CAORANN

Indian at Heart

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:11:40 GMT

Indian at heart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9Tk0asdWoI

Seneca Man speaks out against Rachel Holzwarth

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 06:59:41 GMT

Rachel Holzwarth
There are lots of frauds out there - spiritual leaders who are using aspects of Native American ceremonies, against the wishes of those in the very communities they are stealing from. In the Gaelic and CR communities we are dealing with this when some white person decides they will justify their theft by calling it "Celtic", and hoping people are stupid enough to not know that the ceremonies and beliefs of the diverse Celtic Nations are different from those of the various First Nations. While some settle for the ugliness of painting a triskele on a fake Indian drum and doing their idea of a chanupa (pipe) ceremony, the really shameless have even gone so far as to publicly tack a mis-applied Gaelic (or other Celtic) name on their idea of an Inipi or smudging ceremony, stupidly thinking that no one out there who is actually part of these cultures will notice. Though not always confronted in public, these people are being laughed at by those who speak the languages (Native American and Celtic languages).

Sometimes the theft gets so egregious that the laughter turns to anger, and people rise up and go public with it, despite the fact that many of these frauds have a number of Newage supporters. This has been happening more and more lately, and as Native American protesters and their supporters are getting more organized, the trend is going to continue. A recent example of this is the movement against Rachel Holzwarth, aka Suraj Holzwarth (sometimes her last name has also been spelled Holzworth). She has renamed herself "White Eagle Medicine Woman", despite these being titles one has to earn, from communities she has no legitimate connection to. She is traveling around, selling "prayerformances", at which she wears Indian regalia and claims to present a Seneca ceremony. She is not Seneca. This is what an actual Seneca has to say about it:

For more on Holzwarth, check out the very long and detailed thread on NAFPS, and the briefer MySpace page by one of the groups organizing protests. The MySpace page also includes more pictures and videos. So far the group has been successful in getting many of her engagements shut down. The ones that have not yet been canceled... if she attempts to proceed, the protests are being planned.

When she performed in Massachusetts, Wampanoags and their supporters stood up to her. The confrontation became bloody when her security, and the cops they called, attacked the protestors. In an act of desecration, Holzwarth walked up to Hartman Deetz, one of the Wampanoag men, beaten by the cops, who was lying in a pool of his own blood on the floor; she rubbed her hands in his blood, then proceeded to rub his blood into the skin of her drum.

Maybe she did it so now she can say she "has Native blood." And for the first time it won't be a lie.

Oh, btw, when asked her ancestry she has given a variety of conflicting stories. She's claimed she's Seneca because... she dreamed she's Seneca. She has also said she's "Seneca and Celtic." Great. Just Great. Guess what Rachel, we don't want you either.

crossposted to Pàganachd Bhandia

Official Statement on Cherokee Spiritual Leaders

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 22:40:29 GMT

This is an official statement by Richard L. Allen. EdD, who is the Research & Policy Analyst for the Cherokee Nation. I am reposting it here (and over at my Pàganachd Bhandia blog), because we still have the problem of people thinking that any person of American Indian ancestry, or who claims such ancestry, is somehow a representative or spiritual leader for a particular Nation, or indeed all Native Americans. Hopefully this will clear some of that up.

Additionally, if someone claims to be a spiritual leader, ask for details: who trained them, where are they from, and then contact the tribal offices to check on their claims. Most Nations have websites now, but if google doesn't turn up an official site, feel free to contact me for help finding their phone numbers or mailing addresses.

Greetings --

The Cherokee Nation is overwhelmed with those charlatans who fraudulently claim to be shaman, spiritual leaders or descendents of a Cherokee princess.

Such individuals make such claims without ever having lived within the Cherokee communities. They claim to be descended from some nebulous and mysterious ancestor who was from "a reservation in North Carolina" (there is only one) or "a reservation in Oklahoma" (there are none). The ancestor is never just a plain ordinary everyday Cherokee citizen but a "Cherokee Princess," a "Cherokee Shaman," or a "Cherokee Pipe carrier" none of which actually exist or ever have. Those who claim to be "shaman" do not reside within the known boundaries of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.

Cherokee medicine people and spiritual leaders are known to the Cherokee people and do not practice medicine for a fee nor sell "shamanic" lessons to anyone. They do not advertise their services through any form of media and certainly not over the internet.

