{"id":9533,"date":"2014-03-01T01:10:46","date_gmt":"2014-03-01T06:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/content\/?p=9860"},"modified":"2014-02-25T18:07:09","modified_gmt":"2014-02-25T23:07:09","slug":"a-shamanic-view-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2014\/03\/01\/a-shamanic-view-8\/","title":{"rendered":"A Shamanic View"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Shamanic View: Cultural Misappropriation<\/strong><\/p>\n

One thing that has come up a couple times in our local pagan discussion group is cultural misappropriation. Usually when this comes up in the media it\u2019s about stealing fashion or culture.\u00a0 But what about when it\u2019s spiritual or religious? I think the usual rule tends to be, \u201cask ten pagans and you\u2019ll get twelve answers.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve already said some things about appropriating the title \u2018shaman.\u2019 This time I want to talk about rituals, ceremonies, healing or divination techniques, and so on.<\/p>\n

One example to start with would be the sweat lodge. This made headlines a few years back when people died in one that wasn\u2019t done very well at all. Among First Nations people, this is a sacred ceremony led by people who have undergone lengthy training. Then a white guy runs one as part of a really high priced seminar, presenting it as something it was not. This made the genuine ones look bad and made the Lakota Nation understandably pissed off.<\/p>\n

Now, similar purification ceremonies have been done in Scandinavian and Eastern European cultures. Of course, the guy wasn\u2019t portraying it as one of theirs, or even as a \u201cdone around the world\u201d thing, but as a Native American ceremony.<\/p>\n

The term, \u201cplastic shaman\u201d has come about to refer to people who are using shamanic culture for their own profit. Read up a little on \u201cindigenous intellectual property\u201d rights and–okay, you actually have to read quite a bit to follow it all! It\u2019s being talked about online quite a bit lately.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s *my* individual take on some of it. I apologize in advance to any who might take offense.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have the space to cover it adequately, so consider this just a sampling and something to meditate on for yourself.<\/p>\n

There are some aspects of intellectual property I just can\u2019t find myself agreeing with. One example would be the lore or knowledge of healing properties of plants. I don\u2019t personally believe anyone can \u201cown\u201d that knowledge. Someone could \u201cown\u201d a technique for using it.<\/p>\n

But there are a *lot* of things that are common among shamanic cultures throughout the world. Can any of those cultures \u201cown\u201d any of those things? In my experience, most shamanic teachings come from the spirits we work with. I\u2019ve learned far more from my spirit teachers than from the physical ones. If one of those spirits teaches me a healing ceremony, that maybe it also taught to tribal shamans long ago and far away, then that ceremony was given to me to use. I don\u2019t own it any more than anyone else does.<\/p>\n

The difference comes in with how I might present it. I\u2019d never say, \u201cI\u2019m going to do an Australian Aboriginal healing ceremony.\u201d I might say, \u201cAustralian Aboriginal healers do something similar.\u201d I\u2019ll never do a \u201cLakota sweat lodge\u201d ceremony. And I\u2019ll always be respectful of other cultures which have been taught some of the same things I\u2019ve learned. Because they certainly learned it before me.<\/p>\n

Not to say that I think cultural misappropriation is a myth. Wearing a feather headdress to \u201clook cool\u201d doesn\u2019t work. That headdress has important symbolic meaning to some people. Wearing a priest\u2019s collar because it might look cool isn\u2019t really any different. But when someone tries to claim ownership of knowledge, I have to wonder if they\u2019re defending what they think they are or if they\u2019re getting defensive about something else.<\/p>\n

Individually, it means we should all think carefully about the things we adopt. Are we potentially stepping on someone else\u2019s feelings? For any of us who identify as eclectic it\u2019s even more important. When we adopt ideas or beliefs from others are we adopting them for honorable and respectful reasons\/motivations?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Shamanic View: Cultural Misappropriation One thing that has come up a couple times in our local pagan discussion group is cultural misappropriation. Usually when this comes up in the media it\u2019s about stealing fashion or culture.\u00a0 But what about when it\u2019s spiritual or religious? I think the usual rule tends to be, \u201cask ten pagans and you\u2019ll get twelve answers.\u201d I\u2019ve already said some things about appropriating the title \u2018shaman.\u2019 This time I want to talk about rituals, ceremonies, healing or divination techniques, and so on. One example to start with would be the sweat lodge. This made headlines a few years back when people died in one that wasn\u2019t done very well at all. Among First Nations people, this is a sacred ceremony led by people who have undergone lengthy training. Then a white guy runs one as part of a really high priced seminar, presenting it as something it was not. This made the genuine ones look bad and made the Lakota Nation understandably pissed off. Now, similar purification ceremonies have been done in Scandinavian and Eastern European cultures. Of course, the guy wasn\u2019t portraying it as one of theirs, or even as a \u201cdone around the world\u201d thing, but as a Native American ceremony. The term, \u201cplastic shaman\u201d has come about to refer to people who are using shamanic culture for their own profit. Read up a little on \u201cindigenous intellectual property\u201d rights and–okay, you actually have to read quite a bit to follow it all! It\u2019s being talked about online quite a bit lately. So here\u2019s *my* individual take on some of it. I apologize in advance to any who might take offense.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have the space to cover it adequately, so consider this just a sampling and something to meditate on for yourself. There are some aspects of intellectual property I just can\u2019t find myself agreeing with. One example would be the lore or knowledge of healing properties of plants. I don\u2019t personally believe anyone can \u201cown\u201d that knowledge. Someone could \u201cown\u201d a technique for using it. But there are a *lot* of things that are common among shamanic cultures throughout the world. Can any of those cultures \u201cown\u201d any of those things? In my experience, most shamanic teachings come from the spirits we work with. I\u2019ve learned far more from my spirit teachers than from the physical ones. If one of those spirits teaches me a healing ceremony, that maybe it also taught to tribal shamans long ago and far away, then that ceremony was given to me to use. I don\u2019t own it any more than anyone else does. The difference comes in with how I might present it. I\u2019d never say, \u201cI\u2019m going to do an Australian Aboriginal healing ceremony.\u201d I might say, \u201cAustralian Aboriginal healers do something similar.\u201d I\u2019ll never do a \u201cLakota sweat lodge\u201d ceremony. And I\u2019ll always be respectful of other cultures which have been taught some of the same things I\u2019ve learned. Because they certainly learned it before me. Not to say that I think cultural misappropriation is a myth. Wearing a feather headdress to \u201clook cool\u201d doesn\u2019t work. That headdress has important symbolic meaning to some people. Wearing a priest\u2019s collar because it might look cool isn\u2019t really any different. But when someone tries to claim ownership of knowledge, I have to wonder if they\u2019re defending what they think they are or if they\u2019re getting defensive about something else. Individually, it means we should all think carefully about the things we adopt. Are we potentially stepping on someone else\u2019s feelings? For any of us who identify as eclectic it\u2019s even more important. When we adopt ideas or beliefs from others are we adopting them for honorable and respectful reasons\/motivations?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":183,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/183"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9533"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9225,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9533\/revisions\/9225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}