This remnant will be replaced soon. The FAQ is back, with a new design! What is an Oh Kee Pa (aka Okipa) Ceremony? Origin: The song's name (often spelled "Okipa", but spelled "Oh Kee Pa" on the Lawnboy liner) originated as many-hours-long music sessions, the first in the spring of 1988 at Trey's apartment and the second (which produced "Union Federal" on Junta) in August of 1989 at Paul Languadoc's house. For these ceremonies, according to Julietta Appleton, "Phish ... locked themselves in a room and jammed for hours on end producing hardly anything usable...." According to Mike (in The Phish Book), "Trey got the idea ... from the film A Man Called Horse and Modern Primitives. Song: In performances, "The Ok Kee Pa Ceremony" usually precedes "Suzy Greenberg" or "AC/DC Bag". Test: VStefene posted (4/6/94) that the book Strange Stories, Amazing Facts reports about an O-KEE-PA torture test: "Before a young man of the Mandan tribe o' Indians could become a fully fleged warrior, he had to undergo one of the world's most painful initiation rituals... to become one of their warriors a young brave had to survive the ordeal of O-KEE-PA, a tourture test designed to test his endurance and his courage. First, the guy had to go without food or drink or sleep for 4 days and nights. Then with some ornate cloths and a fancy painted body, he enters this ceremonial hut. The chief medicine man carved slices phrom the chest and shoulders of the warrior to be with a jagged knife and thrust wooden skewers thru the bleeding flesh behind the the muscles. Stout thongs secured to the rafters of the hut were then tied to both ends of the skewers and the poor guys get hoisted off the floor!!! to increase the agony, they tied heavy boulders to the legs. and he was twirled around until he fell unconcious.. When and if the brave recovered from the fun, he was given a hatchet to chop off the finger, little finger o' his left hand in the final stage of this his stamina was tested by tying ropes to his wrists and making him run in a circle, like a horse being broken in, until he dropped unconcious from exhaustion. If he survived all this, he was able to return to his family in triumph as a warrior, a fully fleged warroior that is...." For a movie version, rent the video A Man Called Horse. Also, see this exhibit: "...a display/ demonstration of this indian ritual is shown at the "Ripley's Believe It or Not" in Atlantic City, New Jersey. A manequin of an indian is shown suspended by ropes tied to rings that are imbedded in his chest. It is a full scale model and shows exactly what the ritual entails. It also gives a description of the ceremony." (Adam Barger) Hat: The headpiece worn by Jewish men, particularly during prayer, is called a yarmulke (pronounced "ya-muhl-chkuh") in Yiddish and a keepah in Hebrew. Thanks to "Philo", Ben Schmidt, and Ronen Shay Landa. "I always want to be able to play a different beat for every song. Maybe my idea of what's different has to be more fine-tuned -- maybe instead of chaning the whole entire coordination I could change certain accents or I could change the feel. It just seems, for my part of it, as long as I stay a creative person, as long as I can get myself to do that, I thnk I can still be a valuable asset to the band. And as long as all of us feel that way individually and we like each other as friends and as playing partners, I don't see any reason why we wouldn't be playing together for a lexpand.html\">long time."" -- Fish, ?" This page last updated February 03, 2007. All contents © 1992-2007 Ellis Godard. All rights reserved.