Traditional Cherokee healers and spiritual leaders provide their services to the Cherokee people. A Cherokee medicine person or spiritual leader is fluent in the Cherokee language and would conduct any medical or spiritual practices by using the Cherokee language. Therefore, our medicine people are those who were born of a Cherokee mother and a Cherokee father and would have been reared within a Cherokee community speaking the Cherokee language. Our traditional Cherokee healers and spiritual leaders are humble people and would not present themselves as such nor "hang out a shingle" so to speak.

Cherokee medicine people are acknowledged and recognized by members of the Cherokee community as effective healers and leaders. It is the recognition of the Cherokee people that validates these persons as medicine people and healers not self-proclaimation. We may provide them small gifts, a token amount of money or foodstuffs in payment for their services. They do not charge for their services nor would they withhold their services when asked and they certainly would not prescibe payment by credit card.

Cherokee medicine people may provide services to recognized members of other tribes or may provide services to non-Indians who would seek them out for treatment, but certainly would not mix their spirituality or medicine with that of other nations.

Cherokee medicine and spiritual practices do not include tarot cards, palmistry, psychic readings or sweatlodge ceremonies.

One may assume that anyone claiming to be a Cherokee "shaman, spiritual healer, or pipe-carrier," is equivalent to a modern day medicine show and snake-oil vendor.

You have my permission to print this response as is.

Richard L. Allen. EdD
Research & Policy Analyst
Cherokee Nation
P.O. Box 948
Tahlequah, Oklahoma 74465

Indigenous Holocaust Denial

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 04:56:55 GMT

Swedish TV, which declined to air the award-winning documentary, Spirits for Sale, is now instead repeatedly airing the film Historiens fångar ("Prisoners of the Past"), a propaganda piece consisting of an hour of relentless paternalism, offensive stereotypes, and racism both subtle and blatant. The central premise of this ugly, inconsistent piece of work is that indigenous people are having social and economic problems only because they are "stuck in the past", their cultures are "dead", and the only way to fix all these problems would be to abandon all traditional ways and adopt the cultures of their white oppressors. Curiously, the oppressors are never named as oppressors, even though they are the voices that guide and contextualize the film. Yes, they actually hired known White Supremacists to provide commentary, with one of them even posing as an American Indian. (more on this later.)

The film actually proposes that traditional cultures and traditional peoples are the cause of suffering in indigenous communities. Not colonialism or racism, traditionals. No traditional people speak in the film. (And the filmmakers are also clueless about who is and isn't traditional. At one point they seem to be implying that casino magnates are the traditionals. Or something. Like I said, they're confused.)

The actual Indigenous people who speak in the film (Australian Aboriginal, Inuit, Cheyenne, and Sami individuals) are basically there only to tell of the difficult or abusive periods and situations in their lives, especially when these involved conflicts with other Native people. But then their experiences are taken out of context and their stories exploited to serve the racist aims of the producers. The only positive things that are ever said about indigenous people in the film are when an indigenous person has assimilated into mainstream, white culture. Even the Sami people, who are portrayed in the more positive light, are outraged about the misrepresentations and white supremacist agenda in the film.

One of the reasons we are concerned about this film is that it was made for an international audience, and there is reason to believe they may soon be trying to sell it to an American market, if they aren't already.

The can see the film on the SVT website. It will be viewable on the Internet for the rest of the month, then it´ll be removed. (note - you will need to go to the menu on the right and select Historiens fångar)

Who to write to in protest:
The guy who made the film, Poul-Erik Heilbuth: PLH@dr.dk
The documentary department of SVT. The head of the dept. is Ingemar Persson: dokumentarfilm@svt.se

If you have enough of the language to navigate the site, you can lodge a complaint at the Granskningsnämden för radio and TV (broadcast standards tribunal) in Sweden here: www.grn.se/ here

I'm also reproducing here an open letter to the producers from Dr. Al Carroll, historian, professor, and founder of NAFPS

An Open Letter to Poul-Erik Heilbruth and Ingmar Persson:

Dear Mr. Heilbruth and Mr. Persson,

I am Dr. Al Carroll. I am a history professor for the Alamo Community College District in San Antonio, Texas, in the United States. I have written books and articles on American Indian history and am American Indian myself. My ancestry is Mescalero Apache, as well as Mexican and Irish.

