The Commercialization of Native Spirituality
~ Corine Fairbanks ~
The selling of sacred medicine and the commercialization of Native Spirituality has been going strong now for a few decades, but it seems to have hit its pinnacle recently with people paying as much as $9,000 to participate in a sweat lodge ceremony. That is a huge shift from the 1882 Bureau of Indian Affairs directive banning Native people from participating in "heathenish dances." Native American Religions were outlawed under the Federal “Civilization Regulations” from the 1880s to the 1930s. Traditional Native people were not allowed to go to or pray at their sacred places. Back then, tribes took their ceremonies underground; some, because of persecution were driven to the point of extinction.
Non-Native participation was unheard of.
For over 10,000 years Native Americans lived and died throughout the vast, rich continent of North America. Our people were communal, and practical. The philosophy was “take what you need and use everything you take.” This was in contrast to what amounted to the “Manifest Destiny” idea that the Europeans imported to our continent, and the brute military force that came along with it.
It wasn’t until 1978 that the US government acknowledged this part of our Holocaust, and even then, it was ever so minimized.
This was under the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. This act was created to protect and preserve the traditional religious rights and cultural practices of American Indians, Eskimos, Aleuts, and Native Hawaiians. These rights include, but are not limited to: access of sacred sites, freedom to worship through ceremonial and traditional rights, and use and possession of objects considered sacred.
“In the past, Government agencies and departments have on occasion denied Native Americans access to particular sites and interfered with religious practices and customs where such use conflicted with Federal regulations. In many instances, the Federal officials responsible for the enforcement of these regulations were unaware of the nature of traditional native religious practices and, consequently, of the degree to which their agencies interfered with such practices. This legislation seeks to remedy this situation.”
President Carter’s statement above does not cover the pain and suffering that Native people endured during the period of time our ceremonies were outlawed. Ceremonies were raided; food provisions were rationed and kept away from those that would not give up their ceremonial ways.
Medicine and holy people were sent away and in some cases, imprisoned or sent to asylums as a way to further the oppression and hinder those from participating in ceremonies. Women were sterilized. Children were kidnapped and sent to boarding schools where they were forbidden to speak their own languages, beaten if caught praying and forced to convert to Christianity.
Native people died protecting these sacred ways. The scars left behind of this intentional genocide are still open and only now beginning to heal.
Even with the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, Native Nations continue to fight for religious freedom rights. New Age "scam artists" and other exploiters of Native spirituality continue to get rich off of the commercialization of it. This has become a billion dollar industry. Selling sacred objects, herbs, and even ceremonies has become a common practice that can be found in popular stores, online, mail order catalogs and even at local Pow Wows.
At an international gathering of US and Canadian Lakota, Dakota and Nakota nations, about 500 representatives from 40 different tribes and bands of the Lakota unanimously passed a "Declaration of War against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality." The summit was held from June 7 to 11, 1993.
Wilmer Mesteth, a traditional spiritual leader and Lakota culture instructor, told the summit participants that he was aware that sacred ceremonies were being imitated and even sold by non-Indians as well as certain Indian people. "We have to put a stop to it," Mesteth said. "Sacred traditions like our Lakota Pipe ceremony, Vision Quests, Sweat lodge ceremonies and the Sundance were given to us by our Creator and have enabled Indian people to survive a 500 year holocaust. Those sacred traditions are precious to us and (we) can't allow them to be desecrated and abused."
Often - when New Agers practice their version of Native Spirituality - they do it in a way that “waters down” the ceremony and that’s when people get hurt. Most Native Americans are offended by the mockery these bastardized versions make of their sacred ceremonies. Some of the incidents denounced as most offensive include: buying ready made sweat lodges through Ebay, spas and resorts offering “traditional sweatlodges,”
Sun Dances held on Astroturf, sweats lodges held on cruise ships with wine and cheese served, and sex orgies advertised as part of "traditional Cherokee ceremonies.”
