AMERICAN INDIANS ARE APPALLED

American Indians are Appalled by Commercialization of Spiritual Ceremonies

Chief Arvol Looking Horse, 19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle, said in a lengthy statement, "As Keeper of our Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle, I am concerned for the [three] deaths and illnesses of the many people that participated in a sweat lodge in Sedona, Arizona that brought our sacred rite under fire in the news. I would like to clarify that this lodge and many others, are not our ceremonial way of life, because of the way they are being conducted. My prayers go out for their families and loved ones for their loss... What has happened in the news with the make shift sauna called the sweat lodge is not our ceremonial way of life!..." 

Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, publisher of Native Sun News and founder of the Native American Journalists Association, said "The outrage about the sweat lodge deaths reverberates around the country as everyone seeks an answer to questions they don’t even know how to pose.  I am not going to dance around the consequences of Arthur Ray’s stupidity because he was blatantly using a religious ceremony of the Native Americans to enrich himself and what is worse, he didn’t know any of the sacred rites that accompany the inipi nor did he know the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota language, an intricate part of the ceremony..."

"If you ask just about any Native American out there, they will be appalled by this," said Freddie Johnson, language and culture specialist at the Phoenix Indian Center. "It's disturbing to hear that there were three deaths from this so-called sweat lodge."

Rick Black Elk, head of the eastern Texas chapter of the American Indian Movement said, "The incident near Sedona unfairly calls legitimate sweat-lodge ceremonies into question."

Vernon Foster, an Arizona representative of the American Indian Movement is upset that James Ray and his staff apparently did not know how to conduct a sweat-lodge ceremony and placed the lives of sixty people in jeopardy through their ignorance and disrespect.

Valerie Taliman, a reporter for Indian Country Today, quotes Alvin Manitopyes, a healer from the Cree, Anishnawbe and Assiniboine nations, who said in 1993, “Our elders conduct sweat lodge ceremonies out of love for their people to help them in their healing and spiritual growth. When someone attaches a price tag to the ceremony, then the sacredness is gone and it comes down to them playing around with our sacred ceremonies.”

Other comments from American Indian leaders and spiritual elders across the country are pouring in to Manataka about the horrible tragedy in Sedona.  Most are deeply saddened by the deaths, illness and injury.  Some are angry and a few are demanding violent reprisals.   All are concerned that sacred traditions like the pipe ceremony, vision quests, purification lodge ceremonies, and the sundance are being altered by fast-buck impersonators.