Caney Indian Spiritual Circle

[Mo]

A couple nights ago I came across this guy in a yahoo chat room. He set up a room in the user section of Religion and Beliefs called Taino Shaman Teaching Lodge. He had quite an audience but was not too happy when myself and another native woman went in and questioned his credentials and motives.

I post the web site on his profile:

http://hometown.aol.com/sobaokokoromo1/caneyfrontpage.html

And this is his profile:

http://profiles.yahoo.com/sobaokokoromo2

The kicker was when his gf spoke up so i got curious and checked her profile:

http://profiles.yahoo.com/quietkitten27

When i asked if soba was her Master she left the room and called him on the phone. He was upset. Must be why he forgot his hands free on and we heard the conversation where he tried to calm her down.

Sure hope others in the room saw him for what he is. Any info you can give will help if I see him again. You may want to look for that room.
Onen.

[educatedindian]

I'm not sure what to make of this group myself. This looks more like Curanderismo or Santeria than any Native beliefs. The carvings and names they use seem more African to me than NDN.

Groups calling themselves Tainos generally tend to be Dominicans and Puerto Ricans trying to reconnect with any NDN roots they have. There might be small NDN communities on those islands, but most of the ones in the US calling themselves Tainos aren't from those communities.

Problem is, some of what members of the Caney circle are doing is relying on Nuage sources to reconstruct a past that might be partly lost to them.

One of his fellow would be "shamans" advertises on a Nuage site run by an exploiter named Lewis Mehl Madrona.
http://www.healing-arts.org/spider/teachings.htm

And one thing he advertises is that he's been trained by the "Wolf Clan," Twyla Nitsche's Nuage outfit. Plus he includes lots of high weirdness like talk of vortexes and energy changes.

Most of the places they're linked to or advertised on the web are Nuage places. They don't have much contact with NDNs, or any interest in doing so that I can tell. I wouldn't call them frauds like some of the worser ones we run into, maybe misguided or don't know any better.

And in some cases, in denial of being Latino or Black.

That girlfriend of his, her profile doesn't speak very highly of his character. She's an S&M "slave" and he is her "master". Since she looks white and he's Black or part Black, there's some weird dynamics going on here.

[outershell]

The Caney Circle is run by Miguel Sague?

Here are photos of him attending the Midwest Shamanic Gathering.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3964670269053.309122.1049268900&type=1

"I was asked to make several presentations at the Midwest Shamanic Conference in Wisconsin. I represent my Taino people and also present some aspects of Maya prophetic tradition."

And he is pretty active here.
http://indigenouscaribbean.ning.com/

always hosting sweat lodges.... did the Taino really do sweats?

[educatedindian]

Traditionally they didn't. The ones doing them now are mostly groups like this circle.

[outershell]

the Caney Circle in Verona PA. Still headed up by Miguel Sague.
 Special guest holy woman this month is  Ana Cihuacoatl.... according to her FB profile she is proficient in Temzacl, Reiki and the Tarot.

Miguel's text for the photo reads:
"We hosted Mechica (Aztec) holy woman Ana Cihuacoatl at our healing and teaching lodge in Verona PA along with members of Kellee Maize OWL TRIBE and other Peaceburghers for sacred temazcal sweatlodge purification ceremony. It was an honor for us here at CANEY CIRCLE to wellcome our Aztec sister and all of our friends from the Peaceburgh community."

[outershell]

Miguel Comments on Facebook:

There appears to be a certain amount of confusion on the part of some who have posted in this page recently concerning the nature of the Owl Tribe and the recent sweatlodge ceremony which we at the Caney Circle hosted for them here in Verona, PA. Unfortunately that confusion is based on the fact that those who made the remarks are extremely uninformed and are making remarks blindly. First of all my understanding is that the Owl Tribe itself does not conduct sweatlodge ceremonies and does not claim to be a legitimate Native American tribe or nation. They requested a sweatlodge ceremony from legitimate Indigenous ceremonial leaders in a proper manner and were granted that honor by these legitimate Indigenous leaders. It is important to clarify that first that unbeknownst to those very critical individuals the sweatlodge tradition exists within a much wider range of Indigenous culture than their limited experience has allowed them to know. The sweatlodge that was celebrated at the Verona Teaching Lodge of the CANEY INDIGENOUS SPIRITUAL CIRCLE last Saturday is derived from the very legitimate and ancient Aztec tradition (yes the Aztecs also have always had a sweatlodge tradition, as do most of the other Indigenous tribes of Mexico, this is not a Lakota monopoly). The ceremony is known as the "temazcal". The lead person in the Owl Tribe, Kellee invited a traditional Aztec holy woman all the way from Mexico to lead this ceremony and this woman is extremely knowledgable in the tradition of the temazcal which she shared with us this past weekend. For the benefit of those who chose to jump to ill-advised conclusions and made extremely unfortunate and ignorant comments I suggest that they inform themselves about this Indigenous tradition by visiting either or both of these websites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temazcal http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/3845-reborn-in-the-temazcal-a-traditional-native-mexican-american-purification-ceremony, or perhaps going to a library and cracking a book or two, or better yet come to us with respect and inquire about our sweatlodge tradition which is just as old and sacred as that of North American Natives whom we outnumber by the thousands. This would be better done before exhibiting a decidedly un-Native level or disrespect and ignorance posting publicly concerning something they know nothing about. Many Blessings...Miguel

http://www.facebook.com/kelleemaizemusic/posts/560067427360028

[earthw7]

too funny how these people always want to tell us how to behave

[Superdog]

LOL....they should've read the article they posted.  While the author attempts to convey that "temazcal" is different from Lakota sweatlodges, the description of this paints a picture of a Lakota sweatlodge with only cosmetic changes using Spanish....

Examples:  camino rojo - red road
abuelitas - grandmothers (the rocks)
The song (sung in Spanish) - "Great Spirit, I'm going to pray. Hear me!
                                               To the Universe, I'm going to pray. Hear me!
                                               For the people who survive
                                               I said to you "Wey ha hay ho!"
Four rounds to complete...etc etc...

Then you get this:
"The Oso (the man running the temazcal in this article) guides his temazcal using traditions from the Lakota natives of the western United States. "

So, basically....by posting this article in their defense...they shot themselves in the foot. 

Superdog

[critter - a white non-ndn person]

Oh. But they outnumber by the thousands... that's white people speak for "we're better than you are na na na na na".