Why is Protecting Lakota Ceremonies even "controversial"?

[Moma_porcupine]

I'm not sure i am following all these analogies but if I left my child with someone I knew was partially blind , and because of this they couldn't watch out for my child , and my child got hurt , I would be responsible for that - 

If someone taught some irresponsible teenagers how to make fire crackers and someone got hurt, the person who taught them would be responsible for this .

If there is often bad consequences from entrusting someone with a responsibility they aren't equipped to fulfill , or teaching something people aren't able to properly learn, people who teach this do  have some responsibility for those consequences.

[Charlie Two Shirts]

Do these ways belong to Tunkashila or to man? This is where I feel it gets most of us confused. Tunkashila gives us these ways and he teaches us we are all related. We are to share. Ok... so who do we pick and choose who receives these teachings?

[Moma_porcupine]

Do these ways belong to Tunkashila or to man? This is where I feel it gets most of us confused. Tunkashila gives us these ways and he teaches us we are all related. We are to share. Ok... so who do we pick and choose who receives these teachings?

From what I have seen there are many moral and ethical understandings which indigenous people have which can be shared with people of different cultures, but when it comes to specific traditions and ceremonies , it seems these are almost always an inseperable part of the community where they originated. Removing them from this context is like removing a heart or eyes from the body where they originated. Sure sharing is good , but only if the function of what is shared is not destroyed in the sharing.

I don't usually see these people who say " who are we to choose where the Medicine goes" enrusting a three year old child with the responsibility of a Pipe, so obviously some common sense choices are made.

From what I have seen, the choice to share things that obviously won't work properly for the person they are shared with , is usually inspired by the gifts and attention recieved for doing this. Elders with a true desire to share something of value, are usually really careful not to share something with people who can't fully understand or be responsible for the true value of what is shared.

I just speak from the point of veiw of someone who has seen what happens when these traditions get passed on outside the communities where they originated . From what I have seen, they never serve their proper function and even if the damage isn't immediately apparent, over time they decay.

But people who explain this gradual destruction as "sharing" do manage to make the common sense protection of ceremonies controversial.

[earthw7]

Do these ways belong to Tunkashila or to man? This is where I feel it gets most of us confused. Tunkashila gives us these ways and he teaches us we are all related. We are to share. Ok... so who do we pick and choose who receives these teachings?

It is easy the people who live on the reservations are the ones who need to be taught. We need to take our teaching and teach our own people frist and help them heal before we worry about outsiders.

Our people need help, our youth need help. It is what was told to us by our elders that everyone need to stop teaching outsider and use our prayers for our people.
After our people are healed then you can help the outsiders.

The outsider do not help our people, they learn our ways to heal themsleves and then teach other outsider like they are some kind of GOD.

These outsiders become wakan or claim some type of relativation thur adoption without take care of their families that adopted them. Then they teach the outsiders with NONE of them coming to help our people.

After years of abuse by this government we have the right to heal by our own culture. The outsider come and take and leave our people with nothing. If that is not  theif i don't what is. I object to oursider who are NOT INDIAN and those who are Indian who do not help their people.

All they are worried about is being wakan in the whites eyes. Which means they are nothing in our eyes.

I am Native....................................

 

[matt e]

I pretty much agree with everything earthw7 says.

     The Creator gave different peoples different ways of doing things for a reason. Some of the rituals and ceremonies may be similar, but it is the differences that make them unique to the people who practice them.
 
  HE has also set spirits in charge of both peoples and areas, and has taught the people  how to call on them for aid. 
 When an outsider comes in and learns the ceremonies then goes and tries to teach it to others, then the danger comes in. 

 a person living in england trying to call on a spirit that is in charge of an area in utah is going to fail, because the spirit they are trying to call on has no authority beyond their area, and is bound to that area.  Something may answer the call, but it will not be who the person doing the calling thinks it is. IF they are lucky, it will be a spirit that wishes to help, instead of one that wants to cause harm.
 
  Taking care of ones family, then their people and strangers living among them, then those outside are constant teachings of the creator the world over. The ceremonies all differ though.
     I could no more use a Lakota ceremony to accomplish a task, then a Lakota could use my ceremony. the ceremony will only work when conducted by someone who understands what it is for, how it works, and who has the spiritual authority to conduct it. some ceremonies can be shared, yes. 
  The Lakota ceremonies are not more contraversial then others, it is just they are the most widely copied, most known, so those objecting get more attention then others.
  And when people claiming to be able to not only perform these ceremonies, but to teach others to do them.....for a price.....are confronted, then those who have paid money to the fake do not wish to accept that they were tricked, and lied to. They then will defend the fraud, even ignoring what they know in their heart is the truth, because they would rather convince themselves of the lie, then accept they were misled and deceived.

[apukjij]

hi all. im not Lakota, im Mi'kmaw, but i have some comments to share,
Momma the answer to your question is quite simple.
 the reason why it is controversial is simply because a decision was made to open up the Ceremonies. Now that the Elders have assessed the situations, the decision was made to close them back up,
 and unfort this means some of the most important of the Medicine Peoples have to change every thing they built up for the past years.

you stated in a previous thread the following statement:So , "it looks like this controversy developed when Ceremonies were opened up to urban Indians who were
involved in AIM and through this , Lakota ceremonies became introduced to a lot of Native and non native people in urban areas ."

i disagree very strongly

this "controversy" as you put it; resulted from the fact that Native Spirituality is absolutely incompatible with the western mindset.  the western people are conditioned to commodify their religion, it is inate and programmed at birth. After they became involved in Native Spirituality they began to commodify our Spiritualities. This thinking was like a disease and it affected some of our own Peoples
and the the Elders of the Lakota Nation  have simply decided its time to pull back the reins,
 and i posit, the strongest objections to this Proclamation will be from the ones who have the most to loose, for example the response that Tom and his kin made that u shared with us.

[Kevin]

It all boils down to non-Indians butting in on Indian business (ceremony). If there is some controversy over this amongst Indians, it's Indian business and not that of non-Indians. If non-Indians want to have a ceremony, they can put on their red chicken feathers, rent a piece of property adjoining a reservation and hop around all they want. If they hop high enough  and holler  and dance around enough, they will be able to convince themselves they are Indians.

[Moma_porcupine]

Hi Apukjij and welcome !

I think you are basicly right that it is non native peoples self important world veiws that create the problems. But I think part of the reason that world veiw exists , is because of the lack of a deeply rooted real connection with a community. Maybe the reason i see more of these problems amoungst indans living in urban areas is because these communities tend to have a lot more non native influences, through the community and intermarriage into the non native community. It just makes it easier for everything to get off track.

Recently I was also thinking that maybe the Lakota traditions get targeted more than some others because they existed in a mobile society so they seem to be more easily transported to another culture than some other indigenous ceremonies, like the Hopi or Anishnabi .  I'm not sure if this is a factor or not, but I guess when I started this thread I was wondering why the Lakota ways in particular seem so vulnerable to exploitation, and why exploiters get so outraged about being denied their imagined entitlements when they get told NO.

I think you are also right about that problem coming from the ceremomies being opened up. People participating forgot they were only doing so as  guests.