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Post by pellethie on Sept 29, 2012 5:51:00 GMT -6
Having an interest in the spiritual paths of others my cyber journeys led me to various other places where these plastic medicine people are quite popular. Some of these people claim to channel or be spiritually guided by NDN ancestors. They also look at all the many NDN people in a stereotypical manner.
For the most part at these 'moon bat' sites, native people are for the most part snubbed and even more so if one attempts to touch upon the truth.
Any thoughts ?
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Post by pellethie on Sept 29, 2012 10:41:04 GMT -6
It is not my intentions to touch upon such a controversial matter, or disrespect anyone’s personal beliefs, but having encountered plastic medicine people and their followers in the outside world as well as the internet has left me with mixed feelings.
My first real encounter with these people occurred back in 1997 at a Pagan festival a co-worker invited to. Being a social creature and not wanting to be amongst such a large gathering of strangers, I took along a few Indian friends and a few more non-NDN friends.
This festival took place at a large campground and upon arriving my party was directed away from the main encampment and made to camp upon a river bluff betwixt the Pagans and a large gathering of evangelical Christians who were camped on the other side of the campground. My friends and I could not figure out if we were to serve as buffers or if the Pagans segregated us for other reasons. We liked our location as it was the highest point of the whole campground. On the first night, we strolled down into the main encampment and were pretty much snubbed by the majority of these Pagans some of which were other co-workers of mine. Among the whole mix of them, there were several covens of Wicca people, and many of a new belief to us, the New Age people, one in fact claiming to have been spiritually adopted by my people the Shawnee. Meeting this character immediately sounded of bells and whistles as he didn’t even know of our mother creator, Kokumthena. Of course this new age guru had enough adoring moon eyed followers that anything truth I would have revealed would have been moot. Needless to say my friends and I spent the majority of our time up on the bluff.
Now my cyber travels have led me to other places where these new age shamans ply their craft. Many of them are Europeans claiming to channel our ancestors or else having these ancestors visit them in their dreams, or even claiming to have been NDN in a past life. These people seem to be only interested in the pretty and sparkly aspects of native cultures, mostly going on about vision quests, dream catchers and sweats, but probably could not tell the difference between a Choctaw and Comanche. To them it seems we all live in teepees, ride painted ponies and wear war bonnets. I’ve joined a few of these forums stating my heritage and touching upon the truth only to be snubbed, baited and demonized. So easy for them to do as I was the only Indian there.
Having had run-ins with White Eagle Medicine Woman, Lynn Andrews, Keisah Crowther, Rolling Thunder and Brooke Medicine Eagle along with their followers, I was also surprised experiencing a new phenomena, people claiming to be against the new age plastic shamans claiming to be mostly of Celtic ancestry, but having a small amount of NDN heritage. Nothing wrong with having allies, but I can think of one of these people who is no better than a new age plastic shaman who has duped people both NDN and white. At one place this person claims to be a small amount Cherokee, where at another, it’s a small amount Haudenosaunee, usually Seneca. Any real NDNs who question her ethics are quickly demonized by these people or else we're ran off by this person who to me thinks like Crowther and the others she is a great white chief of NDN people. or her fake Apache friend. Oddly enough like the new age plastic medicine people, this person has spiritual books for sale as well. I wonder if this is a way of eliminating the other new age plastic shaman competition?
For so long we have been played by Europeans in these devious ways.
There are NDNs who are openly contesting these new age plastic shamans.
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Post by Lone4eagle on Sept 29, 2012 15:14:30 GMT -6
We had some plastic shaman discussions by NAC staff in our private staff board. It's ok to bring it out now to the public boards. The NA religion has become quite attractive to all sorts of New Age and pagan groups. They feel it is their right to choose any type of religious path to follow which works for them.
