Having an interest in the spirituality of different areas and people, I have in the past joined various internet forums pertaining to such and on a few there were sections usually titled - 'Native American Spirituality'. Taking a closer look at their Native American spiritual threads I was pretty much amazed of how little these people know, or else have sought to re-invent the spirituality of American Indian people. Be they American or international, many of the posters of these forums claim to be of, or connected with the Cherokee people. Sometimes this seems to be a popular tribal name thrown about by those ignorant of the many other tribes of American Indians. Sometimes they’ll thrown around Lakota or Blackfoot, but it is rare to see anyone of, or connected with say, the Kiowa, Caddo, Lenape, Choctaw, or other tribes.
Once I joined a European pagan tribal forum and quickly brought about ill feelings when attempting to correct those people when it came to the various American Indian cultures. They have some kind of notion all of us are the stereotypical Great Plains Indians, clad in plains attire, wearing war bonnets, living in tepees, worshipping a single great spirit and never lonely as we have the company of glimmering furred wolf-friends who often lounge around with us or appear as mystical backdrops in their romanticized art of depicting us. When called on this bunk, these people seem to get rather upset instead of trying to understand, often becoming very rude or else snobbish. Start a informative thread pertaining to Indian cultures and they will often shun it, hijack it, or want to debate the facts with nonsense. I even got banned from one of these sites once as their non-Indian ‘Native American Spirituality’ experts claimed I was spreading falsehoods. I brought up Plastic Medicine Men and Bang ! They banned me.
They seem to think the aspects of our different forms of spirituality consist of only vision quests, sweat lodges, drum circles or taking an online quiz to determine what one’s spirit animal is. “My name is ’Feather in the Wind’ and my spirit animal is the Wolf”
Pretty damn humorous if not sad. Personally I would not give out such information to complete strangers.
The latest bit of strangeness, I’ve found are those who are not Indian, but say they were one in a past life, complete with the knowledge of Native American spirituality. Some of these people have never even stepped foot in North America. Some claim to have Native Americans in feathered headdresses visit them in their dreams at night and at times teaching spirituality.
I see this as an uneasy blending of our beliefs into some kooky ‘new age’ religion that seems to be quite trendy as well as a cash cow for some.
