My aunt did a huge amount of genealogical research over the last few years and I am new to find some of my ancestors are Native American … but this feels so strange and removed for me to be honest. I ended up here googeling “Plastic Shamans.” And found this site … cool site BTW. I am very interested in spiritual identity and how it relates to cultural identity. I know these things are interconnected but their own at the same time. In an effort to sort out myself I feel compelled to share.
The tribe my family has some relation to is the Patawomeck. I also have many ancestors from Lapland, Spain, and Scotland. Each with its own tradition.
At the same time I was raised in the mountains on the west coast. I grew up w/out indoor running water and electricity near the Canadian border – so nature was close always. My school was small and about half of the students were tribal members. In fact I was lucky enough to attend one of Sherman Alexie’s early readings in Colville – I think maybe 20 people were there.
In college I met and fell in love with a tribal member. He went on to work for his tribe’s cultural resource department and as a result we were involved in many activities such as: language revitalization, Canoe family, building a long house, weaving classes etc.
Much of my life I have known tribal people and have been involved with their cultural practices. However, I always felt and knew that I was an outsider. I was ok with this because it wasn’t about me, supporting my husband and our future children. Then to recently find out I am partially related to a tribe on the east coast is somewhat surreal. What I have known of tribal culture is PNW. So I don’t feel my understanding of culture or geography has any translation to this newly found piece of me. Or vice versa give me an automatic in to tribes here in Oregon.
At the same time I do consider myself a healer and spiritual person. I do not attach my practices to a single part of my ancestry. I have no word for myself and I do not promote/market myself – beyond this indulgent storey. I have just always done this, felt this, and as a child my parents taught me about plants, herbalism, and what they called elementals. As a young woman I lived with an herbalist, midwife, and for lack of a better word, witch. I have gone on to continue my study of herbs from other teachers and nature, and will until I die.
I am very conservative in what I tell other people. Just a few weeks ago I was e-mailed by somebody asking what herbs they should use for withdrawal from prescription opiates. Ethically I could not help them and directed them to find somebody local who would work in conjunction with a doctor. I don’t consider this a gift or right. I consider it a responsibility, one that I could accidently kill somebody or myself with. Whenever I am asked for help I have to very realistically evaluate if I can actually help and what form that help can take. Sometimes that means I help them find somebody or something else completely. I say I am spiritual and people think I practice woo-woo or devil worship or am a plastic shaman. It bothers me as much as I let it, which is a lot at times and none at others. That is why I am interested in this forum.
I think in general people are so disconnected from the source and themselves they are lost and when they find something of substance they don’t know what to do with it. Like a little girl in her mother’s high heels trying to walk up stairs, and others take advantage of this. There is a sad state of spiritual and emotional bankruptcy in our world today. I think others feel enlightenment is found through suffering so they attach themselves to another’s struggle. I too long for spiritual community. And find very few *authentic* options.
I am guessing finding a spiritual and/or cultural identity isn’t necessarily “easier” for Native people because of what’s been lost due to the reservation system, language assassination, ceremony “legality” etc… I know the US Government, majority society, and institutional systems are responsible for this and understand (the best I can as an outsider) how people would be very protective of what they have left that is cohesive and intact. So in that I am left with a quandary. Do I attach to and integrate this new found part of myself? And how do I do that in a way that respects the circle that is already established and I am very much foreign too? Does it make me something I wasn’t before? Does it make me a fake if I don’t claim any one tradition?
I hope through reading others stories I can learn more about the larger picture.
The very best answer I have found is when I am in the woods by myself but not alone. I know I belong. But this is a place where I forget myself as an individual entirely.
