Selling The Ceremony

A few days ago I read, “Disaster in Sedona, Arizona Sweat Lodge”. My first thoughts were these non-Natives must have used plastic tarps to cover the Sweat Lodge, sure enough as I read on the truth was reveled. A plastic tarp is not “of Nature”, it does not breathe, it contains. Will these people never learn, what was it; two or three years ago the same plastic tarp thing occurred in California and people died. I have heard a saying, “you can’t fix stupid”. This I question. The Lesson had already been placed before the people, and I guess they did not learn. As a Boy, the Teaching of my Culture, Lessons not learned the first time around well be repeated along your Life Path. The Lessons are placed there for “Purpose”, the purpose, to learn and grow as a Human Being.

It truly amazes me how globule most Human Being can be when search to know “who they are” or “understanding their Spiritually”. I must tell you, as I learned from my Grandmother; there is no monetary value on these endeavors. Words of The Grandfather, one of my Teachers as a boy. “You have all the answers within yourself, look deep within yourself, the answers will be there. No one can give or sell you what you already know or sense. No other Human Being can tell you “who you are” or what your “Spirit Self” should be.” Most people I have encounter do not look to how they feel or what they sense about themselves. You do not look to a thing now known as “an urge”. I was taught as a Boy, “urges” are requests of the Spirit Self, fulfill them or deny the Spirit.

My Grandmother was a Woman with the Knowledge of the Medicine Plants and Roots. I could have typed, “Medicine Woman”, you may have better understood the concept, considering today’s Society. I can still see in my mines’ eye my Grandmothers’ beautiful, wrinkled little face, her dark eyes flashing with anger when anyone of those Euro-Americans who came to her for the Medical benefits of her knowledge of the Plants and Roots of Healing and called her “Medicine Woman”. Her reply was always stern, “I am not a Medicine Woman, I do not Heal you, I was gifted with the knowledge of the Plant and their benefits, the Plants heal you, NOT ME, don’t call ME Medicine Woman.”

There was never a monetary value placed upon her services. Some people when told this would just walk away with her medicines, how disrespectable. Most offered a “gift”, not always money, a length of cloth, a new cooking pot or a hide of a Deer or Elk that their husbands may have killed for sport. The “gifts” were always well received and with much gratitude because even living far back in the Mountains away from civilization we knew the state of World affairs in the 1930’s and 40’s, when most people had very little. Yet we never struggled to “survive”, everything we needed the Mountains provided or we grew in the garden.

I do feel sad for these people and their families and friends that became ill or died due to their own lack of knowledge and placing their trust in an obvious con man. Maybe after all, you really can’t fix stupid.

When will there be laws or some action taken to preserve our Native Culture, our Ceremonies? So many questions! When will these New Agers, Indian Wannebes, Cultists, False Shamans ever show respect for our Culture and Ceremonies. We, the Native American People, do not encroach upon and bastardize the ceremonies of the Euro-American Cultures of this Land called the Americas. Non-Natives are always looking for a “Shaman” and yet the word “Shaman” is not a Native American concept. It comes from Eastern European Tribal Cultures brought to the Americas upon their arrival in the 1300’s. I have found over my many years, the Euro-Americans have forgotten at one point in history they were also “Tribal”. If you “Wanaebes” are truly searching for yourself and your spiritually, why are you not looking to your own diverse and beautiful European Cultures of Your Ancestors?

YOU ARE NOT AN AMERICAN INDIAN. No matter how hard you try, no matter how much you indulge yourself in your fantasies, no matter how much money you pay someone, no matter how many false Ceremonies you participate in, YOU WILL NEVER BECOME AN AMERICAN INDIAN. You can never undo that what the Creator has placed upon this Earth and Universe.

Don’t Try To Steal MY Identity!

White Crow October 2009