SWEAT LODGE DEATHS, TRADITION & PROFITS

I am not a Pipe Carrier. I have led sweat lodge ceremonies over the past few years, but I have participated in more than I have been responsible for. Elders, most of whom I don’t know, have observed me over the years, gave me permission to conduct sweat lodge because I have never passed myself off as a traditional, and I know how to connect people to the Earth. Most importantly, I am living in a time, as prophesied, where white people are baffling their ancestors who killed and stole from us come to learn how to heal and mend their broken souls in our circles! It is exciting, yes? Anyone, with love and knowledge, who can assist in the process of our white relatives healing is important to the healing of the world.


The purification the sweat lodge provides comes from the Great Spirit, and understandings of this land Turtle Island. We, Indian people, have not been found to disrespect the practices of Europe’s religions and cause deaths during any of the traditional ceremonies of the Christian people. What we have done to maintain a balance is to go to church on Sunday, and keep our traditional relationship with our Mother alive through our ceremonies, which have been studied, and goggled, by nosy anthropologists, missionaries, and travelers alike.

There is great criticism, among Christians who discover Africans, and First Nation peoples keeping their traditions alive while practicing and claiming Christianity to be the center of their lives. No understanding, or willingness to understand why this is important for us to continue doing arises from most Anglos, or churches. Seldom discussed is the difficult pain of this kind of duality. When it no longer needs to be part of our survival in mainstream America this kind of duality stops, and we will walk the Christ Road or the Red Road.


White people are applauded when they take up the religions and spiritual practices of the very people they have conquered much the same way they are now doing to the Iraqi people. When the dust settles from the recent deaths of the two ‘good’ people in the sweat lodge in Sedona, Arizona I jokingly fear white people will send their ‘regulators’ into our sweat lodges to monitor the heat, the duration of the ceremony, and determine how many Grandfathers (stones) will be allowed in at any one time. I can see them showing up with full authority to assess the potential threat of inhaling the various medicines we place on the Grandfathers, and coming out with rulers, and regulations to determine the right amount of people authorized to enter the lodge, and even further will send out a small delegation to see if specifications in the building process have been met. They will send out the same insensitive men who kill people’s dreams of building alternative schools, spiritual communities, and homes to inspect dress, wood, fire height, the type of clothes worn in the lodge, and the number and types of songs sung during the ceremony.


I fear this type of ‘white behavior’ that is passed off as good judgment but does the destructive work its intent relishes. This is the same kind of zeal that defines itself as National Security today! If that doesn’t scare you, or, at the most, cause concern and action then you are a real American!



~ Gregory E. Woods, (Dawn Wolf) Keeper of Stories

photo of an African-Indian woman, Mithia, outdoors squatting under bush