From ENAF, reports about him selling ceremony in Belgium and the south of France.
First one, name withheld.
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Hello there,
I am writing you in the hope that your email address is still ? operational and that you will be able to put me in touch with the ? people that could help me.
I am a... French white woman and I am desperately trying to ? shut down a series of ceremonial abuse here in Europe.
You might want to know that not all white people are ignorant of the ? current issues faced with these abuse. Some of us are actually siding ? with the Native organizations and agree with the fact that it should ? be time for treaties to be finally honored and that some people need to realize that by using in the wrong way certain specific ceremonies, they are putting in danger a lot of things and not only
the cultural remains of what used to be a flourishing civilization.
I have the details of a Sundance being held in the South France soon ? and one of the person belonging to this committee is a Pine Ridge Lakota Sioux. The rest are french ethnologists using the actual dance
as a mean to achieve some sort of understanding of the ceremonies.
It is open to all, there is no preparation, no spiritual follow-up, ? anyone can join with the fast and the dance.I know that not everyone is called to dance and a preparation for months before hand should
take place with an entourage of Elders. These people are truly out of their league and putting ignorant and innocent people in danger. It needs to be stopped. It is not the first Sundance being held in South
France which unfortunately hosts a series of wannabee camps and powwows each summer. But it is the first one being advertised online.
It has been done on a site reknown to host a series of wannabees and plastic shamans advertising for camps, ceremonies and recruitments all over the European continents but primarily in France. I can give
you the details if you need it.
I have spoken once to Sally Higgins (Wambli Sina Win) who represents the Natives tribes in Geneva, about the following but unfortunately there was little she could do about this situation. Although I am
extremely worried about the scale of this ,as it gets worse every year:
In Belgium about 2 years ago, some Native friends and I were trying to stop a Belgian Plastic Shaman called Alain Parotte. This guy is as white as it comes and first claimed to be the son of a Hunkpapa WWII
soldier that got his mother pregnant has he passed through Belgium with his troop. Now he claims he is "only" from an ancestral origin of the Rosebud Hunkpapa tribe. Still, he is a pipe carrier for this
tribe and he is, like his grandfather (oh, I thought he was only from ancestral origin a descendant of the Hunkapapa tribe??!) a great medicine man. As a matter of fact when he was in Belgium he was
organizing ceremonies on the graves of the ndn WWII soldiers and we managed to scare him enough to make him move to France. Unfortunately for him, he moved near my hometown in the French Alps. If I can, I will try to stop what is has started there. Now, he runs inipis ? teaching classes in paying seminaries under the name of Shunka (Sunka), sells Tipis, and recruits members for what has become a Cult called Iyuptala. I ran into one of his worshipper one day, and she tried to recruit me not knowing that she was actually giving me all his recent activities, phone number/email address. He is very
dangerous because he seems to brain wash people in believing that he is a very powerful man. They won't go against him in fear of some reprisals and he is starting to be very well known as even some
childhood friends of mine, who are by the way, not necessarily interested in Native Culture heard of him in my home town.
Someone needs to knock on his door and let him know that he is violating the culture he says loving and respecting. I cannot do that. I am white. He will not take me seriously.Besides I have no rights, I do not belong to a society of any kind and therefore do not possess the authority to do so.
This is why I am contacting you. I need to pass this onto higher authorities. I have in the past talked with Kathy Reagan who worked with Bernard Red Cherries. But she did not do anything about it.
If no-one listens and help us help them, they cannot then claim that white people (wannabees, New Age) are the new Custer of this era and that something needs to be done to repair the damages. Because some of us are trying to maintain some decency and close down some of the abusers and plastic shamans workshops, but if you do not want to know, you cannot blame us for the consequences of their abuse.
I hope you can understand my motives and the fact that...I am only trying to abolish the misuse of certain things and promote the understanding of the
reality of Native Issues in Europe.
The real enemy is ignorance.
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He does not seem to have much of an internet presence. There is a site
from Belgium, though:
www.inforviesaine.be/dison/article%205.htmlThere is a short c.v. in which A.P. is - quite contrary to what he seems to be telling people in France - said to have had a Sioux father and a Belgian mother. His father arrived in Belgium with the US army
in 1944, and returned in 1952, and Alain was born on May 5, 1955.
[As an aside: 5/5/55 - I wonder if it is the correct date....]
The article continues and mentions that A.P. went to Rosebud at the age of 20 in 1975. Translated: "After being welcomed in a formidable way by his distant cousins, he decided to come back every 5 years if possible". [He seems to have something about the figure 5] Upon returning, he also decided to inform the public re ndn living conditions.
With seven 'demi-sangs' and about 50 'Indianists' [I don't know what the French term 'indianist' means exactly] from "our region", he founded the YUPTALA organisation. Yuptala is said to mean
"big/extended family" in Sioux [I thought that was a tiospaye?]
A.P. organizes marriage banquets with ndn cuisine where food gets served by people in traditional costumes.
His name produced another entry:
www.peuples.org/wpp/assoc-fiche.php3?id=8but I couldn't find him there.
Ingeborg