This letter to you both will be posted online and sent to as many media sources as possible, in both the United States and Scandinavia. I want everyone to know just what a travesty the two of you have foisted upon the public by making and broadcasting your racist film, doing enormous damage to indigenous peoples worldwide by your promotion of outright cultural genocide.

I have just seen your documentary "Prisoners of the Past" online. As a historian, I have never seen such a poorly done work filled with one falsehood and distortion after another. It is as appalling to watch your film as it is to see a Nazi rant about Jews. Both are equally filled with lies.

There are so many falsehoods that it is hard to know where to begin. But to start with, the biggest error in your film is this:

YOU USED THREE WHITE SUPREMACISTS AS SOURCES.

David Yeagley, Barbara Lindsay, and Keith Winschuttle ARE WHITE SUPREMACISTS and on the extreme Far Right of the political spectrum.

Two of them, Yeagley and Lindsay, are open members of white supremacist groups.

What you did is as insane as using Nazis or the Nation of Islam as a source on Jews.

I have to ask: Did you KNOWINGLY use white supremacists as your sources?

Are you white supremacists yourselves?

Or did you just do such a poor job of research that you did not know?

If you did not know, then I urge you in the strongest possible terms to apologize for your mistakes, withdraw the film, and hopefully reshoot it with the voices of actual Native people instead.

Let me provide with the proof you SHOULD have known about long BEFORE you started filming, that Yeagley, Lindsay, and Windschuttle are openly racist, white supremacist extremists.

Barbara Lindsay:

Barbara Lindsay is a leading member of the white supremacist group One Nation. She claims to have a small amount of Cherokee Indian ancestry, but is not a member of any tribe. She was expelled from a Cherokee heritage club.

David Yeagley is NOT American Indian at all. He is an imposter who POSES as Indian. His stepmother was Comanche Indian, and based on that he was mistakenly enrolled.

Yeagley is a member of or tied to the following white supremacist and extremist groups:

John Birch Society (anti Semitic conspiracy theorists)

National Alliance (white supremacist)

Stormfront (Neo Nazi skinheads)

Gene Expression (eugenicists)

VDARE (self described as "white nationalists")

Windschuttle is not a conservative, he's outright racist, and often makes up "facts" to support his racism. His take on history so bizarre and filled with lies he can't find an academic publisher and has to go to vanity publishers.

But he and his supporters seem to imagine that because he's clearly seen as racist is somehow proof that academia has been taken over by leftists. In fact most historians tend to be quite conservative, certainly in the sense of cautious.

See for yourselves what far better historians have to say about an open racist like Windschuttle.

http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/thinkingculture/2006/08/australias_racist_cultures.html
"Further, you can find a very thorough analysis of the various ways in which racism manifests in Keith Windschuttle's self-published (as opposed to 'serious academic') research in 'Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History', Black Inc. Agenda, 2003. The book contains contributions from scholars across the Australian academy."

Windschuttle is pretty racist towards Asians too, imagining them "taking over," that whites are "endangered", and that being racist is central to white Australian identity.

http://www.borderlandsejournal.adelaide.edu.au/vol5no1_2006/perera_raceterror.htm

"22. Anglo-Australian men as an endangered species in the law are only a part of Fraser's apocalyptic vision of the future. In an article, "Rethinking the White Australia Policy" (a review of Keith Windschuttle's book, The White Australia Policy), Fraser asserts:

Within two or three decades, it is not unreasonable to expect that Australia will have a heavily Asian managerial-professional, ruling class that will not hesitate to promote the interests of co-ethnics at the expense of white Australians. (Fraser 2005b).

23. Fraser supports this statement with the fantastic notion, as recapped by Windschuttle, that "Europeans ... evolved in a cold climate to support non-kinship forms of reciprocity and thus to welcome strangers," while "Chinese and Japanese businessmen operate within mafia-like, extended family clans that are bound by shared genes to support one another" (Windschuttle 2005)....

Despite their internal differences, however, Windschuttle, Fraser and Duffy represent an institutionalised and politically powerful configuration of contemporary Australian nationalism that exists on a continuum with assertions of race pride that are usually disowned as extremist....