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Post by Lone4eagle on Sept 30, 2012 18:22:41 GMT -6
Having an interest in the spiritual paths of others my cyber journeys led me to various other places where these plastic medicine people are quite popular. Some of these people claim to channel or be spiritually guided by NDN ancestors. They also look at all the many NDN people in a stereotypical manner. For the most part at these 'moon bat' sites, native people are for the most part snubbed and even more so if one attempts to touch upon the truth. Any thoughts ? A few years back, I spent time looking at some sites. Just type in "totem" to search and your browser will fill up with endless results. You see shopping cart buttons some of them. Add to cart, telephone call for totem info (your personal totem animal) certain amount of minutes, maybe it was 30-35 just don't recall exactly. Then another add-to-cart button if you want a card reading from the "Totem" card deck. It seems "totem" is the keyword they throw around that brings them $$$$$. Another had animal info taken from a book, permission had been granted from a friend who is the author, to put all the contents online and is very copyrighted material. Some explanations I really liked, many though you can tell had absolutely no NA tradition or association of text attached. Got to section on insects, lizards were in there, not the reptile list. You would think they would know the difference, unless it was accidently put in the insect list by the site owner or a book misprint. But wouldn't surprise me a bit if some plastic shamans really don't know the difference.
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Post by pellethie on Oct 14, 2012 10:56:37 GMT -6
We had some plastic shaman discussions by NAC staff in our private staff board. It's ok to bring it out now to the public boards. The NA religion has become quite attractive to all sorts of New Age and pagan groups. They feel it is their right to choose any type of religious path to follow which works for them. It is quite amusing some of these new age moonbats are competing with each other to sell their books and weekend rituals. It makes me howl with laughter to see that some are coming off as protectors of NDN people.
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Post by Lone4eagle on Oct 14, 2012 14:27:55 GMT -6
We had some plastic shaman discussions by NAC staff in our private staff board. It's ok to bring it out now to the public boards. The NA religion has become quite attractive to all sorts of New Age and pagan groups. They feel it is their right to choose any type of religious path to follow which works for them. It is quite amusing some of these new age moonbats are competing with each other to sell their books and weekend rituals. It makes me howl with laughter to see that some are coming off as protectors of NDN people. I know what you're saying, the eclectic shaman these days would like to appear to be of great importance. Huh.....I was just searching for information on an old NA village used to be near my home. They were supposed to have met with Chief Tecumseh down in a field at Peru Indiana (Miami county) for the war of 1812. Anyway, found something interesting about Elkhart county where I live. This is according to Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elkhart,_Indiana "Although clearly a name of German or Germanic origin, the etymology of the city's name is disputed. One source argues that the city's Island Park looks like an elk's heart.[6] Another source claims that the origin of the city's name was the Shawnee Indian Chief Elkhart, cousin of the famous Chief Tecumseh, and the father of Princess Mishawaka, the namesake of neighboring Mishawaka"
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Post by dnorris1 on Oct 18, 2012 16:18:47 GMT -6
pellethie, I agree . When i first started looking for info dealing with my G grandfathers ways,, I ran into some claiming to know alot about Native american ways. Later i found out they were very far from the truth. In fact they kept wanting money to help connect me spiritually to my ancestors. My advice to everyone, be very careful.
DHN
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Post by pellethie on Oct 19, 2012 17:16:47 GMT -6
They can take nothing from me. All I have for them is a rough way to go.
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Post by dnorris1 on Oct 20, 2012 12:58:32 GMT -6
That is very true
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Post by pellethie on Oct 21, 2012 8:06:16 GMT -6
pellethie, I agree . When i first started looking for info dealing with my G grandfathers ways,, I ran into some claiming to know alot about Native american ways. Later i found out they were very far from the truth. In fact they kept wanting money to help connect me spiritually to my ancestors. My advice to everyone, be very careful. DHN It's quite amusing when some Englishmakee across the pond goes on about knowing more concerning our ancestor spirits than we NDNs do.
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Post by Lone4eagle on Oct 28, 2012 16:29:49 GMT -6
I was looking at the CNO info on connecting with a Cherokee medicine man. First of all, they are prohibited to advertise or make themselves known using other methods. Seems to me that "by other ways" would definitely include having a website to promote yourself as a shaman.
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