I woke up this AM with the idea of making tee shirts that say “you are not a shaman” on the front of it in big bold letters.
For years, there has been a growing global collective of fierce, vocal and physical advocates for dropping the term shaman, and replacing the word with something like tribal healer or community medicine person. Since so many people are evangelizing the term shaman into a profession and religiosity that garners income, along with the recent lean to christianize the term shaman the need to make an indigenous boundary with the word shaman has surfaced sharply.
The term shaman is a core aspect of a massive christian repackaging racket that gobbles up indigenous lifeways with its “vision” quest mission. What is being done to evangelize the term shaman these days harkens back to what the Romans did to initiate catholic colonialism, which eventually led to the justification of bloodthirsty christians pushing the Moors out of the Iberian peninsula. An act that led to the evolution of dissociated culture found in much of western europe today.
In the year 2022, christianity continues to carry with it, hateful assaults on peoples, gender, sexuality, race, and an ownership over women’s bodies that’s so beyond outdated, it’s a shame people still carry the old roman mindset of eliminating the wisdom keepers for man to destroy the world.
So yes, it does make sense that the spiritual non religious crew who grew up in such oppressive religious environments, would do anything it takes to flip that out of their lives and seek out something that feels somewhat close. With many people choosing earth based rituals that were stolen thousands of years ago to repackage as ceremony with practices that anyone can incorporate into unspecific, far from traditional, rituals without the heavy energy of christianity, or be limited by any of the teachings and laws that dominate christianity globally.
The challenge in seeking something to dismantle the christian imprint is not to do what christians did to indigenous peoples that made christianity so oppressive. Unfortunately due to ten+ generations of religious programming imposing christian values onto indigneous peoples has become so natural it’s now implicit/ unconscious. The damage done to indigenous cultures today, mirrors the damage that was once done to the indigneous peoples of Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas, heck- the whole friggin world for that matter- christian domination is the originator and maintainer of a massive 3000 year old consciousness war. A war where indigenous peoples have been on the front lines for thousands of years.
The subsequent statements are a result of years of witnessing a narrative grow beyond its original intent and into a neo-colonial monster rife with indigneous harm, patriarchy, white supremacy, repackaged christianity, entitlement and domination. These words will trigger many and if they trigger you, it means your soul knows exactly how wrong colonizing the term shaman actually is.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
You are not a shaman.
What right do you have to call yourself a shaman?
You had a dream? People call you a shaman? You dress in shaman clothes and wear feathers in your hair and have gone to 100 sweat lodges of a culture you are not of? You, a euro diaspora person who did a vision quest as a 20 something, 30 something, 40 something, 50 something visitor, to have a vision on a sacred hill your euro diaspora ancestors stole from the people you seek to barge yourself in on? Or is it the thrill of imperialism and domination onto indigenous people- a sick modern conquistador mentality of correcting native peoples language with a modern term they are not familiar with so their sacred vibrations are no longer powerful.
You are not a shaman.
When you go to lands you are not of and tell indigenous tribal healers you are a shaman just like they are! And you, in the thrill of imperialism and domination get to be responsible for teaching those natives how to identify themselves by using the word shaman in lieu of their native term for medicine person.
You are not a shaman.
When you tell people you are one.
You are not a shaman.
When you go online and regurgitate christian values wrapped inna pan indian narrative that morphs into repackaged religious rhetoric rife with hierarchical positionality, narrative protection, shills, and a strong capitalist culture.
You are not a shaman.
After doing a few sessions of sacred medicine in lands you are not of, in a culture you were not raised in, birthed, in or know the language of. Doing sacred medicine is not in any way shape or form in this dimension or the next, equivalent to having the medicine in your bloodline.
You are not a shaman.
When people call you shaman because somehow being a mystic has fallen out of fashion due to the heavy energy associated with saavy spiritual predators who shift terminology to keep predation an open gate of flowing seekers who are vulnerable and traumatized. Who have never been taught boundaries, who are church hurt, who don’t know what a healthy relationship looks like. Spiritual predators who receive seekers with open arms and legs to teach them they are empaths with special powers and when you graduate from being an empath you can become a SHAMAN! But first we must raise your kundalini by stimulating your root shah-kara. Have you heard of tantra? Lemmie take my shaman hat off and put on my tantric master hat on. Exhale and just let goooooo…
You are not a shaman.
