Sweat Lodge

In 1999, or thereabouts, a friend of mine -- a member of the Blackfeet tribe and former Vietnam vet, a fellow writer -- invited my mother and me to attend a ceremony he was to facilitate on a beautiful stretch of wilderness along a river whose name I've forgotten up the bitterroot valley. The land had been passed down from John G. Neihardt to his grandson, a friend of Woody's.

The elder Neihardt had been a scholar -- an author of poetry whose best known work is probably the narrative of the life of Black Elk, the spiritual leader of the Lakota Sioux who participated at 12 in the battle of Little Big Horn, traveled with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show (not a positive experience), was injured at the Wounded Knee Massacre.

In the summer of 1930 Neihardt was researching the Ghost Dance Movement and was put in contact with Black Elk -- and out of their friendship came the narrative of Black Elk's life -- called Black Elk Speaks -- probably the most well known of Neihardt's work.

I've written here before that though my field was multicultural/contemporary literature -- as I came to understand my true intellectual internal drive -- I realized that when I taught Lit classes I tended to be a historicist -- and that I was increasingly drawn to the latter half of nineteenth century American history -- the journey from an open unfettered West to the invention of barbed wire -- a time when the already centuries-old conflicts between the indigenous population and those who became 'the Americans' raged across the West and culminated by the century's end in the all but decimation of the traditional life for the Native American tribes who had been adapting and shifting, and moving from the moment the first treaty was signed.

I went to a University that most people would identify as both extremely liberal and well-endowed -- and I attended as the eighties gave way to the nineties -- the town was then, though I don't know that it is now, a hot-bed of new age thought.

I bring up the New Age with a certain amount of delicacy because it is a movement that has held its own strong place in my heart and personal journey -- but too as I've grown as an academic I've come to distance myself from certain aspects of it -- most strongly its appropriation of Native American ritual and culture as a balm for self-help as it appears was the case in the recent tragedy in Arizona when three people died taking part in a sweatlodge ceremony run by a 'self-help guru' I've enclosed a snippet from his website that includes his biography -- information that doesn't clarify his deep spiritual respect for the tradition he was appropriating in order to charge FEES for 50 odd people or so to enter a lodge constructed, from accounts I've read, not with the traditional breathable materials, but rather with materials that would intensify the already searing heat. Here's what his biography states about him:
James has studied and been exposed to a wide diversity of teachings and teachers - from
traditional college and the schools of the corporate world, to the ancient cultures of Peru and
Egypt, and the jungles of the Amazon. As a result, he has the unique ability to blend the
mystical and practical into a usable and easy-to-access formula.

As a coach and mentor, James has taught thousands of individuals and organizations to
create harmonic wealth in all areas of their businesses and lives. Because of his
comprehensive and integrated background, James considers himself a "practical mystic," and
he seeks to share this unique way of living with individuals around the world.

When he is not on retreat learning from his spiritual teachers, James presents his insights at public
appearances and seminars over 200 days each year. His Journey of Power curriculum is a fusion
of wealth-building principles, success strategies, and the teachings of all great spiritual traditions,
mystery schools, and esoteric studies that he has experienced and assimilated over the last
twenty-five years.

I personally feel that there is a fine line between the respect of traditions not your own and the appropriation of another culture's ways of being and doing for your own financial gain. I'm suspicious of anything that becomes commodified in this way.

I worked at a tribal college and over time came to understand how much of my own thinking about Native American life and culture was lacking -- how little I truly understood and how large a role romanticization had played in my own understanding -- a role one can see in much of the early 'New Age' literature about Native American culture, not to mention in the journals, reports, primary materials of the period of colonization -- one that draws a broad brush across the myriad of different bands with their own distinct traditions -- spiritually, politically, culturally -- ripped from a specific historical context.

The summer Woody invited us to the ceremony my mother had been visiting and she'd suggested we go to a local pow-wow, a summer tradition all across Indian country (and beyond) -- a kind of dance circuit replete with prize money and competitive spirit -- and something that's open to the general public, though I'd always been too shy to go.

