Bull Dance (O-kee-pa). Plate 67. Catlin. The Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians. London, 1892. Archives & Rare Books Department, University Libraries, University of Cincinnati.
Catlin's most significant contribution was to record in image and in print the mid-summer ceremony of the O-kee-pa based on his first hand observation. The significance of this work lies in the fact that it is first hand documentation unavailable after 1837. Catlin was one of very few Whites who ever witnessed the ceremonies. In 1837 smallpox was introduced to the Northern Plains. On June 18 of that year, the American Fur Company Steamboat St. Peters arrived at Fort Clark, carrying contaminated goods and infected individuals. The disease spread across the Northern Plains to the Northwest Coast and into Alaska, becoming a pandemic which killed perhaps as many as half a million people before fading out by 1840. The Mandan may have numbered 2,000 before the epidemic, but by January 1838, less than 100 remained.
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