The Foolish One

Oxinhede, the Foolish One, is the disruptive spirit-figure of the Okipa, recorded by Catlin under the name O-kee-hee-de. On the second day of the ceremony the Speckled Eagle figure selects a man to embody him; covered in black charcoal-and-grease paint marked with white star-circles, a red crescent moon, and a red sun, and bearing an obscene wooden emblem, he personifies blasphemy, sacrilege, and disbelief in the power of the rite. He disrupts the sacred proceedings until he is overcome and driven out of the village at the ceremony's close, so that disorder is expelled and the Okipa's power affirmed.

Domains

• disorder and sacrilege
• ceremony and ritual

Powers

• to embody disbelief in the power of the Okipa
• to be cast out of the village at the close of the rite

Epithets

• OxinhedeAlfred W. Bowers, Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950. (secondary)
• O-kee-hee-deGeorge Catlin, O-kee-pa: A Religious Ceremony; and Other Customs of the Mandans, London: Trubner and Co., 1867. (secondary)

Relations

• subordinate to: HoitaThe Foolish One enters the Okipa only when the Speckled Eagle figure singles out a man to play him, and acts within the drama at Hoita's designation.Leslie V. Tischauser, "Okipa", in David J. Wishart (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. (secondary)

Sources

• Oxinhede, the Foolish One, is the Mandan figure of disbelief and sacrilege in the Okipa, designated by the Speckled Eagle, who mocks the rite and is driven from the village at its close.: Alfred W. Bowers, Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950. (secondary); Leslie V. Tischauser, "Okipa", in David J. Wishart (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. (secondary)