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For
All Those Who Were Indian
in a Former Life
By
Andy Smith
The New Age movement has sparked a new
interest in Native American traditional spirituality among European American
women who claim to be feminists. Indian spirituality, with its respect for
nature and the interconnectedness of all things, is often presented as the
panacea for all individual and global problems. Not surprisingly, many white
‘feminists” see the opportunity to make a great profit from this new craze.
They sell sweat lodges or sacred pipe ceremonies, which promise to bring
individual and global healing. Or they sell books and records that supposedly
describe Indian traditional practices so that you, too, can be Indian.
On the surface, it may appear that
this new craze is based on a respect for Indian spirituality. In fact, however,
the New Age movement is part of a very old story of white racism and genocide
against the Indian people. The “Indian ways” that these white, New Age
“feminists” are practicing have little grounding in reality.
True spiritual leaders do not make a
profit from their teachings, whether it is through selling books,
workshops, sweat lodges, or otherwise. Spiritual leaders teach the people
because it is their responsibility to pass what they have learned from their
elders to the younger generations. They do not charge for their services.
Furthermore,
the idea that an Indian medicine woman would instruct a white woman to preach
the “true path” of Indian spirituality sounds more reminiscent of evangelical
Christianity than traditional Indian spirituality. Indian religions are
community-based, not proselytizing religions. For this reason, there is no one
Indian religion, as many New Agers would have you
believe. Indian spiritual practices reflect the needs of a particular
community. Indians do not generally believe that their way is “the” way and, consequently,
they have no desire to tell outsiders about their practices- Also, considering
how many Indians there are who do not know the traditions, a medicine woman would
be more likely to look into her own culture and find what is liberating in it.
However, some white women seem
determined not to look into their own cultures for sources of
strength. This is puzzling, since pre-Christian European cultures contain many of
the same elements these women are ostensibly looking for in Native American
cultures. This phenomenon leads me to suspect that there is a more insidious
motive for latching onto Indian spirituality.
When white “feminists” see how white people
have historically oppressed others and how they are coming very close to
destroying the earth, they often want to disassociate themselves from their
whiteness. They do this by opting to “become Indian.” In this way, they can
escape responsibility and accountability for white racism.
Of course, white “feminists” want to
become only partly Indian. They do not want to be a part of our struggles for
survival against genocide, and they do not want to fight for treat rights or an
end to substance abuse or sterilization abuse. They do not want to do anything
that would tarnish their romanticized notions of what it means to be Indian.
Moreover, they want to become Indian
without holding themselves accountable to Indian communities. If they did, they
would have to listen to Indians telling them to stop carrying around sacred pipes,
stop doing their own sweat lodges, and stop app iating
our spiritual practices. Rather, these New Agers see Indians
as romanticized gurus who exist only to meet their consumerist needs.
Consequently, they do not understand our struggles for survival, and thus they
can have no genuine understanding of Indian spiritual practices.
While New Agers
may think that they are escaping white racism by becoming “Indian,” they are in
fact continuing the same genocidal practices of their forebears. The one thing
that has maintained the survival of Indian people through- 500 years of
colonialism has been the spiritual bonds that keep us together. When the
colonizers saw the strength of our spirituality, they tried to destroy Indian
religions by making them illegal. They forced Indian children into missionary
schools and cut their tongues if they spoke their Native languages. Sun- dances
were made illegal; Indian participation in the Ghost Dance precipitated the
Many
white New Agers are continuing this practice of
destroying Indian spirituality. They have the privilege and power to make themselves heard at the expense of Native Americans and they
trivialize Native American practices so that these practices lose their
spiritual force. Our voices are silenced, and consequently, the younger generations
of Indians who are trying to find their way back to the
These practices also promote the
subordination of Indian women to European American women. We are told that we
are “greedy” not to share our spirituality. Apparently it is our burden to
service white women’s needs rather than to spend time organizing within our own
communities. Their perceived need for warm and fuzzy mysticism takes precedence
over our need to survive.
The New Age movement completely
trivializes the oppression we as Indian women face: Indian women are suddenly
no longer the women who are forcibly sterilized and tested with such unsafe
drugs as Depo-Provera; we are no longer the women who generally live below the
poverty level and face an average 75 percent unemployment rate. No, we’re cool
and spiritual.
This trivialization of our oppression
is compounded by the fact that nowadays anyone can be Indian if she or he wants
to. MI that is required is that one be Indian in a former life, or take part in
a sweat lodge, or be mentored by a “medicine woman,” or read a how-to book,
Since according to this theory, anyone
can now be an “Indian,” then the term “Indians” no longer refers to those who
have survived 500 years of colonization and genocide. This furthers the
goals of white supremacists to abrogate treaty rights and take away what little
we have left. When everyone becomes “Indian,” then it is easy to lose sight of
the specificity of oppression faced by those who are Indian in this life.
The most disturbing aspect about these
racist practices is that some of them are promoted in the name of feminism.
Sometimes it seems that I can’t open a feminist periodical without seeing ads
promoting white “feminist” businesses—with little medicine wheel designs. I can’t
seem to go to a feminist conference without the only Indian presenter being the
woman who begins the conference with a ceremony. Participants then feel so
“spiritual” after this opening that they fail to notice the absence of Indian
women at the rest of the conference or the fact that there will be nobody
discussing pressing issues in Native American communities.
If European Americans are going to act
in solidarity with their Indian sisters, they must take a stand against Indian
spiritual abuse. Feminist book and record stores should stop advertising such
rip-off products, Many have claimed that Indians are not respecting “freedom o
speech” by demanding that whites stop exploiting Indian spirituality. But
promotion of this material is destroying freedom of speech for Native
Americans, by ensuring that our own voices will never be heard. (Feminists have
already made choices about what they will promote. I haven’t seen many books by
right-wing, fundamentalist women sold in feminist bookstores.) The issue is not
censorship; the issue is racism. Feminists must make a choice: to respect Indian
political and spiritual autonomy or to promote materials that are fundamentally
racist under the guise of “freedom of speech.”
Respecting the integrity of Native
people and their spirituality does not mean that there can never be cross-
cultural sharing. However, such sharing should take place in a way that is
respectful to Indian people. The way to be respectful is for non-Indians to
become involved in our political struggles and to develop an ongoing
relationship with Indian communities based on trust and mutual respect.
When this happens, Indian people may invite a non-Indian to take part in a
ceremony—but it will be on Indian terms.
I hesitate to say even this much about
cross-cultural sharing, however, because many white people take this to mean
that they can join in our struggles solely for the purpose of being invited to
ceremonies. If this does not occur, they feel that Indians have somehow
unfairly withheld spiritual teachings from them. We are expected to pay the
price in spiritual exploitation in order to gain allies in our political
struggles.
In fact, however, we are not obligated
to teach anyone about our spirituality. It is our choice if we want to share
with people we think will be respectful.
It is also important for non-Indians
to build relation ships with Indian communities rather than with specific
individuals. Many non-Indians express their confusion, about knowing who is and
who is not a legitimate spiritual teacher. The only way for non-Indians to know
who are legitimate teachers is if they know who the community
respects as its spiritual leaders. This is a process that takes
time.
Unfortunately, many do not want to
cake this time
their quest for instant spirituality. And alas, racism and profit-making seem
to get in the way of solidarity between women.
Our spirituality is not for sale.
Andy Smith, a Cherokee woman, is a cofounder of Women of 11 Red
Nations (WARN), based in
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