O-Kee-Pa; A Religious Ceremony; And Other Customs Of The Mandans has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations. So that the book is never forgotten we have represented this book in a print format as the same form as it was originally first published. Hence any marks or annotations seen are left intentionally to preserve its true nature.
"No other Indians of the American West held such a fascination for early explorers and fur traders as did the Mandans of the Upper Missouri in the years before they were decimated by a tragic plague of smallpox in 1837. And no other white man did so much to interpret primitive Mandan life and culture to the civilized world as did that pioneer American artist and amateur ethnologist of the Upper Missouri-George Catlin. Five summers before the destructive smallpox epidemic, Catlin visited the Mandans in their picturesque earth-lodge villages near the trading post of Fort Clark, at the mouth of the Knife River in present North Dakota. He painted numerous portraits of their prominent chiefs and women folk and pictured their village life, their amusements, dances, religious ceremonies, and burial ground. In his exceedingly popular two-volume work, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians, published at his own expense in London in 1841, Catlin vividly described and extravagantly praised the Mandans as the most remarkable of the more than forty Indian tribes he had met in his wide travels beyond the frontiers of white settlement."-- Taken from introduction.
Andrew Lang, a Scottish anthropologist and folklorist, wrote the landmark work "Myth, Ritual, and Religion," Volume 1. This work contributes significantly to anthropology and religious studies. In this volume, Lang investigates the interdependence of myth, ritual, and theology in a variety of cultures and communities. He delves into myths and rituals from various civilizations, including ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and indigenous cultures. Lang studies how myths and rituals can commonly play an important role in molding a society's religious beliefs and practices. He investigates the symbolic value of myths and rituals, emphasizing their role in understanding the mysteries of life, death, and the natural world. Lang's work is notable for its comparative technique, which connects nations in order to discover universal themes and patterns in myth and ritual. He contends that these traditions and ceremonies are not merely historical relics, but they continue to influence present religious’ practices and ideals. Some stories are brutal and weird, while others creep up on you and draw you in slowly. With an eye-catching new cover and professionally typeset copy, this edition of "Myth, Ritual, and Religion Vol. 1" is both current and intelligible.
For some time I have been preparing a general work on primitive superstition and religion. Among the problems which had attracted my attention was the hitherto unexplained rule of the Arician priesthood; and last spring it happened that in the course of my reading I came across some facts which, combined with others I had noted before, suggested an explanation of the rule in question. As the explanation, if correct, promised to throw light on some obscure features of primitive religion, I resolved to develop it fully, and, detaching it from my general work, to issue it as a separate study. This book is the result. Now that the theory, which necessarily presented itself to me at first in outline, has been worked out in detail, I cannot but feel that in some places I may have pushed it too far. If this should prove to have been the case, I will readily acknowledge and retract my error as soon as it is brought home to me. Meantime my essay may serve its purpose as a first attempt to solve a difficult problem, and to bring a variety of scattered facts into some sort of order and system. A justification is perhaps needed of the length at which I have dwelt upon the popular festivals observed by European peasants in spring, at midsummer, and at harvest. It can hardly be too often repeated, since it is not yet generally recognised, that in spite of their fragmentary character the popular superstitions and customs of the peasantry are by far the fullest and most trustworthy evidence we possess as to the primitive religion of the Aryans. Indeed the primitive Aryan, in all that regards his mental fibre and texture, is not extinct. He is amongst us to this day. The great intellectual and moral forces which have revolutionised the educated world have scarcely affected the peasant. In his inmost beliefs he is what his forefathers were in the days when forest trees still grew and squirrels played on the ground where Rome and London now stand.
