Przemyslaw Woliczko alias Matho Eyanka

[debbieredbear]

So if you find "Indian sweat lodge" somewhere it should be treated in this case as "native Indian type sweatlodge" rather than "native Indian Sweat Lodge" or Inipi. Nobody wants to steal your spirituality, what for?

Ok, so if no one wants to steal our spirituality, why call it "native Indian type sweatlodge"? Stop trying to explain away exploitation. You mention in another post all of these different Euro groups that had a sweatlodge, when what they had wasa sauna. Much different.

[frederica]

Did your elders teach you to build a sweat lodge? Are your elders Lakota/Dakota/Nakota? If not it is cultural appropiation. All the rationalization  in the world won't change this. Sorry you lost yours, but the Newage movement has a tendency to mix and change things and then people accept it as the real thing.  If you had sweats before the Romans, make that up seems that would be just as easy.

[Moma_porcupine]

Archeologists are scientists, and scientists work with physical evidence and hypothesis. If any physical evidence exists that could suggest such practices possibly existed , I have doubts any real archeologist would have been willing to present this as a cultural practice it was possible to reconstruct . 

Even if somewhere in Britian a pile of rocks that were heated in a fire were found that date back to the bronze age, I have to wonder what physical evidence allows any archeologist to conclude these rocks were used in a ceremony ? How would they know heated rocks weren't used for baking , or steaming wood to be more flexible before it was bent into weapons , or perhaps even something that was done before one of those people got strangled and deposited in a peat bog ?

As you say the ancient cultural practices are no longer known, the bottom line is, this  just sounds like another fancy story made up to justify the theft and degradation of Native traditions to me .

But I would still be very interested in knowing this archeologists name , their training, what evidence they have gathered , and what other archeologists support their conclusions .

[Michel]

My name is Przemyslaw Woliczko Mato Eyanka (Running Bear) I apologize if I offended anyone. 

[Defend the Sacred]

"Klub archeolog?w z Birmingham buduje sza?as potu taki, jakiego u?ywali Brytyjczycy z epoki br?zu."

means:
"Archeologists from Birmingham build sweatlodge, same as British used in Bronze Era."

No fraud here. It's just information about British archeologists...

Like the Ballyvourney reconstructions, there is no evidence that the Birmingham Burnt Mound site was used as a "sweat lodge".  Some people from a Children's archaeology club, and at another point a neo-shameonick group, built an Inipi type structure there, but, unlike Ballyvourney, this lot didn't seem to have even based their "lodge" on the actual design of the archaelogical site in question. Nor did they base their rituals on patterns indigenous to their own European cultures.

They were very clear about the fact they were basing it on Inipi. They use words like "lodge" and say they "then dug a hole in the center of the lodge" (as in, there wasn't one there to start with). They also report speculations as fact on the linked page http://www.byac.org.uk/news/sweatlodge.html Again, it's the problem of people approaching a problem assuming it will fit a model from another culture, instead of doing deeper research into the culture in question and letting the facts and actual patterns arise from there.

The burnt mounds are sites with broken rocks, anywhere from one to three firepits,  a depression in the ground filled with water, and the remains of post holes around the site. The hole with water or stones is only sometimes inside the structure, and not usually in the middle. Speculations about their use run the gamut from cooking to brewing to bathing. We have a few things in the Gaelic lore collected by Martin Martin about the use of sweating and praying "to achieve a state of peace". There are stone structures that were used as sweat houses or saunas, found in the Gaelic-speaking areas of Ireland and Scotland, and a stone bathouse in Portugal. The complete rituals for these structures do not survive, only fragments and suggestions here and there.

Sadly, it has become fashionable for people who want to rip off Inipi and other Indian ceremonies to call their fake Inipi "Celtic" or "universal". This does violence to both Indian and Celtic cultures. The people who lie like this, or who are ignorant enough to believe this, are also not part of Gaelic cultures. Though some are getting savvy enough to lie about that, too.

Everyone I know who is claiming to do a "Celtic" or "European Sweat" is basically doing Wiccan rituals in an Inipi-type structure, or a made-up variation on Inipi.

