Mr Knox --
Sometimes I too am a bit weary, wondering if I should post about one individual or another, so I try to be cautious, sometimes I am better at it than other times.
Apparently you know Shaman is a Siberian term and yet you still use it, KNOWING it is NOT American Indian, even though oyur website claims it is. That makes you a liar. Why, when you know it is not the right term for what you pretend to be? why do you sign your email "blessed be" -- I once knew someone who always signed their email like that and claimed to be a practicioner of Wicca. Do you practice wicca too?
You can try to clear your name or you can attack. you have a wonderful opportunity here to see that i.] you are mixing too many traditions together, therefore ii.] see the error of this apporach and iii.] Quit mixing traditions, quit charging for your "homemade" remedies as they are not the tradition of the people you claim to serve.
When you claim to use "traditional Native American methods" you are lying, because no one tribe would lump their "methods" up together with so many others.
In making this claim, did you consider American Indian people or their concerns about you appropriating their name, and ways for your profit? Did you ever spend time, years prehaps, learning from anyone who knew what they were talking about in a well documented American Indian community? Or did you just read a book or books on the topic? If I read a book, or many books about "Medicinal Plants of the Phillipines" I wouldn't start calling myself a "Filipino Medicine Man" and neither would oyu. Why you ask -- because there are 30 million Filipinos who'd call me a liar. Since there are not many American Indians, and each tribe has it's own customs different from the next, Indian people are an easy target -- they might not even hear about what you are doing. And maybe onl a hand full of people will tsand up to you and say you are making this stuff up.
I am "probably" 1/8th to 3/16th Indian, but not being enrolled I will probably never know for sure. But it is people who make up and mix tradition -- PEOPLE LIKE YOU -- that gives all people like me a bad name. It is by associating with people like you (often unknowingly) that peple like me can be "tagged" as "wannabe", or worse. That is why I am here as a membr of this group.
I have been called things through association with others whom I really knew little about. But once i learned they were no good, I cut ties with them. I started educating myself.
Sir, once you hear American Indian people disaprove of your methods, why can't you do the same, learn and quit calling your methods erroniously "Native American" -- as they are not -- rather than being a reactionary, that is "reacting" to this website, why not address the concerns addressed here?
That is, why not change YOUR methods? You are NOT using American Indian methods, that is a lie, for you i.] charge for your services apparently, ii.] mix one tratition with another, no American Indian tribe would do that, mix traditions with other tribes. You seem to mix religions, too.
You can learn, repent (my Christian upbringing is coming out
and change your methods or you can lash out at those whose traditions you have trampled on. It is so easy for a majority to misuse a minority if they don't think anyone will ever notice . . .
Vance
