Hopi Law of Life AND L/L Law of One

[Night Owl]

The reference to use of aliases was not a comment against online forum aliases but that the OP has used several different names in connection with official promotion of himself and his book.

from:http://mycultureisnotatrend.tumblr.com/

“Indian Wannabes”

whitepeopleinheaddresses:

   From bluecorncomics:

       In Z Magazine, December 1990, Janet McCloud (Tulalip) explained the basic problem with wannabes:

       First they came to take our land and water, then our fish and game….Now they want our religions as well. All of a sudden, we have a lot of unscrupulous idiots running around saying they’re medicine people. And they’ll sell you a sweat lodge ceremony for fifty bucks. It’s not only wrong, its obscene. Indians don’t sell their spirituality to anybody, for any price. This is just another in a very long series of thefts from Indian people and, in some ways, this is the worst one yet.

       In his book Red Earth, White Lies, Vine Deloria, Jr. discussed why Americans wish they could be Indians:

       They are discontented with their society, their government, their religion, and everything around them and nothing is more appealing than to cast aside all inhibitions and stride back into the wilderness, or at least a wilderness theme park, seeking the nobility of the wily savage who once physically fought civilization and now, symbolically at least, is prepared to do it again.

       A passage from Ward Churchill’s book Indians Are Us? explains why this make-believe isn’t just harmless fun:

       Native American societies can and do suffer the socioculturally debilitating effects of spiritual trivialization and appropriation at the hands of the massive larger Euro-immigrant population which has come to dominate literally every other aspect of our existence.

As Margo Thunderbird, an activist of the Shinnecock Nation, has put it:
“They came for our land, for what grew or could be grown on it, for the resources in it, and for our clean air and pure water. They stole these things from us, and in the taking they also stole our free ways and the best of our leaders, killed in battle or assassinated. And now, after all that, they’ve come for the very last of our possessions; now they want our pride, our history, our spiritual traditions. They want to rewrite and remake these things, to claim them for themselves. The lies and thefts just never end.”

Or, as the Oneida scholar Pam Colorado frames the matter:
The process is ultimately intended to supplant Indians, even in areas of their own culture and spirituality. In the end, non-Indians will have complete power to define what is and what is not Indian, even for Indians. We are talking here about a complete ideological/conceptual subordination of Indian people in addition to the total physical subordination they already experience. When this happens, the last vestiges of real Indian society and Indian rights will disappear. Non-Indians will then claim to “own” our heritage and ideas as thoroughly as they now claim to own our land and resources.

This stuff matters."

Cultural appropriation is the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of another culture.
Cultural appropriation is destructive, as elements of a minority culture are used by members of the cultural majority; this is experienced as wrongfully oppressing the minority culture or stripping it of its group identity and intellectual property rights.

The "appropriation" or "misappropriation" refers to the adoption of these cultural elements in a colonial manner: elements are copied from a minority culture by members of the dominant culture, and these elements are used outside of their original cultural context—sometimes even against the expressed, stated wishes of representatives of the originating culture.

Often, the original meaning of these cultural elements is lost or distorted, which means that these uses may be viewed as disrespectful by members of the originating culture, or even as a form of desecration.

Cultural elements which may have deep meaning to the original culture can be reduced to "exotic" fashion by those from the dominant culture. When this is done, critics of cultural appropriation say that the imitator, "who does not experience that oppression is able to 'play,' temporarily, an 'exotic' other, without experiencing any of the daily discriminations faced by other cultures."

- this situation has no comparison to channelling.

- this OP is under investigation for fraud and cultural misrepresentation by numerous senior Native Americans.

If B4th members want to go up against these Indigenous people and argue B4th has a right to Hopi knowledge without permission (or in the case of the OP posting here - inaccurate/misrepresentations of Hopi culture that Hopi have asked him to stop spreading online and through his book) - the insensitivity and selfishness of that action will be met with anger far stronger than any assertive energy that smc has written here (on their behalf).

It is abusive to 'dabble' in the cultures of those who have suffered and have had their land stolen (and worse).

Recently a member here described Bring 4th as a "spiritual black hole".

smc would not go this far.... but would share that s/he has experienced some of the most disheartening, bullying and unthinkingly self centred behaviour on this website, which smc was wanting to be a strong and positive connection in daily life.

(NB: smc exists as more than one person (internally) and does not use 'the first person' for this reason. In other areas of life this is not the expression used - but smc thought it would be accepted and respected here, (rather than be the source of subtle mocking). Another reason for using 'smc' is to help de-personalise personal presence on B4 because the intimidation energy here can be so strong.)

As to "exerting control on these things is negatively polarising" ... the level of colonialism in this statement is astounding.... for to say that an invaded people do not have a right to keep their sacred secret cultural ceremonies private - is a 'service to self' viewpoint - not the other way around!

We don't get to have these broad spiritual philosophies about feeling we have the right to access other peoples sacred private business.

Because it's not ours to claim the right to access!

We are in 3D. Show sensitivity and respect. Check your privilege.

We are living on invaded/ stolen land!

No amount of metaphysical rationalising can counter the fact that we are benefiting from the dispossession of entire tribes of their lives, languages, lands. The damaging, even deadly effects are ongoing for those communities that survived the initial invasions.

Right up to the present day. To this minute.

Could we stop our consumerism (in this case spiritual) for one moment and reflect upon our unconscious, unending greed?

I understand you can be angry, but projecting this anger on someone else will not make you feel better and it will not solve your concern either. I'm not mocking you. I'm not claiming access either. I'm not speaking on behalf of stealing people. I'm not responsible for past colonisations. I don't live on hopi's lands either. Knowledge has no owners just as lands have no owners. Humans cannot own any of these things. Only believe they can for a short while. It is not any social gathering's buisiness to decide whether he has infringed someone. If he is lying, he has to live with himself. Nothing you or anyone can do will do anything more to it. Realize that ''Right up to the present day. To this minute.'' nobody who invaded the lands of maori's are alive on this forum. Do not make them feel responsible for that.