There are thousands of Native Nations found through out Canada and the United States. Most of them believe that sacred objects or medicines are “spiritual beings.” These spiritual beings are alive, breathing; they are in fact, and we are relatives. These elders protect us from negativity, teach us our ways, and help us when we are sick. They bring recovery and clarity in our lives. They listen to our prayers and direct them to the Creator. When medicine is gathered or harvested, that usually involves a ceremony in itself. Roberta Weighill, of the Chumash Nation states: “You have to acknowledge the life of that plant, ask that that plant be used, then give an offering to that plant; you can’t just go out and pick sage and then go sell it somewhere; you have to go yourself and give an offering to that plant.”
Inevitably someone is going to bring up the question of accessibility. One person wrote me and stated, “I live in an area where I can’t get sage or sweet grass, I have to buy it.” No, I disagree. You do not “have to” buy it. First research what the Native/Indigenous people used in that area. Is using these sacred herbs/ancestors even used in your Nation or Tribe? Not all Nations used sweet grass and many different Nations used different types of sage that was available in their area. Find out what was used in your Nation, find out what was is indigenous to your area.
If you're from a Nation that used sage and sweet grass and you do not have some, pray for some. Prayers will be answered. These sacred relatives will find away to reach you. However, we live in a society that is one of immediate gratification.
“Have a headache? Take an aspirin.”
“Have a stomach ache? Drink this Pepto-Bismol.”
“Hungry? Use the microwave to heat that.”
Challenge yourself with some patience instead of lowering your standards and allowing sacred relatives to be exploited. Some traditional ways teach that these sacred beings choose where they want to go; they choose who is to house, protect, and use them. It is a humble honor to be chosen. If you have not been chosen as of yet, research your traditional ways to learn what you need to do to given this honor.
Here is another excuse I recently heard. “If thousands of Natives are at Pow Wows buying sage, or other ceremonial objects, how could they all be wrong?” Using this argument is about as juvenile as if I would respond back with “well if thousands of Natives jumped off a cliff, would you do it?” Obviously, this not a numbers game, it is not about the “majority” being right and the minority being wrong. Capitalism and “free enterprise” are not traditional concepts among most Indigenous peoples on this continent. It is this self-serving agenda that has a chokehold on our people and is being force-fed to our children the minute they take their first step in the public school system. If we use sage or any of our sacred medicines to pray with, then we are acknowledging that they are “sacred beings,” and by doing that, how can we then in turn participate in the exploitation of our relatives? If you shift the paradigm to see these relatives as living, breathing spiritual beings, like grandparents- could anyone be so callous and financially challenged to sell a grandmother?
Where does the money go when someone sells Buffalo Skulls, Eagle Feathers, Sage, Sweet Grass or other “sacred relatives?” Does it go back to Native people? With a little bit of research you can go online and read about how our people are still struggling with issues of poverty, suicide, homelessness, freezing weather and lack of resources for heat. Do any of these vendors, Native or non-Native, give money back to our people? What steps have these vendors taken to ensure that whatever sacred medicines are harvested are done so with the dignity befitting a spiritual entity that listens to prayers? What have these entrepreneurs done to make sure that these sacred relatives have not gone into the hands that will use them in even more negative ways? What justification are they using to desecrate “sacred relatives?” In fact, I would challenge that someone else’s spiritual needs are the furthest from these exploiter’s mind. At the end of the day, do these people laugh at the rest of us while counting change from all the sales they have made?
Anytime someone stands up and states they are Native American, they are making a political statement because of the political relationships between our Nations and the United States & Canada. When you say that you are Native American, what you are really saying is that you and your family, have survived a holocaust. By saying you're Native American, you are also saying that the government’s effort to exterminate you and your family FAILED. There can not be any compromise with allowing our spiritual traditions, medicines and sacred relatives to be bought or sold. To watch a sacred relative be disrespected, mistreated, sold, and desecrated, is a violation against all of us. By doing this, we cosign the inevitable loss of one of our last resources, which is our connection to our creator and our ancestors.
©Corine Fairbanks
April 2010
Corine Fairbanks is Oglala Lakota and is the Development Director for theAmerican Indian Movement Santa Barbara Chapter, is active on the Board of Directors for the American Civil Liberties Union Affiliate Santa Barbara chapter, and also on the Grant Making Committee for the Fund For Santa Barbara.
