Journey to Ixtlan

The Wild Hunt is a blog that has "news, opinions, and events dealing with (or of interest to) the modern Pagan and Heathen communities". A recent article called "The Danger of 'Wannabes'" spoke to the appropriation challenges faced by Native Americans cultures. The focus of the article was on "New Age Frauds and Plastic Shamans". I had some interesting reactions to the article ranging from agreement to confused indignation. A blogger on the shamans_circle community asked, "Anyone here have any experience with these sorts of hucksters?"

As I've said before, appropriation is a BIG issue. My remarks below are not meant to downplay the challenges faced by indigenous peoples. With that said, this is how my buttons got pushed...

( My feelings about knowing hucksters... )

Another person commented, "If you go around saying you are a Roman Catholic priest even though you never went past seminary, maybe that's a bit un-ethical because you are lying to people". This got me thinking. I responded:

( Roman Catholic analogy continued... )

This was all interesting food for thought that I am sure will be the basis of future blogs here.

This excerpt is from sharing person's post on a neopagan community:

At the symposium Navaho and Apache elders presented their views of what happened and how they want the experience to be taught. One issue that came out was that they did not want anything about their religion to be taught. To them their religion is exclusive to their people and should not be taught or even discussed with people who are not of the tribe.

I've been interested in appropriation and these thoughts kick-started my own comments...

( Read more... )