Author:
War Against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality
Date:1998
Annotation: A major objective of Native American activists has been to regain control over their cultural and intellectual property. They seek to control not simply of their land or natural resources, but their sacred objects, their artifacts, their artistic achievements, and the remains of their ancestors. Native American activists won a major victiory in this quest in 1990 when Congress passed the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act, which required publicly funded agencies and museums to return any human remains, funeral objects, and sacred artifacts of earlier Indian civilizations to their proper descendants.
In the following statement that was posted on the Internet in 1998, the Lakota decry the way that various cultural entrepreneurs have attempted to exploit and appropriate Native American cultural achievements.
Document:
Whereas we are the conveners of an ongoing series of comprehensive forums on the abuse and exploitation of Lakota spirituality; and
Whereas we represent the recognized traditional spiritual leaders, traditional elders, and grassroots advocates of the Lakota people; and
Whereas for too long we have suffered the unspeakable indignity of having our most precious Lakota ceremonies and spiritual practices desecrated, mocked and abused by non-Indian “wannabes,” hucksters, cultists, commercial profiteers and self-styled “New Age shamans” and their followers; and
Whereas with horror and outrage we see this disgraceful expropriation of our sacred Lakota traditions has reached epidemic proportions in urban areas throughout the country; and
Whereas our precious Sacred Pipe is being desecrated through the sale of pipestone pipes at flea markets, powwows, and “New Age”
Whereas pseudo-religious corporations have been formed to charge people money for admission into phony “sweat lodges” and “vision quest” programs; and
Whereas sacrilegious “sundances” for non-Indians are being conducted by charlatans and cult leaders who promote abominable and obscene imitations of our sacred Lakota sundance rites; and
Whereas non-Indians have organized themselves into imitation “tribes,” assigning themselves make-believe “Indian names” to facilitate their wholesale expropriation and commercialization of our Lakota traditions; and
Whereas academic disciplines have sprung up at colleges and universities institutionalizing the sacrilegious imitation of our spiritual practices by students and instructors under the guise of educational programs in “shamanism;” and
Whereas non-Indian charlatans and “wannabes” are selling books that promote the systematic colonization of our Lakota spirituality; and
Whereas the television and film industry continues to saturate the entertainment media with vulgar, sensationalist and grossly distorted representations of Lakota spirituality and culture which reinforce the public's negative stereotyping of Indian people and which gravely impair the self-esteem of our children; and
Whereas individuals and groups involved in “the New Age Movement,” in “the men's movement,” in “neo-paganism” cults and in “shamanism” workshops all have exploited the spiritual traditions of our Lakota people by imitating our ceremonial ways and by mixing such imitation rituals with non-Indian occult practices in an offensive and harmful pseudo-religious hodgepodge; and
Whereas the absurd public posturing of this scandalous assortment of pseudo-Indian charlatans, “wannabes,” commercial profiteers, cultists and “New Age shamans” comprises a momentous obstacle in the struggle of traditional Lakota people for an adequate public appraisal of the legitimate political, legal and spiritual needs of real Lakota people; and
Whereas this exponential exploitation of our Lakota spiritual traditions requires that we take immediate action to defend our most precious Lakota spirituality from further contamination, desecration and abuse;
Therefore we resolve as follows: