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To be or not to be ... a shaman

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DIGOWELI:
(continued)
AL:  
Halifax also claims Nicholas Black Elk was a shaman. Nope, he was Catholic and had been for over 30 years at the time the book was written. The famous book on him is pretty much Neihardt's words far more than Black Elk's.

REH:
Any serious traditional on the list would run away from you for saying such things.   Are you saying that traditional people who have both Catholic and traditional relgion aren't practitioners of traditional religion?    What about all those Mayans,   Baptist Stompdancers, Catholic Sundancers,  Catholic Mede, or the churches in the Pueblos?   Many Aleut and Inuits are both Russian Orthodox and Traditional in their faiths.    And I've known Huna Christians.   Where do you think the Christian Keetoowahs came from?   Do you know who Evan Jones was?  

Nickolas Black Elk and John Fire Lame Deer were my father's Sundance Teachers when Frank Fools Crow danced with him.   My father was certified by the Pine Ridge Elders to teach Sundance to Sioux college students who couldn't get home for their study.   They told him he always had a house at Pine Ridge if he wanted it.   (Even though he was a Cherokee)  Fools Crow was a close friend.    I carry a buffalo rattle from a Fools Crow Sundance by one of those students as proof should I be challenged.    

AL:
Matsuwa was misrepresented and his name was misused by another exploiter named Brandt Secunda, so I have to wonder if she did the same.

REH:  I don't know Brant Secunda.   You should speak to him.   But Joan was a gorgeous blond.   Are you claiming the 106 year old man had the hots for her and that's why he taught her for several years?    We all had the "hots" for Joni but she had a very verile young Jewish hunk for her boyfriend and we couldn't get through the door.   One of life's little disappointments but life goes on.    Al,  this is strictly Powwow thinking.   Aren't you a little uncomfortable?

AL;
Her being a Buddhist has nothing to do with why she's an exploiter. Claiming to be a "Buddhist shaman" does. Buddhism is more of a philosophy.


REH:
Haven't seen Joni in twenty years but she did serve her apprenticeship and as far as I know complete it.   That would make her what she says.   She has also pledged as a Buddhist Nun and as you said, shaved her beautiful hair and is working with the dead and dying using what she knows.   So what is wrong with that?  

A note about Castenada.   You quote a fiction by Walters but did that fiction do as much to stir up the average person as Castenada's?    There are people who really believe that Possum lost his tail to a Rabbit tailor.   I don't but I do think there are truths to be learned from all of the stories.   When you are a child you believe literally, when you grow up you think and see that it was really your uncle behind that mask.   Castenada caused more than one smart aleck academic to reconsider the intelligence and adulthood of Indian People.   He opened a door with trickery that they had closed and that the bigoted would not even consider.   I'm old enough to remember that as well as segregation and bigotry in the Cherokee Nation.   I don't judge Castenada, I only see that my children are not fooled and see it for what it is.   I also am not fooled by Education of Scale where people lecture and ignore the first fallacy of real teaching trapping people in killer assumptions that ruin their lives for this lifetime.    That is not a nice thing to do.   Calling Hitler NuAge is stupid and inaccurate.   Hitler was a believer in blood and blood quantum and reservations.    Sound familiar?  

AL:
Ghost Singer is a fiction work of Walters on repatriation of remains, very accessible.

REH:
I know those ceremonials from our people and if I am going to do them for the people of the Southwest then I will go study there.   My time is short and I don't get to read fiction or go to operas much anymore.  

Good talking to you.

Ray Evans Harrell

educatedindian:
"There are many people who sell out.   Rarely is an academic challenged for that..."
ROFL! Obviously you've never read about Castaneda, Harner...or criticisms of your favorite, Halifax.

"So go challenge her face to face yourself."
Obviously I don't have the money to throw around that you do.

"There are many people whose parents told them wrong things to throw them off and try to assimulate them."
What this has to do with anything, I doubt anyone knows, including you.
You don't quite use Tontospeak or OldChiefSpeak, but it comes close sometimes.

"We in the Nuyagi Keetoowah Society...don't authenticate people."
And yet later on, you brag about your father being "certified" to do Sundances. Which, many Cherokee have told me, is something the very traditional Cherokee don't do.

"We elect to keep our spirituality our own and we have registered it with the government. They will authenticate the registration and we like it that way."
Contradictory. Most NDNs feel the opposite way. Nations decide their own enrollment, that's what sovereignty means. But asking the govt to say if your religion is legit or not...

...I can't imagine something more dangerous than that. Or less NDN.

"One of you did make a stupid statement about 501-C-3 religious institutions. All religious institutions have to prove that they are such."
First, labelling it "stupid" shows you being childish and abusive once again, this time to Joseph whom you praised before.
And second, what you're saying is nonsense. Most Native religious institutions choose not to "prove" themselves to the feds.
Only if there were funds to protect would you need a 501 exemption.  

"When I met Matsuwa and spent a whole night in ceremonial with him he had a very smart white guy as his apprentice."
Your silly name dropping to impress people is having the opposite effect. It's embarassing to watch you make a fool of yourself repeatedly...
and that includes watching you dig another hole for yourself by praising an exploiter like Das.

"When we left home to escape such rigidity we weren't the first or the last to elect not to stay and become alcoholics or commit murder or suicide."
Really nice of you, spreading such self hating racist ideas about NDNs (assuming you actually are NDN). Plenty of rezzes are not violent, don't have much alcoholism, etc. And I don't see "rigidity" mentioned in suicide notes much.

"Are you saying that traditional people who have both Catholic and traditional relgion aren't practitioners of traditional religion?"
I'll just save myself some typing and start using the abbreviation:
FIBR-Fiction Invented By Ray

Nicholas Black Elk had not taken part in ceremonials for more than 30 years at the time Neihardt spoke to him. That's pretty well known, so unless your father was very young, I suspect you're doing more silly fictitious name dropping.  

"Are you claiming the 106 year old man had the hots for her and that's why he taught her for several years?"
What the heck have you been smoking?
FIBR number 2 from you.

"Castenada caused more than one smart aleck academic to reconsider the intelligence and adulthood of Indian People."
ROFL!
Castaneda's books are today used in academia almost entirely as an example of how anthropologists should NOT be. They're pretty racist books, filled with what I call the Red Gandalf stereotype, that NDN medicine people exist to play Tonto for white Nuagers or drug users. I think it was Deloria who said all Castaneda did was make Noble Savage stereotypes acceptable for the white hippie counterculture.

I go much further. Castaneda ruined thousands of lives. Look up what happened to his Cleargreen cult.  Brace yourself, it doesn't get much uglier.

"Calling Hitler NuAge is stupid and inaccurate."
FIBR number 3 from you.
What have you been smoking?

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