2 
W. C. MacLeod, 
the complex, hookswinging, is found only in these two areas, being absent in 
Central America! 
The problem is as complex as the full rite of hookswinging. We must, 
for example, ask (1) is the hookswinging of the northwest coast of North 
America, of northeast Asiatic, direct Oceanic, or of inner North American 
origin, ultimately, of Central American and southeast Asiatic origin; (2) is 
the hookswinging of the upper Mississippi valley of northwest coast origin or 
of Central American origin; (3) did the complete hookswinging rite ever 
exist in Central America and if it did, is it of Asiatic origin; (4) what is the 
significance of the hooking or skewering found in the Chaco in South America? 
We shall attempt to examine the esoteric as well as the exoteric aspects 
of the rite. We are hampered in this, due to the inadequacy of the data on 
the rite in India and the ignoring by students of culture in India, of the facts 
regarding mere skewering or hooking in India, some of which I reported in 
an earlier paper as noted in certain motion pictures I witnessed 2 . We shall 
also begin the work of relating hookswinging to certain (perhaps adventi 
tiously) associated rites. Here we are hampered by the serious inadequacy 
to date of our data on the rituals of the northwest coast and plains tribes of 
North America. We feel, however, that we have been able to make a promising 
beginning. 
In the first half of our paper we shall confine ourselves to the pheno 
mena in themselves. In the second half, we shall attempt to reach some 
historical tentation. 
I. The Nature of the Rite. 
1. The Mandan Rite as an initiation with a death and resurrection ritual. 
The great annual ceremony of the Mandans was called by them Okipe 
— a name the meaning of which was unknown even to them. The ceremony 
centered in and around the sacred lodge, a permanent building which was 
closed all year except at the time of the annual ceremony, which lasted for 
four days. 
Hookswinging (pohk-hong) is performed at the time of the annual cere 
mony. All youths who have reached maturity during the year, hookswing 
at this time, performing the rite on the fourth or last day. The victim is 
skewered. The officiant who makes the incisions for the skewers wears a mask, 
in order, we are told, that the victim may not know who cut him. (This 
significantly recalls the fact that the officiant who chops off fingers after the 
rite also wears a mask. Further, it should be considered in connection with 
the fact that the two assistants of the hookswinger who run the victim around 
the lodge after the rite until he falls in a faint, “dead”, then rapidly flee 
through the crowd out into the prairies, “as if” to escape punishment, we 
are told, for some heinous crime.) 
To the victim’s skewers are attached heavy buffalo skulls. The Mandan 
lodge has four centre poles. Each victim has ropes attached to his skewers 
2 MacLeod: Hookswinging, p. 553. Since then Sayce (1933) has described hooking 
in connection with the fire-walk among the Hindus of Natal Africa.