Sweating Sacrilege

The Salty Droid is fucking HUGE with the Native American Shaman / Asian Monk type demographic :: everyone who is anyone in the world of ancient mysticism is reading/channeling this blog. Okay :: maybe not :: but at least a couple of them are … it’s called street cred … and I’ve got some. Great comment last week about the Death Ray situation from @InjunSamarai reflecting this perspective. I chatted him up some this week to make sure he wasn’t just bullshitting us {because there are one or two bullshitters around here} :: but he seems like an interesting dude with something to say on this topic. Sweet!

Not everyone likes to read the comments :: special thanks to all the trolls and nut-jobs :: so here’s a reprint of @InjunSamarai’s useful contribution. {It’s been slightly shortened … and I’ve removed all the bits about how awesome I am … because we’re all well aware of that fact. The original comment is here.}

Having apprenticed to a master shaman for over 20 years and having hosted over 120 traditional sweat lodges and countless informal ones, for over 1,200 guests WITH NO INCIDENT I do have some light to shed.

First: A little background – James Ray hosts a modified Lakota Lodge – “White Style” and is considered by many of us the same as a person who wore blackface in the 50’s… He is a mockery, an abuser, and a charlatan. So much so that any tribal person associated with him is considered an outcast… – ostracized back to the casino…

Second: Money has no place in our culture (that whole nonsense about us using beads for money is something the whites ascribed to us because they couldn’t understand our paradigms of non-ownership). …ideas of ownership don’t even merit discussion… – money has no place in our culture.

But beyond that – Exchange, barter, trade have no place in a sweat lodge ceremony – traditional or informal… You wanna contribute, bring some wood… Show up early, help set the lodge… Money is an insult here…

The hosts: A sweat lodge is hosted by two people, plus apprentices. The Water Pourer and the Fire Keeper. Here’s how this works…

The Water Pourer lays the lodge – ALWAYS – this means they pick the branches, decide the exact orientation, and oversee the building of the lodge – ALWAYS – this is their responsibility. Most Water Pourers won’t conduct a sweat in lodge someone else built, unless in special circumstances the builder ‘invites’ them to do so. You can’t pay to use someone elses lodge, that’s absurdity.

Next – the FireKeeper picks the wood, and lays out stones (called: elders, ancient ones, grandfathers, etc… it’s not about the name, it’s about respect for the anceints) for approval. Having kept fire for so many years I can tell you this: FINDING, PICKING, and PRESENTING stones is skill which takes years to learn. It is not to be taken lightly, or else people can get hurt, and it is the responsibility of the fire keeper that the stones don’t hurt people…

But it is the responsibility of the Water Pourer to pick the stones after they have been presented… Make sense? For a lodge like the one this guy hosted, you’d need to heat about 100-150 stones… That’s a lot, way too many. Usually 30-35 is the most a good fire keeper can manage, unless you cycle the stones back into the fire or build multiple pits… The reason for this is that in order to heat that many stones you need a fire so big you wouldn’t be able to get close enough to it get the stones out, plus you’d need to present over 200 stones for the Water Pourer to inspect… At just 10 pounds per stones (10 pounds is small), you’d be presenting over a tons of stones for inspection…

The time involved to would take hours even days for the Water Pourer just to Inspect them all… It’s somewhat absurd. Even thirty stones can take a few hours to lay out and inspect each one…

Why?

You see, good stones are special… Preferably twice heated wind blown granite removed without stirring life… Meaning, you need to hike around, find really dense granite in 5-20 pound chunks with no critters living on, under, or in it. It should be sunbaked and windblown. Then you need to bake it once or twice before it enters a lodge with people in it… Why?

Well I tell you, a good fire gets those stones glowing, red hot… It’s a very cool effect when the red glow of the stones lights that dark lodge up, but that red hot stone is going to get banged around nomatter how hard you try to set it down gently, it’s going to get jostled and dropped, and then splashed with water… So before they are ever presented, we heat them red hot, then smack them into other stones, don’t confuse irreverence with roughness. You need to be rough with those stones days before the people arrive… This takes a lot of time… For a lodge this absurdly big it would take weeks just to get the stones ready… Months to gather them…

Ever seen a red hot stone explode? It’s pretty cool… Much more violent then you might expect… I’ve seen stones blow so hard that they send flaming logs flying out of the fire pit! Better if that occurs without guests around, eh?

Anyways, when you present the stones to the Water Pourer, it means they are all tested and approved, the Water Pourer just picks the best of the best… Imagine trying to prepare over a ton of stones! It can take hours to find even one stone, then hours more to pack it back to the lodge site…

Why is this so important? Well, sunbaked granite is just one of the types of stone we use, there are others but those are the ones we look for most, this process insures the stones are safe and free from toxins… Sulfurs, arsenic, asbestos and other sciencey named stuff I know nothing about, I just know : : : “That stone ain’t right – and – this one is” How do I know a good stone? Because you have to apprentice for years just to tend the fire, years and years more before you pour the water – A fifty year old water pourer is young, not unheard of, but young nonetheless… I know because the elders (the humans ones) taught me how to spot the bad ones, I know because 1,200 people survived lodges I tended fire for without anyone ever even fainting or getting sick…

We can spot the bad stones because we were taught to spot them, not because we send them to labs for approval… Traditional means handed down generation after generation, if someone skips the apprenticeship, it’s not good… You can’t fake this stuff… People’s lives are on the line…

Okay, I go on: The fire keeper is responsible for the wood, the fire, and presenting the stones, heating the stones, and bringing them into the lodge… The wood is a whole ‘nother thing, lots of special stuff goes into it and the making of the fire… It’s a special kind of fire that is built in a special way to force the heat downward into the stones instead of upwards into the sky… It’s a really big hot fire, and it’s actually pretty dangerous because you have to get deep into the center of it to get the stones out… The whole thing is dangerous, not to be taken lightly… But that’s outside the lodge, the people in the lodge are kept far from the dangerous parts… Seriously, a well built fire is easily as hot as any smithies.

