Hooked, Not Helpless: The Modern Flesh Suspension Part II

Native American tribes, such as the Mandan tribe of North Dakota, call it Okipa and as early as 1000 CE have practiced flesh suspensions as part of a complex ceremony. As a way for Mandan warriors to prove themselves and gain the approval of the spirits, Okipa began with the young man not eating, drinking, or sleeping for four days. Then they were led to a hut, where they had to smile while the skin of their chest and shoulders was slit and wooden skewers were shoved behind the muscles. The warriors would be suspended from the roof of the lodge until they fainted. To increase the pain, weights were added to the initiate’s legs. After fainting, the participant would be pulled down and the men would keep watch until he woke, proving the spirits’ approval. Upon awakening, the warrior would offer his left pinkie finger to the Great Spirit, whereupon a masked tribesman would sever it with a hatchet blow. Finally, participants would endure a grueling race around the village called “the last race” with their weights and skewers still in place, which would determine who among them was the strongest. Okipa went out of practice at the end of the 1800′s but returned in the 1980′s in a form closer to the flesh suspension I am currently witnessing as I jot these notes.

Thaipusam

Thaipusam

The Hindu people have the Thaipusam festival. Like Okipa and many other rites of passage, Thaipusam involves periods of fasting and strict limitations on food in the days leading up to the festival. Almost one million people pay homage to the deity Lord Murugan during the three-day long festival. Thaipusam falls on the tenth day of the month of Thai in the Hindu Almanac and that would usually be in late January or early February. On the day of the festival, participants, called devotees, shave their heads and make a pilgrimage into the city. On the pilgrimage, devotees make varied acts of devotion. The simplest act can entail carrying a burden, such as a jug of liquid, but piercing the flesh with skewers has become common over the many years of Thaipusam. The largest gathering commonly takes place in the city of Palani India with an attendance of up to 10,000 people.

It seemed strange that something so old yet still modern wasn’t all that clear to me — the everlasting know-it-all — when a girl I had just started dating asked me if I’d go to a suspension with her. I honestly wasn’t sure what she was talking about and decided I should update my internal lexicon. I watched some videos and read a few articles, but still the culture didn’t feel like all the dimensions had been represented.

Me assisting a Flesh Pull

The teeth of it still seemed to be painted on like a matte painting. I wanted them cut out and glistening. I knew a flesh suspension ritual today in Ohio wouldn’t be the same thing that anthropologists saw in a lodge two hundred years ago. Human culture isn’t an atavistic beast frozen in place without evolving. Predominant American society has changed from the community-based spiritual ritual and sacred bloodletting rites of passage of the original Native Americans. People occupy more and more social roles than generations previous. The flesh suspension ritual of the modern American, more specifically the small group of people who brought me here on a cloudless Sunday morning, represents a different sort of meaning to a smaller tribe. A lot of precaution and planning goes into the process, so I should get back to the beginning of the story.