30. The most distinctive feature of the formation represented by Duffy and Windschuttle is its foregrounding of Anglo-Australian achievement and white racial pride. Its platform is premised on a whitewashing (Manne 2003) of Australian history, especially of the violence directed towards Indigenous people and their ongoing resistances."

Your film's premises blame the victims throughout, and show a lack of understanding of the most basic facts.

I can only hope you made these mistakes because you did not realize that you were being told lies by white supremacists.

Again, I urge you to admit your mistakes, apologize, and withdraw this awful, racist film you have made.

Thank you,
Dr. Al Carroll
Alamo Community College District
San Antonio, Texas, USA

Spirits for Sale

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 22:37:56 GMT

A film about the exploitation and misrepresentation of First Nations traditions has been completed and will be premiering this month. For more info, check out http://www.spiritsforsale.com

Congratulations to Annika and the rest of the crew for all their hard work!

from their website:

About protection of ceremonies

The information in Europe about Native Americans and Native Canadians is most often full of fantasies and lies. People in general know very little about American Indians and their general view is based on stereotypes, mascots and film clichés. In some cases the belief is that “Indians do not exist.” Europe has also seen a growing interest in so called Native American spirituality. Ceremonies and rituals together with sacred objects are being sold on websites and in papers. Cults and organisations offer people to become “an Indian shaman” or a medicine man during a weekend course. Seldom or never do Native voices get heard and because of the lack of information, con-men make a considerable amount of money while they violate the spirituality of mostly Plains Indians.

This film will address the issue of spiritual exploiters and the harm they do towards Native cultures but also to followers who, in many cases, “don´t have a clue”.

*crossposting encouraged*

Gaol Naofa

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 05:40:50 GMT

A friend of mine and myself are starting a Celtic Reconstructionist Organization entitled "An Chuallacht Ghaol Naofa (CGN)" or "Gaol Naofa" for short. We currently are not accepting official membership. However there is a public forum which we are excepting members on. We would greatly appreciate anyone interested in Celtic Reconstructionism check out the forum. Thanks

www.gaolnaofa.org

A Facebook Rant

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 18:46:20 GMT

Okay, on facebook I have encountered some very annoying people. I joined a group named "Celtic Pride" thinking it would be a good way to get to know some people who shared an interest in all things Celtic. But a conversation started on the Wall. It started as a discussion about the purity of the various Celtic Languages and which Celtic Language was more alive today. However it gradually degraded from there. Then one of the people on the group went and said

"I just hate the yankees banging on about being celtic especially when there a new englander"

Now understand, I originally come from New England. And I have Celtic Ancestors, so I consider myself both a New Englander and a Celtic. So I found this comment rather insulting. I then informed the person that I was Germanic, Welsh/English, and Irish, all of which as we all know are countries with Celtic Heritage. I also informed him I was a Celtic Reconstructionist. Unfortunately this person continued to berate me. He simply could not see reason. Then another person has the gaal to say:

"I Love These Yankees Who Think They Know All About Celtic Culture And What Is The Oldest Surviving Celtic Culture They Know Jack Shit About Its All Ireland Ireland Ireland, Scotland Scotland Scotland, I have Scotish And Irish Family But Its Safe To Say, The Scots Have a Massive Viking Influence Over Their Celtic And The Irish Are Divided By English Dilution, Galica Is Almost Gone In Celtic Hertiage, Cornish Is Maing A Comback, But At The Moment Wales And Brittany Are The Last Ones Standing"

Then the topic turned toward the nature of how one gains citizenship in Ireland for a little while. However that was not long lasting. Then someone said that the Celts died out in England. Followed by a statement that the members of the discussion had to get themselves laid. Then someone said that because I am not moving to Ireland I should quite wasting my time with all the Irish Facts and history and get some "pussy".

What strikes me is some of these people on this Celtic Pride group who are debating against the members of the group, aren't even Celtic in the first place. Some on the other hand are. Simply put, I think it is really terrible that people who do have a Celtic Heritage are treating other Celts in this manner. And I think its even worse that people who don't have a Celtic Heritage need to bug those with a Celtic Heritage left and right.

I wasn't sure where else to post about this, so I thought I would post it here.

Test post

Sun, 10 Sep 2006 06:18:09 GMT

Configuring layout, tweaking colors.