Dear New England Yearly Meeting Ministry and Counsel Working Party on Racism,

It has come to our attention that an organization with which you are affiliated (Friends General Conference) will be gathering this July in Amherst. Included in their workshop offerings is a sweat lodge "experience": "Since 1989 young Friends have participated in a sweat lodge...offers an opportunity to build the lodge, sweat and discuss the history, Quaker presence and spiritual nature of the sweat lodge experience." The sweat lodge is not an experience, it is a sacred ceremony practiced by many Native American tribes. You need to know that for Quakers to offer this is totally unacceptable and offensive to most Native peoples. Since your group is dedicated to looking at and addressing racism in the Society of Friends, we ask that you insist that this workshop be permanently discontinued. It brings disrespect or outright sacrilege to native people’s ceremonies and is a flagrant example of racism as it is predicated on an assumption that an almost exclusively white non-Native group has the right to usurp any spiritual practice it finds meaningful. It demonstrates a lack of understanding and concern for native peoples protocols, issues and values. Imagine if some Quaker thought it would be uplifting for young Friends if they conducted a full Catholic Mass complete with incense, communion preceded by confession and absolution. Who would think that was an acceptable workshop? No matter who gave who permission, trained the leader, etc. for Friends to use a sweat lodge is a violation and desecration of one of the most private and sacred aspects of native spiritual practice. It is a shameful activity for a group which prides itself on its historic connection to Native people and its work to overcome oppression. Just because it seems to be acceptable to practitioners of Eastern religions for Friends to include yoga, or Buddhist chants, etc. doesn’t mean the use of the sweat lodge is acceptable to Native People. And while achieving conscious contact with our Creator is a laudable goal, it will be unattainable without respect. Quaker use of the sweat lodge must stop.

Ideally Friends General Conference could redirect people who sign up for this workshop to the one titled "Practice Ending Racism among Friends". An alternative would be to research early European practices in regards to sauna’s etc. and form a workshop around these practices.
We look forward to your timely response. We can not overstate the seriousness of this concern.

Respectfully,

Alice Lopez;
for the Mashpee Coalition for Native Action and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe
( I can be reached at the above address or by phone at the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council –– 508-477-0208.)