What little we know of what rituals and prayers may have been used with
European sweating ceremonies are very different from both Wicca and Inipi. I have studied the material extensively, and everyone I've met who claims what they're doing is "universal" is ripping off Lakota or other Indian traditions.

[Defend the Sacred]

Googling turned up this: http://www.sacharunaclinic.fora.pl/klinika-sacharuna,4/szaman-z-kliniki-w-polsce-ceremonie,19.html

Moge napisac do ludzi ktorzy organizowali podobne imprezy konkretniej seminarium z udzialem Przemyslawa Woliczko i poradzic sie troszke jak to wygladalo z ich strony w przygotowaniach. Moze wiedza gdzie zasiegnac informacji na temat legalnosci Yage.

Przemyslaw Woliczko to fizyk kwantowy, programista, muzyk czlowiek wszechstronnie uzdolniony mowi bodajze w 5 jezykach. Dwadziescia lat mieszkal w rezerwacie Indian w Kanadzie uzyskal 4 stopien inicjacji w tradycje plemienia Lakota i Ojibway. Zreszta przeczytajcie sobie wywiad z nim http://www.maya.net.pl/opinie.php?LANG=pl&sub=artykuly&id=177

Mozna by bylo nawet polaczyc seminarium z udzialem Przemyslawa Woliczko jesli by byla mozliwosc!!!.

I admit I don't understand much in there besides "Yage" and "Lakota and Ojibway".

http://www.maya.net.pl/opinie.php?LANG=pl&sub=artykuly&id=177

looks to be an interview. Words that jump out: "Peoples Pipe", lots of mentions of "Sweat Lodge", "Vision Quest", "Rezerwatu Indian",  "Ko?o Medyczne" and again, "Lakota i Ojibway".

[epablito]

Like the Ballyvourney reconstructions, there is no evidence that the Birmingham Burnt Mound site was used as a "sweat lodge".

First of all, I'm not an archeologist nor ethnologist. AFAIK there are proofs that sweatlodges were used all over Europe and Asia for both hygienic and spiritual purposes. I can be wrong at this, but again: this is my current knowledge in this field.

To make things clear: I'm not the owner of taraka.pl website and I'm not Wojciech's attorney However, I'm proud to be one of his friends. I have no connections to Mr Woliczko.

All this quite tough discussion is a surprise for me, I've never thought that using a sweatlodge can means insulting someone in some way or breaking some laws. On the contrary, there are many activities taken from many cultures, activities which have spiritual part, e.g. drumming (learnt on the basis of Syberian shaman drumming). There's even a vision quest tradition in Polish culture, you can see such quests e.g. in our legends and there are recreated now, with some success. These are not Indian vision quests, however you can find some similiarities: hunger, long walk alone, meditation, singing, in rare ocassions hallucinogen mashrooms are used (we have plenty of those).

I must admit you treat words "Indian sweat lodge" with great care, but I have never seen or took a part in sweat lodge that was meant and told to be "Inipi" or "Lakota sweat lodge" or even "native Indian sweatlodge". Of course you can argue that any activity which is related to "Indian sweatlodge" is forbidden is some way. I think we should distinguish two things:
1. native Indian sweatlodge or Lakota/Dakota Sweatlodge or Inipi: native Indian ceremony connected with a tradition and culture of the Lakota/Dakota/other nation.
2. Indian sweatlodge, meant as purification ritual or ceremony with hot stones, steam and fire, performed in temporary shelter. "Indian" in the sense that the technique is used, not your culture or your gods or your language. This technique seems to be lost in Europe, some evidences show that is was avaiable and used at some point in the past.

There is a movement, called "Friends of Indians": a set of people fascinated in Native North American Indian culture and recreating some of native Indian traditions. I have no connection with and very little knowledge about this, I've heard about pow-wows, dances and even recreating dresses, but no details, sorry. Sample site: http://indianie.eco.pl or http://www.indianie.info
It seems to me that Mr Woliczko is referring to this kind of things in his post.

[Barnaby_McEwan]

All this quite tough discussion is a surprise for me, I've never thought that using a sweatlodge can means insulting someone in some way...

Now you know better.

