Longblackcat statement on behalf of Lakota Nation re: sweat lodge incident lawsuit

I would like to place an emphasis and inform the people of the United States as to what is happening in Sedona Arizona with the Angel Valley Retreat Center and James Arthur Ray, and the Peace Treaty of 1868 with the Lakota Nation and United States of America. I have been given clearance by Oliver Red Cloud Wicasa Itacan of the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council to give this statement, and by the Keeper of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe, Wicasa Itacan Arvel Looking Horse.

This lawsuit is about the protection of our way of life. We really hold our ceremonies and our way of life valuable, we are here as the caretakers of our mother earth. But every time we turn around, mother earth is being abused, desecrated and killed. Our water is poisoned on a daily basis, by strip mining and uranium mining for instance. They are killing our earth, and every day our lands are being taken. We Lakota people continue to fight for our way of life. The sweat lodge – we call it Oinikaga or Inipi – is a purification ceremony, to make life.

It was a slap in the face when my daughter woke me up and said: Have you seen the news? I watched the pictures and the press conference and the reports and it hurt me. It hurt all first nation people here on turtle island from the southern tip of Mexico to the north of Canada. Our sacred way of life was desecrated by a non-native man. This is our property, and there are laws in the United States and in the United nations that state that these customs are ours and that they are to be protected.

This lawsuit is not to gain millions of dollars, like this man James Arthur Ray sought who charged 10 000 dollars a head. We are filing this law suit to defend our way of life and our treaties.

This is a way of life, not a religion. We first nations people have no religion. That is a European concept, done ceremoniously at certain times of the week or year. For us, we begin every day of our lives in prayer and end every day in prayer. Our way of life begins before conception and goes into old, old age. There are the courting ways, before a man and woman become boyfriend and girlfriend, there are the ways the woman and the man prepare for childbirth after conception. These ways have been passed down for centuries, and they provide for a balanced way of life. We believe in the circle of life. We don't believe death is final. We make the journey to the other side to continue in another form of energy. Death is not our way, but it is out there. Mr. Ray brought death.

We don't go into a roman-catholic church, put on the Pope's hat and take the Pope's staff and call ourselves Pope.

There are natives who sell these things, who give authority to others to run these things if the price is right. But it is wrong to sell our way of life.

These ways belong to us. We expect this lawsuit to strengthen our stand as first nation people. Manifest destiny, divide and conquer, these are tactics to assimilate and annihilate the first nations – no matter on which continent. It happened in Vietnam, it is happening today in Iraq. We want the world to know that the first nations exist, and that we are not going to let anybody take from us ever again.

This is not a racial thing. I have relations with white, black and Asian people. We say: you cannot claim ownership of our ways. These are ways of love and beauty and peace, but they belong to us strictly. 

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