Another Sweat Lodge Death - this time an Aboriginal man

[SouthwestSkeptic]

Hello all,

I’ve been away for ceremonies, but I’m back again.

Sadly, the first thing I saw today when I logged into my email account was this post from DDR.

It’s very upsetting to me that now First Nation’s people are now starting to become the victims of those who prostitute and misuse the sacred.
Excuse me if this is old news, but I haven’t heard anything about this on other boards so I thought I’d pass it along (with corrections from the forum owner).
I was saddened and shocked to get this in my email box today.

An Aboriginal brother, Lawrence Catholique, a member of a remote First
Nation's Dene community near Yellowknife, died in a sweat lodge in his backyard just
last February.

Please remember our brother Lawerence in your prayers.

Here's the story:

Lethal carbon monoxide levels in N.W.T. man who died in sweat lodge: coroner

Source: CBC News

A Lutselk'e, N.W.T., man who was found dead in his sweat lodge last week had
lethal amounts of carbon monoxide in his system, according to preliminary
autopsy results.
Deputy chief coroner Cathy Menard told CBC News Thursday that she won't know for
sure if the carbon monoxide was what killed Lawrence Catholique, 52, until the
full autopsy is finished in three to four months.
A well-known former band leader, drug and alcohol counsellor, and spiritual
healer in Lutselk'e, Catholique will be buried Saturday in a family plot in Fort
Reliance, N.W.T.
Family members told CBC News earlier this week that they believed Catholique had
accidentally poisoned himself while burning charcoal in his air-tight sweat
lodge.
"I know that he wasn't ready for this and his family's not ready for it. It was
just a really, really bad accident," Ray Griffith said in an interview earlier
this week.
Catholique had been using a sweat lodge for about 15 years, and believed
strongly in its healing abilities, said Griffith, a close family friend.
Catholique had hosted many gatherings in the lodge, even entertaining aboriginal
groups from Arizona, Griffith said.
"I'm going to miss him a lot … as will everyone in the community," Griffith
said. "He was well respected."
Speaking in Chipewyan, Catholique's father, Pierre, said his son would usually
say when he was going somewhere.
When the family did not hear from Catholique for a couple of days, the elder
Catholique said they called RCMP.
Catholique was eventually found frozen in his sweat lodge.

Other links to the incident:
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/04/10/lawrence-baptiste-catholique-1956-2009/print/
http://news.healthhaven.com/Sweat_lodge.htm

http://mediamentor-circumpolar.blogspot.com/2009/02/nwt-man-dies-in-first-nation\
s-sweat.html

http://www2.canada.com/windsorstar/news/story.html?id=6a9b8c6e-9766-4c5d-a26f-cb\
f55fa74c4a

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2009/02/19/lodge-death.html

This death has caused a Northwest Territories Coroner to issue a warning to
First Nations communities.

Canwest News Service
February 24, 2009
N.W.T.coroner to issue warning on sweat lodges after man found dead.

DATELINE: YELLOWKNIFE
YELLOWKNIFE - The coroner's office in the Northwest Territories is raising the
alarm about traditional First Nations sweat lodges after a 52-year- old man from
a remote fly-in Chipewyan community was found dead in his sweat lodge.
Preliminary autopsy results showed carbon-monoxide levels in Lawrence
Catholique's system had reached the toxic range, said Garth Eggenberger, the N.
W.T.coroner investigating the case.
Eggenberger said Catholique had used wood coals to heat the sweat lodge, which
was built in his Lutselk'e backyard from tree branches bent to create a dome
covered by sleeping bags and blankets.
Lutselk'e sits on the East Arm of Great Slave Lake, about 200 kilometers east of
Yellowknife.
Eggenberger said he would be warning people against burning anything inside the
enclosed space of a sweat lodge in recommendations included in his planned
report on the death expected within the next four to six months.
``If you are using a sweat lodge, you shouldn't be using burning material
there,'' said Eggenberger.
Eggenberger said Catholique mentioned his plans to use wood coals with at least
two people in the Chipewyan community who cautioned him not to try it.
River stones heated by fire are traditionally used inside sweat lodges. Water is
usually poured over the hot stones to create steam while participants chant and
pass around a pipe full of tobacco.
RCMPsaid they had ruled out foul play in the death. Catholique was found Feb. 12
by the RCMP after his family reported him missing.

Reproduced under Fair Use guidelines.



This is terribly tragic and the first time I have ever heard of a native person
dying in a sweat lodge.

It's very strange that he was in his backyard alone and not part of a community
ritual. The story is puzzling to me because there has been so much written
about the 2 California deaths where uninformed nuagers tried to build an
air-tight sweat lodge. It seems that a person trained traditionally and familiar
with proper protocol would know better than to try to construct such a thing.

I guess it just goes to show how deeply the evils of colonialism can penetrate
into even the most isolated communities and how none of us is ever safe from
being impacted by the abuse of spiritual forces.
Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law. Full
copyright retained by the original publication.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html

Please distribute this wherever you think appropriate.

Keep fighting the good fight,
 
Rose
 :'(

[kosowith]

The strangest thing about this story is the using charcoal or wood inside a sweat.  There should be no fire inside the lodge, only stones.  I just do not understand. But I also don't understand how this has anything to do with misuse of spiritualism or colonization. ??

This is certainly not the first time a Native person has died in the sweat.  I know of three people in the past 10 years on reservations who were well known ceremonial leaders and who died while in a sweat lodge.  In all three cases they had health problems that they didn't know were as severe as they turned out to be, or they would not have gone in.  In all three cases the sweats were being led by respected leaders and absolutely nothing was being done in a non-traditional or incorrect way.  There was no misuse or abuse just an terrible accident. Sometime these things just happen.

[Defend the Sacred]

The strangest thing about this story is the using charcoal or wood inside a sweat.  There should be no fire inside the lodge, only stones. 

This is probably totally unrelated, but the only thing I can think of with this is that there are some non-NDNs who have wanted to revive what we know of the Gaelic sweat traditions. In the surviving lore we have about those, a fire was built inside the sweathouse, heating up the structure itself, which was made of stone. After the stones of the structure were hot, the fire was put out and the remains swept out completely.  No one was inside at the same time as the fire. And anyway, the nuagers and neopagans I know of who are pretending to revive the Gaelic sweathouse are all doing a ripoff of Inipi.  I agree, this is a really odd story.

[Moma_porcupine]

In some areas i've heard of people fasting inside a sweat lodge. If it was cold, and this man felt the need to do this, maybe that is why he felt he needed a source of heat.