My mother and I milled around the field staked with tents and portable food concession booths selling fry bread and Indian tacos. People had set up their chairs and families were busy seeing to the last minute details of the dresses and outfits -- and I saw Woody there tying the roach to his son's head (the roach is a traditional men's dance headpiece made often of porcupine quills and deer hair-- fastened beneath the chin with deer skin straps.) We watched them dance together -- I can't remember now which dance they were doing but I think it was the grass dance -- where the motions look as if they are stamping flat the high grass around them.

I remember at one point Woody and I were talking and I noted a man as blond as I -- dressed in skins like Kevin Costner in Dances With Wolves -- neck encircled with bone choker -- and Woody just laughed a long laugh, shook his head and said something about his being 'more Indian than most Indians' as he spit tobacco to the side of the lawn chair. I think I must have asked if it was seen as offensive -- and Woody said 'naw, if that's what's in the guy's heart -- well so be it'.

Since that moment, that has become the measurement by which I try to view non-indians' appropriation of cultural tradition. I was honored when Woody invited us to the gathering he was having. There were no more than 10 of us there, Woody was the only Native American.

We met along the banks of a river. He explained to me as he added more wood to the fire where the rocks had been heated to glowing, the rocks he said were the grandfathers, living things. The lodge was built around a deep pit -- it was constructed with willow branches, domed and covered with wool blankets -- but a seam left along the ground -- not airtight -- which, I would learn later, was essential. As we were sitting there Woody and my mother were facing into the woods at the fireside, I was on the other side looking upriver -- and I saw a bear, a young black bear amble across the river -- the only one I'd seen on foot while in Montana, all the others glimpsed from cars high along Going-to-the-Sun road in Glacier. I must have squeaked and said something to Woody and my mother -- and Woody turned to me and said 'that bear's for you, he's a healer'...and though it would be years until I was fully healed, that was the beginning.

Woody had salmon and berries as offerings. We ate them both and fed the fire. We walked in a particular way, each of us, around the lodge before entering, the women on one side, men on the other -- Woody at the center between. He had rattles. It was dusk when we began. He sang in Blackfeet interspersed with english. He talked about the symbolism of taking on the pain in order to relieve those we knew of suffering. It got hotter and hotter as he added water on the rocks at the center of the lodge. It grew darker outside. We would stumble out of the lodge after one round into the cool mountain air, many of us down to the river to wash ourselves, take some water, return. He let anyone leave who needed to. Encouraged us to and made it clear there was no harm in leaving, that the spirit takes us to where we need to be and when it tells us we need to leave we need to leave.

I remember sitting by my mother and saying it was too hot, it was too much. The language in my ears I didn't understand, the complete dark, the slight burning sage, the heat, the utter darkness --womb-like, and Woody told me to lie down and put my face next to the seam of the tent, which I did, the coolest of air from outside coming through. That was the only way I could get through the rounds we did. Perhaps as many as eight. It was one of the most profound experiences I've ever had.

I couldn't help thinking of that when this news story broke. My strongest feelings weren't for the people, the seekers, willing to pay between 9 to 10K dollars to attend -- for those people I felt sorrow that they had been led astray by an eloquent speaker when what they sought, no doubt, was some kind of authenticity -- but my strongest feelings were reserved for the man who led them there.

It seems so sacrilegious I can hardly stand it.

I myself have stood in front of the body of material that I've been amassing for my novel and wrestled with how to write what I wanted to write as a non-indian -- wondering if I even could or should -- questions I haven't answered for myself yet -- stumbling around hoping to find the key that makes the narrative fall together. I have to believe that the difference between exploration and exploitation is the heart that we bring to the experience, the knowledge and respect.

I know many of you reading are from Canada -- and some from Australia -- both countries which have their own relationship and legacy with First Nations/Indigenous populations -- how does your understanding of your own nation's history intersect with the history of colonization? And of course I welcome any thoughts from any of you -- no matter where you are.