When you call every tribal healer in the world shaman by inflicting that inner imperialist onto indignous peoples by doing the very first thing the conquistadors did to disseminate indigneous cultures- take away their language.
You are not a shaman.
When you grew up with chistian values and now denounce christianity while imposing christian values and belief systems and narratives onto native peoples without recognizing the deep harm that perpetuates through those narratives. i.e. rainbow tribe we’re looking at you.
You are not a shaman.
When you make being a shaman your identity, and have 50 skin drums, along with 20 bone rattles you don’t know the origins of, speak prayers in languages not of your origins with broken english, refer to the native cultures you identify with using the colonial terms and when asked what do you do to give back to the cultures you take from answer, “I go visit them and they teach me their songs so I can come home and sing them to the best of my recollection.”
You are not a shaman.
When the sentence, “you are not a shaman’’ is triggering or initiates feelings of defensiveness.
You are not a shaman.
When your library is filled with books on how to be a shaman.
You are not a shaman.
When you take a class to learn how to be a shaman from people that call themselves shamans.
You are not a shaman.
When you graduate from being an empath to becoming a shaman to being a guru using christian principals and values to subjagate your victims with sexual, mental, and physical abuse all held unaccountable because as guru you have graduated from being a seeker, to an empath, to an shaman, and now as a guru- no one can challenge or question you and if they do, they are to be punished, exiled, and harassed by your followers that protect your reign as guru king like good little subjects vying for your seat.
You are not a shaman.
When patriarchy leads your flock.
You are not a shaman.
When your lineage is not directly from Siberia or Mongolia. Direct lineage is mother, father, grandmother or grandfather.
You are not a shaman.
When you use shaman as a pronoun.
You are not a shaman.
When you, as a graduate from shaman school, charge green energy for services that were stolen, manipulated, and do not resemble anything actually traditional or sacred.
You are not a shaman.
When you wear feathers you didn’t earn and wear pan indian regalia with crucifixes and iron crosses. Then show up to a pow wow parading your euro diaspora sense of entitlement while adopting a Dakota accent to make you sound more authentic.
You are not a shaman.
When you don’t see the harm of cultural appropriation and defend your taking like a conquistador claims bodies, and lands in the name of the king and queen of spain.
You are not a shaman.
When your lifestyle is threatened by not using the term shaman anymore.
You are not a shaman.
When being a shaman is a lifestyle, and not a birthright handed down from generations of shamans from Siberia or Mongolia.
You are not a shaman.
Cuz you learned how to play a wooden flute, and now make videos of you playing said flute by a river, dressed in pan indian regalia on land your ancestors stole from the people you claim to honor.
You are not a shaman.
When being an actual shaman is a specific birthright for only two cultures in the world that are cultivated, nurtured, and is a fate as told by the former shaman in those two specific tribes.
You are not a shaman.
When shamanism is your religion.
Due to the recent uprising of a spiritual not religious mindset with 27% of ‘murican’s claiming the identity. This has created the opportunity to repackage imperialist values through linguistic imperialism. For example, “anything mystical is shaman.” Through religious domination, “I go to your village, and you must serve me to my comfort, so I can return to my lands and capitalize on your culture. My three week visit entitles me to use your sacred medicines how I deem fit, and am now legitimized.” Imperialist values that show up in modern replicas of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show of traveling medicine men. Spiritual pimps who parade “authentic” tribal medicine men to people who bypass the responsibility of making amends for ancestral harm by participating in a repackaged version of that exact harm.
You are not a shaman.
When the words come out of your mouth- I can be anything I want to be wtf is she to tell me what I can and can not be. I can be, do, and identify as anything I want and that is my right as a human.
This statement ^^^ is peak colonial privilege and if this is your reasoning to call yourself a shaman, check yourself so deeply your ancestors feel it.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
You see, the term shaman in and of itself carries such heavy energy now, that the people who are of the culture where the term originates, receive no monetary benefit, no support, no nothing from the people who BANK on the term with entitlement and domination leading their “spiritual” journey.
You see, when you respect the original terminology of the tribe you seek to connect with, you heal GENERATIONS of harm by that one humble act.
Remember, not all indigneous people are 100% indigenous these days and 100% of people who are not indigenous have the responsibility to protect indigenous peoples at all costs.