But that’s the fire keepers job, and it takes years to learn to do it well – The Water Pourer is responsible for everything else. The Water Pourer is 100% responsible for the lives of all the people in the lodge (even responsible for the fire keepers’)

The fire keeper has to do so much, because the Water Pourer needs to be able to keep the people safe, to focus on the people.

The sweat lodge isn’t about death, you’re not really supposed to go die there. You can die where ever you want, no problem – but for the most part we all agree not to die in the sweat lodge… The Water Pourer and the Fire Keepers won’t let you get too close to death there, that’s part of their job…

You see, sweating is part of our culture, people love the big mystical traditional Lakota sacred sweat, and that’s fine. But for us, we sweat all the time, it’s how we deal with the heat of the dessert summers. Some people use air conditioning, we just spend the mornings and evenings in 160-180 degree sweat lodge and then the 110 degree days feel cool all day… It’s not always such a big ritual, it’s just a normal part of life…

It’s something safe, normal, relaxing, and fun… It’s something we do all the time and by following a few basic guidelines injury’s are really rare…

This person James Ray has done something very bad here, and is now making it even worse.

Okay, so here a few basic traditional guidelines and how this person “James Ray” went against all of them – While claiming to be the keeper of the tradition:

1. A lodge has 10-16 participants (>16 is a tremendous amount of people to watch out for, more than 20 at one time would be “sacrilegious”) 20 is considered a “huge” amount of people

2. Money, barter, exchange of anything other than work and physical contribution is strictly forbidden “Sacrilegious” (pretty much a standing rule for all the North American Tribes regrading sweats) – sort of like charging a guest in your house to use the bathroom…

3. Synthetic Materials are somewhat “Sacrilegious” (standing in stark contrast to the ancient quality of the elders) – but sometimes private lodges are covered with tarps when not in use if the people don’t want to put the stuff away… So it’s sort of mixed bag… I never heard of anyone having tarps on a lodge while it was being used though…

4. The Water Pourer Not Building or overseeing the lodge being built, also once again “Sacrilegious” – building the lodge is the privilege of the Water Pourer, it’s something someone earns after years of doing it, it’s considered an honor.

5. Dieing in the or around the lodge somewhat “Sacrilegious” (always considered the responsibility of the Water Pourer to make sure no one dies) – these people died we don’t want them to feel like they committed sacrilege. They died in good faith trusting their Water Pourer and Fire Keeper. It’s the Water Pourer and Fire Keeper who are responsible.

Note: It really doesn’t mater what the courts say, it is the responsibility of the Water Pourer to keep the lodge. No one else can be at fault. The Water Pourer is the person 100% responsible for everything that happens in and around that lodge, that’s just how it is. No inspection or evidence required: “Who’s the Water Pourer?” that’s all you need to know… The Water Pourer is responsible for everything that happens there.

1. Not inspecting the Stones before heating them, “Sacrilegious”

2. Using stones someone else gathered without them being present: “Sacrilegious”

3. Not letting people open the back of the lodge: “Sacrilegious” <– this is an interesting point here because Mr. Ray said opening the lodge is sacrilege, but the truth is “Preventing people from opening the lodge is sacrilege” the lodges are designed to be opened by anyone, at any spot, at any time.

4. Not gathering, preparing, or even inspecting the wood “Sacrilegious” Can this guy even distinguish Cedar from Pine?

These are simple basic things and this guy has broken almost every normal guideline of a powerful ancient tradition, while simultaneously telling those who followed normal practices they were being Sacrilegious…

What I offer here is this: If a person impersonated a doctor and people died because of what they did, that would be homicide and thus subject to the death penalty. This is no different, this man clearly had no idea about our traditions, impersonated someone who did, and killed people in the process by breaking nearly every safegaurd we normally use…

Worse than negligent, he was impersonating a Sacred Water Pourer and people died under his care, this matter should be subject to death penalty. it is identical in every way to a person impersonating a doctor.

Finally: The Samurai Way… I understand that Mr. Ray combines cultures into a Modern American Hyrbid focused on being OUT OF BALANCE.

According to Samurai tradition, this makes every person in that lodge his Patron. According to those same Samurai traditions: it is the duty, honor, and sole responsibility of the Samurai to protect his patron.

Having failed in his sacred duty and stood idly by as his patrons died, there is one and only one way to restore his family name. He must publicly, and personally commit seppuku… His statement that he is a master of the Bushido tradition necessitates this. Sadly, it is the only ethical solution.

The courts will need someone to blame in order to exonerate him, so already his council has decided on the targeted scapegoat, “The Native American People and their traditions are to Blame”… So as this O.J.’s out, at least the readers of the Droid can reflect back on this entry and remember “James Ray has absolutely nothing to do with Native American or Samurai Traditions in any way.” No matter what the courts decide.

Nice :: Seppuku FTW!

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