"Spiritual shoplifting is prosecuted to the highest extent of the law."
My sister leaned up close to me and whispered in my ear, “When it gets real hot, just put your hand under the tarp and touch the dirt. It’s cool down there and touching the ground will help. “
That was my first sweat lodge experience. Although it was a cool, gray day outside, the heat became stark inside. I did what she said and reached below the plastic cover to sink my fingers into the earth below. She was right. It seemed to ground me.
My big sister has always watched over me. She’s the one who made me brave when I needed to be and when the occasion called for it, I could be weak and she would take care of me. It’s a doctrine that birth order decided and we are both comfortable with it.
If it wasn’t for my sister, I don’t know how I would have taken it. So it is in amazement that I am reading the accounts of a man who is being put on trial for conducting a sweat lodge ceremony in Arizona that became a crime scene.
On the one hand, in a time that is punctuated with catastrophic exclamation points (Japan temblor, Libyan mayhem and economic dormancy) it is gratifying to see a major news outlet cover the trial daily. Crammed amid the dire world headlines, Indians who are following this story are seeing a spiritual lesson disclose.
Details have been emerging about what happened that October 2009 day. The defendant (non-Native) is facing counts of manslaughter because he supposedly overheated the lodge and prompted folks to stay inside even as the environment intensified. Prosecutors maintain it was reckless and punishable while the defendants cite accidental death.
Okay. It seems important to keep the facts straight. The defendant charged $10,000 per person to take part in this “sweat ceremony” to help participants achieve all they could. Around (50) people fasted for days prior to entering the lodge (do the math). And the sweat lodge construction allegedly had Native input by a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee.
I feel prompted to add these points. Not only were attendees coaxed to cut their hair, but they were promised symbolic death and rebirth through this sweat ritual. Then witnesses said they had to undergo a code of silence and eat vegetarian prior to entering the lodge. And the heated stones used in the sweat were referred to as “grandfathers."
Testimony from survivors said that this spiritual guru (a word I am lack to use) urged participants to remain even if they felt like they were going to die, because they weren’t. Which I am sure surprised the three people who expired as a result of overheating, heat stroke and dehydration. I feel extreme dismay for the victims slash parents and professionals.
Now one question is whether charging for a sweat is ethical. I also wonder if cultural ceremony for profit is acceptable when practiced outside of religious context. I mean, the intention is the same, but the concept of “Ray’s Spiritual Warrior retreat” does not bring to mind the same solemnity with which the Plains tribes view the sweat lodge. In this case, imitation was not sincere flattery, just deadly.
In 2010, I learned a group of tribal affiliates attempted to file suit against the same guru. They wanted the abuse of such ceremonies to fall under the protection of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act. They were suitably angry, tired of the hawking of pseudo-Indian beliefs as genuine. But the suit was dismissed that October after the court determined that a sweat lodge operation is “plainly not art, craftwork or a handcraft.“
I’m not going to waste time talking about the process of and sanctity of the sweat ceremony. In Indian Country, the respect for what it represents is as pervasive as the concept of sovereignty. It may not be openly visible, but try testing it. And no blog is needed to confirm its authenticity.
Nevertheless, at the end of my first sweat lodge experience, I left the ceremony after two rounds of songs to help with the meal afterwards. Someone had made chokecherry gravy and it was delicious. No one told me I had to stay or chided me for emerging. I left the lodge feeling purified and everyone came out of that sweat lodge on this earthly plain.
Any cue here is evident: Indians have a pretty good bead on the World. If you’re sincere, feel free to pick your way up. It’s a free country, after all. But things are worked out with their own price tag. Spiritual shoplifting is prosecuted to the highest extent of the law.