[Barnaby_McEwan]

My name is Przemyslaw Woliczko and I would to say something about my case that was put in a public in this forum. First of all, I did not authorize any of the text that was published on the web pages in Poland.

I find that difficult to believe.

But I guess some people who came to my seminar, they did not pay attention, and they summarize my speech according to their feelings. I started my seminar with words: “I am not a shaman, I an not Native American, I am not a teacher of Native American Spirituality, but I am against New Age Movement, I am against movements so called Friends of Indians, and I am against exploitation of Native American Culture and Spirituality.

But you were wearing an "Indian" costume and standing in front of an "altar" at the time, and then you

...performed the Cleansing Ceremony in the Ojbway traditions.

I can see why people were, as you put it, confused.

[earthw7]

So what do we really have here two individuals telling on each other.

It seems that they are both wrong.

[epablito]

So what do we really have here two individuals telling on each other.

If mentioned my humble person, I'm not telling anything about Mr Woliczko. Simple, I don't know him.

[Barnaby_McEwan]

This is the text of Jozwiak's first post in this thread, which he later scribbled all over in an attempt to hide his tracks: thanks to Moma_Porcupine, who saved it.


Dear Friends,
Some months ago a new Lakota workshop leader appeared in Poland, Europe. His Polish name is Przemyslaw Woliczko and he uses also a Lakota name Matho Eyanka what was translated as "Runnig Bear".
He started leading his workshops in October 2007. Woliczko insists to be validated Lakota elder with full secret message in Lakota ceremonial practices. He was titled, in an ad, "Keeper of the Traditions of Lakota and Ojibwa Tribes" and the only White Guardian of the "Pipe for the People" - the one of allegedly existing nine such pipes.
His two-day long workshops performed in gym halls (not at open air) hava a praise 300 in local currency or 115 US dollars.

Do you know or hear about him? Really was such a White man among Lakota or Ojibwa elders?

With compliments
Wojciech Jozwiak
taraka@taraka.pl
http://www.taraka.pl

[epablito]

I can understand you have quite a lot of troubles with "plastic shamans" or "cultural appropriation" in U.S. All those fake native Indians or "the only white teachers of native Indian tradition".

Apparently there are two ways even among native Indians (of course you'll say I'm wrong, but I've done some research now and that's what I've found).

Some say it's ok to do sweatlodge based. Some say it's not. Some, like you, say it's not ok to do any sweatlodge, because there's only one native Indian sweatlodge. Sometimes it's not ok even to use words "Indian sweatlodge".

But it's not about your rituals and your culture. It's just that you're so wise, you don't need to listen.

I saw this type of internet angry mob many times.

It's always very educational to watch, but it leads to nowhere.
Best regards.

[Freija]

....and it would have been so easy just to say: "Sorry, we didn´t know that you felt uncomfortable with us doing the Indian Type Sweatlodge. Now when we know, we´ll stop doing it!"

Did that alternative ever enter your mind?

[epablito]

....and it would have been so easy just to say: "Sorry, we didn´t know that you felt uncomfortable with us doing the Indian Type Sweatlodge. Now when we know, we´ll stop doing it!"

Did that alternative ever enter your mind?

I can speak only about me, not "us", whoever it is.

As for me, I'll switch from "Indian sweat lodge" to "bania" in case of referring activities done in Poland. Our discussion was educational in that matter.

Think about this: the traditional teaching can be done only orally face-to-face. If so, we here in Europe should only listen to people who came to us from your land and who tell us about e.g. native Indian tradition. Orally, face-to-face. Who should I trust? A website? Or people I know, who are truthful and wise and told me about their visits to native Indians? The message sent orally, face-to-face is quite different.

Native Indians, who visit Poland, say something different than you, AFAIK.
People who visit Poland and claim to be allowed to teach sweatlodge say something different than you.
People who'd been visiting native Indians in U.S. and then went back to Poland, say something different than you.

Even more, in case of many different activities: joga, martial arts, zen meditation... and many more, this worked pretty well. Things that were taught by reliable teachers happened to be ok with real teachings done by "original" native teachers (e.g. japanese sword masters, Hindu joga teachers...).   I hope you get my point.