QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them
all yourself."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt
Rhino here:
Sad news here in California last week when two people died while
participating in a new age type sweat ceremony. The investigation is ongoing
looking at if there were any toxic ingredients which may have contributed.
If not it would seem the cause was non-Indian people messing with Indian
sacred ceremonies and not knowing what they were doing. That in addition to
passing money across those ceremonies. This has been a long standing issue
for many Indian people who believe their ceremonies should not be
commandered nor altered by non-Indians, and especially that no one should be
paying for or charging for them.
TO SEE THE ENTIRE ARTICLE GO TO:
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/3351027p-4378848c.html
Deaths Raise Questions About Spiritual Quests
By Peter Hecht -- Sacramento Bee Staff Writer, June 26, 2002
...In the dark, wee hours, four people entered a makeshift "sweat lodge"
fashioned with a wood frame and made nearly air-tight with blankets and
plastic sheeting. In the cleansing ceremony to prepare for their vision
quest in the wilderness, they gathered around heated rocks and chanted while
breathing vapors of herbs and water poured over the stones.
After hours of heat and little ventilation, authorities say, one man and one
woman managed to crawl out of the sweat lodge nauseous and nearly overcome.
But two others inside -- Kirsten Dana Babcock, 34, of Redding and David
Thomas Hawker, 36, of Union City -- stopped chanting and fell silent. Soon
one of the other vision quest participants called 9-1-1. "They said somebody
was having cardiac arrest or heart problems," said El Dorado County
Sheriff's Lt. Kevin House. Emergency workers arrived to find Babcock and
Hawker unresponsive, House said, and called for sheriff's deputies "because
it seemed a little too bizarre to them."
Authorities say the incident appears to be a terrible accident -- not a
crime. But the deaths in El Dorado County have stirred concerns and called
into question ceremonies employed by a growing number of wilderness and
spiritualist groups that bring people into isolated settings for reflective
encounters in nature.
On Tuesday, House said autopsy results were inconclusive as to what killed
Babcock and Hawker. Authorities have speculated that the sweat lodge may
have been too hot or poorly ventilated, or that herbs used in the cleansing
ceremony may have emitted toxic fumes.
"It's a critical issue as to whether anything foreign was introduced," said
House, who said toxicology tests may take eight weeks to complete. "The
actual cause of death is yet to be determined."
House said a local group known as Kokopelli Ranch sponsored the gathering.
None of the members, who had ventured onto property owned by the Sierra
Pacific Industries logging company for their ritual, could be reached for
comment. But House and others say the group is one of the increasingly
popular vision quest organizations now operating in the United States and
Canada.
Many of the groups borrow from centuries-old American Indian traditions --
such as the sweat lodge cleansing ritual -- to help city dwellers and
suburbanites deal with their lives' passages and the stresses, the triumphs
and heartbreaks of the contemporary world.
But some of the groups shun the sweat lodge ritual, saying it may be
inappropriate for non-Indians to borrow their customs. And some American
Indians who revel in the sweat lodge traditions say they may not be a good
idea for those who don't know how to do them safely...
TO SEE THE ENTIRE ARTICLE GO TO:
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/3351027p-4378848c.html
Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright
law ( http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html ).
All copyrights belong to original publisher.
Rhino's Weblog is the responsibility of The Rhino.
Gary Rhine
rhino@kifaru.com
http://www.kifaru.com
http://www.dreamcatchers.org
http://radio.weblogs.com/0103207/
“If we don’t change direction, we’re gonna wind up where we’re
headin’.”
Reuben A. Snake Jr. (Winnebago)
11:29:34 AM
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