Musings, commentary, essays, etc.

Our Native beliefs and ceremonies are not for sale

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By Art Coulson
St. Paul Pioneer Press

This Friday evening, a non-Indian man will lead an inipi, or sacred sweatlodge ceremony, at University of Wisconsin-Stout in Menomonie for anyone with $95 and the desire to go "native." It's all part of the university's seventh annual Body, Mind and Spirit Conference on
alternative healing practices.

The leader of the sweat, said one organizer, is a man who has "lived at Pine Ridge and with the Hopi. He's been all over the world. He's tasted a little of this and a little of that."

Now he proposes to bring a taste of Lakota spirituality to the paying
masses.

This is wrong on so many levels, I hardly know where to begin. Perhaps, if we start with an analogy:

"It's like me walking into the cathedral and saying Mass," said Sicangu Lakota elder Jim Clairmont of St. Paul. "They wouldn't like that too
much."

Better yet, perhaps there's still time for me to set up a card table at
the conference to change wine to blood and baptize a few sinners. After
all, I studied comparative religions in college. I've spoken with Christian holy men. I have seen sacred church rituals performed. Who is to tell me that I'm unqualified to follow my chosen spiritual path - and make a buck in the process?

The sweatlodge is not an old-fashioned sauna that may be set up anywhere to explore one's inner Indian or to "remember our place and our potential on the sacred circle," as the conference website puts it. Nor is the inipi a temple of commerce, designed to enrich self-proclaimed holy men. It is one of seven sacred ceremonies given to the Lakota, Dakota, Nakota and other Plains people 19 generations ago by the White Buffalo Calf Woman.

The ceremonies are taught, one generation to the next, in the native language. They aren't for sale. Nor were they intended to be used by
people of European extraction - or for that matter, members of other
tribes who follow different spiritual paths.

Helen Blue, chairman of the Upper Sioux Community in Granite Falls, said she finds it hard to believe that people are still taking Native
ceremonies and selling them in this day and age: "It doesn't belong within the capitalist framework. Anyone who knows anything will be highly offended by this, as I am. It's just so wrong."

This past spring, Lakota spiritual leader Arvol Looking Horse, the
19th-generation keeper of the sacred pipe given to the Lakota by White
Buffalo Calf Woman, called together other pipe- and bundle-keepers to talk about the co-opting and selling of sacred ceremonies. He told his people that they should stop performing ceremonies for money, stop offering them to non-native people. Looking Horse said that he fears that the spirits will abandon the people if the perversion of sacred practices does not stop.

"We have these so-called medicine men who have not gone through the proper channels," said Clairmont. "If they are qualified, the spirits will know.

They will give you the medicines to give to our clients in need of that
power. So it doesn't come from men, it comes from the spirit."
Tom Franklin, chairman of UW-Stout's psychology department and a
conference organizer, said the university was aware of the controversy
surrounding the leading of sweatlodge ceremonies by non-Indians. But he
pointed out that there was some disagreement about Looking Horse's spring decree.

"We called around and the consensus of people we talked to was not to
worry. So that's the assumption we're working under," he said.
It's true that some native people have disagreed with Looking Horse. But
many of them are the people who have been selling these ceremonies to
non-native people themselves and stand to lose a source of income.
Still doesn't make this right.

"The people who are allowing this in Wisconsin should call different
elders if they don't have any there," Clairmont said. "They should call to
see what is the proper thing to do. We can tell them who is the best to
talk to about these things. I'd like to hear who these people are who say
that this is OK."

You can't just appoint yourself a spiritual leader or the keeper of
traditions that don't belong to you. Native spiritual leaders, like their
non-native counterparts, are called by the spirit. They aren't appointed
by man."I'm an elder now. I'm a spiritual leader. I am the caretaker of a pipe for my people," Clairmont said. "I went through the protocols and learned the teachings of the pipe. The pipe came from the heavens. It was brought to us by a supernatural woman called the White Buffalo Calf Woman. And with that came seven ritual ceremonies she brought us with the pipe. She taught us how to do these ceremonies.

"She gave us the inipi. There are a lot of protocols that go with that.
You cannot teach someone this overnight. It takes a long time," he
continued. "I'm 64 years old. I learned on my reservation, Rosebud, from
the old people, my grandmothers, grandfathers and aunties and uncles over my lifetime. They taught us that our spiritual ways belong to us. It's not right for Europeans to take our ceremonies. They don't have the right to have a sweatlodge. They don't have the right to lead sun dances. ... They have their Christianity. They brought that here."

There's still time to cancel Friday's "optional sweatlodge ceremony" at Stout. In its place, perhaps the conference organizers could invite an elder to speak. They just might learn something.

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About the author
Coulson is a columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Contact Coulson at 651-228-5544; 345 Cedar St., St. Paul, MN 55101; or by E-mail at acoulson@pioneerpress.com.

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