Since the post yesterday, I've gotten a lot of insane email.

I'm Tsalagi.
I'm a treehugging dirtworshipper.
Those two things have nothing to do with one another.

I can't teach you how to be a "Native American" shaman/priest/medicine person/Stomp Dancer." This isn't because Cherokee spiritual practices are some deep, dark secret held fast by a Tsalagi Shaman Shadow Society, or because there would be 'penalties' for me teaching 'non-natives' - it is because I. Cannot. Teach. What. I. Don't. Know.

Cherokee do not have shaman. We have medicine people, we have spiritual people, we have healers - they are not identified by the word 'shaman', and anyone claiming to be one is someone to be very wary of. Please read the article here.

Also, if you're trying to learn, please look at this site. Trisha Jacobs has a very extensive list of frauds - and anyone trying to take your money to teach you counts as a fraud, in my not so humble opinion.

Cherokee don't care whether you're blood or not if you want to learn about our culture. Hey! Come talk to us! We love to teach! How much Cherokee blood you have only matters if you want to be a registered, enrolled member of the Tribe - there are plenty of people who are non-enrolled who are intensely knowledgeable about the culture, tradition and language. Our nation has official sites on how to learn the language and our history and stories, and we can teach you traditional dancing at any powwow that happens to have a traditional dancer - by 'traditional', I mean the social and not the religious dances. I don't do the religious dances. For more information on Cherokee dancing, I direct you to the WikiPedia site.

I can't make you a "Cherokee Dream Catcher" - well, in theory I could, because if I made a dream catcher, it would in fact be made by a Cherokee, but the device itself is. not. a. traditional. Cherokee. spiritual. artifact. Likewise, we don't have sweat lodges, medicine wheels, crystal skulls, wolf songs, sun dances, etc. We also don't have 'traditional snowshoes' - Cherokee don't come from where it snows, yo.

Beware of anyone trying to sell you "native american spiritual" /anything/ - the one thing that is true of all Native American Tribes is that our spirituality cannot be purchsed or sold. It may be gifted, freely - nothing more. Not ever. Anyone telling you anything different is a disgrace to the blood they claim to have.

My grandparents were good, practising Christians. They were deeply spiritual people who believed that God could be found in everything - every blade of grass, every child, every heart and every soul. Not because they were Cherokee, but because they were believers. My father was agnostic, my mother is Episcopolian. My grandparents, my parents, my siblings, and many other people around me have influenced my spirituality, my thirst for knowledge and my openminded outlook toward everything. My spirituality stems from a lot of time researching various religions, and the joke is that I studied theology long enough to learn to believe and too long to believe in any one thing. I respect the power in everything. That respect is something I try to teach everyone I meet, if only by example.

Please do not email me asking me to teach you about Native American spirituality, because that phrase makes my teeth hurt. All tribes have different beliefs, and different factions of each tribe may have different beliefs as well. It's like asking a Mormon to teach you how to be Christian. They can teach you what they know, but what they know won't be true for all Christians. I can teach what I know, but these are things that are only true for me, not for all Cherokee, certainly not for all Native Americans and I would never presume to imply they were.

I can tell you all the stories my grandparents ever told me, but what you take away from those stories may be different than what I did. I can teach you how to make a mean batch of frybread or those things they sell at powwows called 'indian tacos', and while I learned how to make frybread as a hyper child (Grandmother: "Here. Go pound this dough until it's not sticky anymore."), the 'indian taco' recipe I got from a vendor at a powwow who admitted he made it up. I can teach you how to make sassafrass tea, and how to make butter from whole milk (Grandmother: *puts milk in mason jar, screws cap on tightly* "Here, go shake this until the butter forms.") I could tell you all about what it was like to grow up Tsalagi, but that won't teach you what it's like to be Cherokee. I can tell you all about my own personal spiritual journey, which hasn't ended yet, but that won't teach you how to be spiritual, for everyone will walk a different path on that journey.

-P