Navajo Congressman Proposes Ban on Ceremony Selling, Licensing Ceremonies

[educatedindian]

I have mixed feelings on this. While it's overdue for the law to do something, this could be so easily abused in so many ways.

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http://www.abc15.com/content/news/northernarizona/other/story/Navajo-lawmaker-Ceremonies-should-be-held-off/QHYrB3V54kiS74rabiN2yg.cspx
Navajo lawmaker: Ceremonies should be held off reservations

Last Update: 1/19 6:32 pm 

State Sen. Albert Hale, D-St. Michaels, speaks after a news conference at which he proposed regulating so-called Native American ceremonies held off reservations. Hale said fatalities at a sweat lodge ceremony in Sedona last year illustrate the need to certify that such ceremonies are safe (Cronkite News Service Photo by Ryan Van Velzer)
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By YVONNE GONZALEZ
Cronkite News Service

PHOENIX -- Regulating ceremonies that are advertised as traditional Native American would help prevent tragedies such as last year’s deaths at a Sedona retreat, a state lawmaker said Tuesday.

Sen. Albert Hale, D-St. Michaels, a member of the Navajo Nation, said the deaths of three people in a sweat lodge ceremony organized by self-help guru James Ray illustrates the need to make sure such rituals are conducted safely.

“That is not a traditional ceremony,” he said during a news conference to announce legislation calling for regulations. “He put these people’s lives in danger.”

Hale noted that Ray’s sweat lodge had 60 patrons in a plastic-covered room while hot rocks were brought in for two hours, while a traditional sweat lodge ceremony involves around eight people who enter and exit the structure several times.

Authorities have investigated Ray since the October deaths, but he hasn’t been charged. Ray has denied any wrongdoing.

Along with Reps. Christopher Deschene, D-St. Michaels, and Tom Chabin, D-Flagstaff, Hale said he will introduce a bill to ensure that the public isn’t misled into spending thousands of dollars on ceremonies falsely advertised as Native American. He said the legislation will propose that the Arizona Department of Health Services and the Arizona Commission of Indian Affairs create regulations that could include licensing of individuals to practice these ceremonies.

Asked whether the measure would hurt businesses that offer so-called Native American ceremonies off reservations, Hale said it make those businesses more credible, especially in light of the Sedona tragedy.

Chabin said regulations would “distinguish what is native and what is trying to capitalize off the brand of the Native American traditions.”

Deschene said that Navajo songs and prayers revitalize and rejuvenate.

“But if abused, the same power can also destroy, as evidenced by the loss of three lives,” Deschene said. “This bill seeks to find balance with that.”

Joe Shirley Jr., president of the Navajo Nation, said regulating ceremonies would respect his people’s sacred ways.

“For outsiders to come in and try to duplicate and try and do what we do on native lands, it’s not right,” Shirley said.

Hale said the legislation also would be a way to protect Native American rituals from being co-opted by outsiders.

“The dominant society has taken all that we have: our land, our water, our language,” Hale said. “And now they are trying to take our way of life. I think it has to stop.”

[Defend the Sacred]

On a Neopagan blog I've seen posts from people who, instead of realizing maybe they shouldn't have plastic sweats at their white-people gatherings, are just strategizing about how to work around it with lawyers.  Instead of taking to heart that stealing ceremonies is wrong, they're just talking about how to call the stolen ceremonies by non-NDN terms, and how to get better insurance so their asses are covered. The white people are planning on fighting it financially.

[critter - a white non-ndn person]

I guess those white people don't like the idea of their nuage modified made up ceremonies being stolen from them via the courts?  What goes around comes around..

[educatedindian]

For me the worry would be what if some Nuage sweat finds a way to weasel out of this using legalese. For example the Deer Tribe now claims to be doing intertribal ceremonies. And I could see a neopagan group claiming sweats were also done in Europe, and some not so well schooled judge agreeing. Then they'd have legal sanction.

Another way would be to simply get some less than ethical enrolled NDN to put his name to a Nuage sweat for the right price, and then the law, again, couldn't touch them.

[critter - a white non-ndn person]

I just think it needs to be against the law.  If you're reported for performing sweats or any other traditional ceremony (even altered) and cannot provide where/how you were trained in the right and correct way and where/how you have actual permission from the tribe to do these, then you get mega fined or put in jail for a year.