Some fear sweat lodge tragedy’s effect in Oklahoma
‘This is part of our religion’
BY RON JACKSON
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Published: November 2, 2009
On Oct. 8, 55 people seeking spiritual enlightenment were crammed into a makeshift sweat lodge in Sedona, Ariz., under the guidance of James Arthur Ray, a nationally renowned self-help guru. Witnesses claim Ray intimidated and coerced participants to remain in the steamy sweat lodge for two hours. Twenty-one people were rushed to hospitals. Three died. Word of the tragedy sent shockwaves to Oklahoma — the home of many sacred sweat lodge ceremonies.
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Is there a physical benefit?
Dr. Brendon McCollom, a Mercy Northwest Family Clinic physician who specializes in sports medicine, said the Sedona, Ariz., sweat lodge participants showed blatant "signs of heat exhaustion.”
"Physically, there was no benefit to what they were doing,” McCollom said. "You might initially lose weight in water, but not fat.”
McCollom warns that anyone with a chronic medical condition such as heart or kidney disease should avoid saunas and sweat lodges.
Ron Jackson, Staff Writer
Wrongful death suit filed in case
The first two lawsuits in what could be a flurry of legal actions stemming from a deadly sweat lodge ceremony led by author and motivational speaker James Arthur Ray were filed Friday in Arizona. One wrongful death suit came from the family of one of the three people who died after the Oct. 8 ceremony. A southern Arizona woman who was badly hurt also filed suit. Ray is accused of negligence, fraud and other actions along with the owners of the Angel Valley Retreat Center, and other defendants. A call seeking comment from Ray’s attorney wasn’t immediately returned.
Amayra Hamilton, who owns Angel Valley with her husband, said there was nothing wrong with the lodge itself. and her center had no part in how Ray ran the ceremony.
The three deaths and hospitalization of 18 other participants came at the end of a five-day Ray-led "Spiritual Warrior” program.
Associated press
WATONGA —
Eugene Blackbear, leaning on a wooden walking cane, takes a seat not far from the family’s sacred sweat lodge on a small acreage south of Watonga. His son-in-law,
Malcolm Whitebird, stokes the flames of a bonfire built around a pyramid of stones.
Once the stones turn a glowing red they will be placed inside the lodge, where Blackbear’s grandsons have draped a heavy canvas over a dome-like frame made of tree branches. The stones will then be sprinkled with water, and the sweat will begin.
Blackbear, 79, is in his element.
The
Cheyenne medicine man is encircled by family, friends and the traditional ways of his grandfather’s grandfathers. Life is good. Yet on this day, his heart is heavy over the
Arizona tragedy.
"I pray for the families of those victims,” said Blackbear, speaking above a howling wind. "What happened there is not right. I don’t like it at all. Whoever conducted that sweat obviously didn’t know what they were doing. You don’t charge money for a sweat. That is something holy. You don’t mess with those types of things.
"There was a reason this happened. We just don’t know the reason yet.”
James Arthur Ray, who built a financial empire from his motivational books and lectures, charged clients $9,000 to attend a five-day "Spiritual Warrior” retreat. The package included a "vision quest” in which participants reportedly fasted in the Arizona desert for 36 straight hours, followed by a two-hour sweat lodge ceremony loosely based on ancient American Indian practices.
On Thursday, Ray announced on his Web site that he has postponed all future events to "dedicate all my physical and emotional energies to helping bring some sort of closure to this matter.”
A criminal investigation is pending.
Blackbear fears the fallout might have major ramifications if people don’t understand how – or why – real Indian sweat lodge ceremonies are conducted. Sweats are performed in various forms by different tribes nationwide, including the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche and Sioux.
"This is part of our religion,” Blackbear said. "We don’t want someone coming in here and making new laws, restricting our sweat lodge. You don’t have to burn someone out in a sweat, or keep them from leaving. That’s not right. A sweat is about prayer and healing.”
Whitebird said Indians who charge for sweat lodge ceremonies are generally regarded as "sellouts.” Non-Indians who do the same: "Frauds.”
Sedona Blackbear, Eugene’s daughter-in-law, is compassionate and blunt.
"It’s offensive to us,” she said. "It’s offensive that they didn’t know how to use it and it hurt those poor people. We just need to pray for those families.”
Sedona and her husband, Ralph, have hosted sweat lodge ceremonies for years on their rural property. A deeply worn footpath between the bonfire pit and the sweat lodge bear witness to their spiritual dedication, as well their hospitality and commitment to the traditional ways of their people.
In the Cheyenne tribe, the sweat lodge – like the annual Sundance and Sacred Arrows ceremonies – were brought by a legendary holy man known as Sweet Medicine. Cheyenne legend states that Sweet Medicine lived to 445 years of age, and traveled the sacred
Black Hills of
South Dakota before his death.
There, Sweet Medicine is led to the most sacred site in Bear Butte – a tipi-like mountain that rises from the prairie. Somewhere on Bear Butte, Sweet Medicine entered a secret cave where great spirits awaited his arrival. They entrusted in him the spiritual and social foundation for the Cheyenne, including how to run a sweat lodge ceremony.
Today, Bear Butte is the destination for countless vision quests. The elder Blackbear himself has engaged in 16 such journeys and has participated in four Sundances dating to 1948. Before that, he watched his elders and carefully observed their ways.
"As a child, they used to put me in charge of opening and shutting the sweat lodge doors,” Blackbear said. "We had one on the east and one on the west in those days. If a buffalo skull had been placed in front of the lodge, I knew that meant powerful medicine.
