Let us say that one day I walk into a Catholic church and I watch the
priests give out communion and baptize a baby. Maybe I go back two or three
times. Then, I start imitating what I saw. I hand out communion and baptize
babies and I advertise my services on fliers that read: "Baptism and Communion
Workshop Sunday, conducted by Sister Faith Margaret Mary O'Malley, Cost: $100."
Sounds sacrilegious, doesn't it? Well, that's exactly what some New Agers
are doing to our beliefs, our teachings. I am a Dakota Indian woman, born and
raised on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota. I speak my language
fluently and I was raised in the way of my people, schooled in our sacred
rights.
This is why it bothers me so much to see people take the beliefs I was
raised with, twist them into their own rituals and make money off of them.
The Indians known as the Sioux are trendy now. We are the Bury-My-Heart-at-
Wounded-Knee Indians and the Indians in the popular movie "Dances with
Wolves." We have neat names. I'm Faith Spotted Eagle, and my friends have
last names such as White Hat and Black Bear.
There is really no polite way to state this truth: The New Agers are
stealing from us, stealing our names, our traditions and rituals. Stealing
and then selling. It's happening all over the country. White men and women
proclaim themselves healers and offer sweats, drumming, and rites of passage
using pipes and vision quests. They often give themselves Indian-sounding
names.
This New Age stealing has now infiltrated the world of computer bulletin
boards. The Shoshone-Bannock Tribal newspaper reported recently that men and
women sign on to their computers and give themselves Indian "handles" and
then form talk groups where people wishing to join are given Indian names,
such as White Wolf.
This cultural stealing is also happening in the Inland Northwest. Recently,
Indian people in the Spokane community called me up to tell me about a
white woman who was offering a "medicine shield" workshop. They sent me
her flier. It read: "In the first workshop, each person creates their own
medicine shield. These are made with red willow and deerskin. All creativity
comes from within each individual as to what their heart speaks. This is not
a craft class."
In my tradition, our rawhide shields are covered with symbols of our
families and our dreams. You don't usually make your shield until your late
teens, when you can understand the significance. So here is this white
woman, charging $60 a workshop, to teach people about shields. This one had
a new twist. She said she would teach about the "flip side of the shield."
I've never heard of a flip side.
This all made me very angry. True healers among my people never sell
their spirituality, which is considered a gift. Medicine men (and women)
don't advertise. If they did, they wouldn't be true healers. And women in
my culture are rarely spiritual leaders until menopause, because we believe
that a woman's menstrual period has powerful creative energy and can draw
from healing inadvertently.
I told my friends in the Indian community that I would talk with the
woman. I needed to calm down first. I knew if I got angry, she would pull
away from me and not listen.
So I settled down and called her up. I told her my name, my tribe's name
and then I said: "I saw your flier. People from the Indian community were
concerned and I'm concerned because it sounds like your are selling our
spirituality."
The woman replied that the money she collected for the workshops would
pay for materials only. I didn't say this, but I thought: If I did a workshop
on communion, I could say the $100 was to cover the cost of the communion
hosts. It still would be sacrilegious.
This woman also said she never meant to harm anyone and she appreciated me
teaching her this lesson. But she didn't say she'd cancel the workshops and
I don't know if she went ahead with them or not. I feel like I did my part.
That's enough -- for now.
My people are beginning to fight back. Some tribal elders living in South
Dakota heard that a healing workshop, based on their believes, was to be
taught in Colorado, by a white woman, for an outrageous sum of money. They
traveled there and asked to be admitted free to the workshop.
"I'm sorry, you didn't pay," one of the organizers told them. The elders
replied: "If this woman is a true healer, she would take care of her
relatives. She never would turn us away, refuse to share her gifts with us."
The white woman canceled the workshop.
Some of the New Agers stealing our rituals defend it by saying they were
"adopted" by an Indian family and taught the rites. And they just want to
share with others what they've learned. But if the person were truly adopted,
he or she would never sell the rituals passed on in the family. This would
be a tremendous breach of honor.
In the old days, tribes requested permission to use parts of another
tribe's ceremonies. In the late 1800s, when the Omaha tribes visited my
people in South Dakota, my ancestors exchanged horses for the use of the
Omaha's beautiful songs and dances.
Some New Agers try to legitimize their workshops by asking an Indian to
sign on as a consultant. So you might see an authentic Indian person
associated with an event, but it still doesn't make it right. Our rituals
cannot be sold, or bought, at any price.
I know this selling of our rituals by the New Agers comes from a deep
emptiness and hunger inside them. A hunger for something more spiritual in
their lives. Our rites are connected to the earth and this appeals to people
lost and disillusioned in this material world.
I recommend, however, that instead of stealing from us, go deep into
your background, be it Catholic or Protestant or Jewish or Italian or
Norwegian, and find some meaning there.
Go back to your roots and leave ours alone, please.
(Faith Spotted Eagle of Spokane is a private consultant who does workshops
throughout the country on diversity and conflict resolution.)