Columnist: Erosion of American Indian spiritual life takes a toll

The closest many will get to American Indian spirituality is a souvenir dream catcher dangling from a rearview mirror.

The census tells us American Indians are thriving statistically. In 2006 the government counted 6,223 people with Indian bloodlines in El Paso County — probably a conservative number, given that some people with tribal connections don’t report it on government forms.

The trouble, and it’s not new, is the erosion of language and spiritual traditions. For many decades, young American/Alaska Indian men have had the highest suicide rate of any demographic group in the United States.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited a 2003 study showing that among Indians living on reservations, those “with strong spiritual orientation were half as likely to report a suicide attempt.”

Christians aren’t the only ones for whom spirituality is a matter of life and death. So Jacob Anaya has taken up the role as a defender of the faith.

Anaya, owner of All My Relations Creations in Manitou Springs, acknowledges he is a bit like the little Dutch boy, standing up against the latest assault on American Indian spirituality: New Agers.

Anaya, originally of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico and later a teacher of Lakota traditions, gives presentations to sound warnings about modern charlatans who will sell sweat lodge, vision quest or pipe ceremonies for a price.

“The pipe, the sweat lodge, everything they’re doing now is trendy,” Anaya told a gathering of about 20 on the west side Monday night. “Native people are getting mad because they’re starting to make this way of life look cheap.”

Typically, Anaya said, a New Age spiritualist will know some of the sweat lodge details and perhaps a snippet of Lakota language. They’re all about trying to create a ceremony, not about treating it as a way of life.

“These people running these lodges, they see it a few times and they think they can do it,” he said.

These wannabes sometimes hand out certificates — “they start handing out (Indian) names like cigars,” Anaya said, derisively suggesting someone can become “Squeaking Squirrel Butt” overnight.

“They’re being charged for the name. There’s no honor, there’s no commitment,” he said.

In the spiritual tradition, he said, the process of giving a name is “not a week, it’s not a weekend, it’s years.”

Anaya’s mostly white audience was appreciative. Rhoda Friend, a nurse with some Osage blood in her lineage, said, “I just want to know as much as I can about that side of my family.”

American Indian spiritual tradition “is like a fabric. It is not meant to be picked apart,” Anaya said.

Crucial bonds have been broken. That’s why indigenous people who once shared a strong suicide taboo now lead the nation in that darkest of categories.

More than a century after the bloody wars, the assault on culture continues.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0363 or noreen@gazette.com