
• to save the people from the flood in the Big Canoe
• to establish the Okipa ceremony for the village

Epithets

• Numak-maxanaAlfred W. Bowers, Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950. (secondary)
• Nu-mohk-muck-a-nahGeorge Catlin, O-kee-pa: A Religious Ceremony; and Other Customs of the Mandans, London: Trubner and Co., 1867. (secondary)

Relations

• companion: First CreatorLone Man and First Creator are the paired world-shapers; dividing the work of creation, Lone Man took the level country north of the Missouri while First Creator took the broken lands to the south.George F. Will and Herbert J. Spinden, The Mandans: A Study of Their Culture, Archaeology and Language (Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 3, No. 4), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1906. (secondary)
• rival: HoitaMuch of the Okipa dramatizes Lone Man's contest with Hoita, the Speckled Eagle, who had shut the animals inside Dog Den Butte; their conflict ends in reconciliation, and the two together establish the rite.Alfred W. Bowers, Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950. (secondary)

Sources

• Lone Man (Numak-maxana), the Okipa-Maker and protector of the Mandan village, is the younger world-shaper who formed the country north of the Missouri, saved the people from the flood in the Big Canoe, and instituted the Okipa ceremony.: Alfred W. Bowers, Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950. (secondary); George Catlin, O-kee-pa: A Religious Ceremony; and Other Customs of the Mandans, London: Trubner and Co., 1867. (secondary)