A trickster-like figure can play a central role in same-sex enactments during ceremonies. Among the Mandan (a Siouan people of North Dakota), a spectacular religious festival known as the Okipa was held annually for at least five centuries (until the late 1800s) to ensure the success of the buffalo hunt and to dramatize Mandan cosmology. The festival culminates with male dancers dressed as bison bulls and a clown-like figure called Okehéede. Adorned with a buffalo tail and pelt, and wielding an enormous wooden phallus, Okehéede simulates anal intercourse with the male bison by mounting them from behind "in the attitude of a buffalo bull in rutting season." He erects and inserts his wooden phallus under each dancer's animal hide, even imitating the characteristic thrusting leap that bison make when ejaculating. The Mandan believe that this ceremonial homosexuality helps ensure the return of the buffalo in the coming season.
source: https://web.archive.org/web/20000815195419/http://www.wholeearthmag.com/ArticleBin/338.html