"Today, we will do what we call a ‘Young Man’s Sweat.’ But every sweat should be done with a special purpose – a homecoming; or if someone is leaving; or if someone is sick.”
‘The sweat’
Inside the lodge, 11 people sit in a circle around a pit filled with glowing red rocks. They quietly await the arrival of the elder Blackbear, who enters the lodge with his walking cane and escorted by his children and grandchildren. His seat is one of honor as medicine man and family elder, and one not easily obtained.
From Blackbear’s hand dangles a leather pouch filled with shavings of cedar and sweet grass – sacred ingredients that will be sprinkled atop the scalding stones throughout the four 15-minute sessions. Blackbear calls for the entryway to be closed and the stones to be sprinkled with water from one of the metal buckets inside the lodge.
Hot steam quickly fills the lodge, pasting one’s body almost instantly with a layer or moisture.
One by one the participants offer thanks for the many blessings in their lives and prayers for those near and far. Traditional Cheyenne prayer songs soon emanate from the lodge, lending the ceremony a rhythmic beauty.
Blackbear, whom his family affectionately refers to as "Old Man,” prays in his Cheyenne language – one of relatively few in the tribe who can still speak it fluently.
Afterward, the group celebrates in typical Cheyenne fashion with a feast of Indian fry bread, brisket, stew and love.
"My time here is almost through,” Blackbear said. "I know my time to die is near. I’m not afraid of dying. I’m afraid of what I will leave behind – my family. I’m just glad they have followed in all the traditional ways I have taught them; the ancient ways of our people.
"In that, I am happy. For this is our way of life.”
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He just said Cherokee do not need to build Cherokee Casinos because he cant get A kickback from them.
I will be happy when the FBI get him in jail so he can sweat under bubba.
He was gona sell um and split it with his 2 wives.
But the Texans ended his trip down here he is gone and will never touch the Cotton Bowl again.
Old 2wife and hiz fake Cherokeez and his fake Teez put A Curse on old Bradford.
Too bad he ever touched hiz shoulder.
I'm good thanks. If these guys want to go on a vision quest they need to get some peyote and do it the old fashioned way.
First you went in the hot sauna with A ice cold towel on your head for 20 minutes then you entered the green mineral water bath for 30 minutes.
You took A shower and then you got A rubdown with alcohol.
Now as far as those Fake Indians in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma just look at the Council and the 2wife Chief Chad Smith and his head of Business Brad Carson.
I call them the full of Ikshie Tribe of the Non Cherokee.
What get's me is non of them can even speak Cherokee.
Osti Gon Chooch
Such savants deserve every bit of "judgment" that decent people dole out to them: they acted foolishly, recklessly, dangerously, all in order to assuage some trendy craving to "belong," and paid the price accordingly - just like the cult followers of Jim Jones and David Koresh. If pointing that out is "judgment," so be it.
Plastic Shamens, white who charge, white who try - do not understand. They see dollar signs. That is the tradgey of this arizona thing. My heart goes to the families who lost.
Your logic both frightens and nauseates me. You happily look to Darwinian theory to explain away this tragedy? And automatically label the people who died as liberal/progressive, as if Conservatives wouldn't do something like this? What about the lemmings who live and breathe for every word that comes out of Limbaugh's/Hannity's/Beck's mouths.
I am what you so sneeringly deride as "liberal/progressive" and I have participated in several sweat lodges. During each one, when I needed to leave because it was getting too intense, I LEFT. I've NEVER paid for a sweat - at most, I contributed to the pot luck dinner that took place after the sweat. These people didn't die because of their political affiliations - come on, does that even make sense? They died because they were foolish enough to trust someone who didn't know how to run a sweat lodge. They didn't do their homework, and were ignorant to the facts of how a sweat lodge should be run (including the fact that they should never have to pay for it). There's nothing Darwinian or political in that.
But your harsh comments are not to be believed. "Hard to find a downside to that outcome"? Are you kidding me? Or, fan of Darwin that you are, do you represent the next level of the evolved human - one without a heart, and full of judgment?
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=20080802_16_A1_spancl454650
The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma Inc was formed in 1975 by Ross O Swimmer while the UKB or the Real Cherokee Nation was formed back in 1934.
The Chief of the CNO Inc. is Chad 2wife Smith A man who many think is not Cherokee at all but A Mexican Chad refuses to show his Birth Certifict.
He can not speak Cherokee and like all of those who work for Cherokee Nation Business are non Cherokee?
So how did A 1975 Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma Inc. become the Cherokee Nation?
The CNO just changed the name is all they took off the Oklahoma.
The head of the BIA even told them so.
I think if anyone wants to look at fake Indians just look at the CNO.
Now the UKB Cherokee have A Law that you have to be 1/4 Cherokee to be A member.
The Creek Nation Law is you have to be 1/4 Creek to serve on the Council or be Chief.
The CNO sold all the Land from Muskogee too Arkansas and guess who got paid first Ross Swimmer?
Chad 2 wife Smith is working for Ross and had made his brother in Houston rich along with Wilma Mankiller who works for Kyle Smith Chad's first hire. Wilma in turn worked for Ross Swimmer?
Chad 2wife bought Millions in stock for A Company called Global Energy Group A Pump and Dump deal.
Now Chad made himself A fund while in office so he can spend 2 Million A year of the Cherokees Cash?
Now Chad wants A Law passed in the CNO Inc. Charter so he can be Chief for life.
So you dont have to look far to find Fake Indian Tribes in Oklahoma.
The CNO Inc. is one of the biggest masquerading as the Cherokee Nation.
But the Real Cherokee know they are fake just ask the UKB Cherokee.