OXTED, England — Cheers, mates. It's me again, reporting live and well-fed from jolly old England.
Now, for those of you who may be geographically challenged (which, because of ever-dwindling funds for our public schools, could be anyone under the age of 83), England is NOT to be found ANYWHERE in the intermountain West.
Nope. Believe it or not, England is not even located in the United States. It's actually part of the United Kingdom, which is not to say that it's full of wacko, fringe-type religious zealots.
Native culture
No, for that we need look no further than our own back yard, usually. But I'll tell you, there ARE some serious space-cases over here.
My brother, Scott Frazier, and I are not among them, however. We're just here among them to lecture about the soft, peaceful nature of our Native American culture — our music, art, religion and philosophy — and then we're going to claim this land as our own and civilize its godless inhabitants, all the while forcing our beliefs down their ungrateful throats, if we have to.
Just kidding!
You know, we've seen, done and heard a lot of interesting things since our arrival here.
Since we're staying with a wonderful family that includes two young boys, we've heard some of Britain's most popular music, tasted some very exotic after-school treats, and seen that, no matter where you live, when you destroy mom's flower beds, you get sent to your room for life.
In our talks at area schools, we've been asked questions like: How do you build an igloo? Can you make a totem pole? What is the Great Spirit? What exactly is a dimpled chad? When did the Chippewa Indians first invent chocolate-chip cookies?
Sending wrong messages
In our talks with healers and spiritualists, one woman asked us about where we might “send” an illness that we remove from a patient during a doctoring ceremony.
Scott replied, “Well, sometimes I just ask it to go to Mars.”
“Oh no,” she fretted, “I work with people on Mars to do my OWN healing ceremonies!”
Hmm ... guess from now on we'll just have to stick 'em on Uranus.
We've seen some really scary things, here too. I mean, besides an entire nation of 60 million people all driving on the wrong side of the road.
We've seen Indians here. A lot of 'em, and we've seen some things we hoped we'd never have to see.
Promulgating stereotypes
We've seen Native people misrepresenting Native people. We've seen the worst stereotypes of Indians promulgated by Indians themselves. We've seen Native people making a financial killing over here by passing themselves off as holy people, and charging naive Britons ridiculous sums of money to perform “ceremonies.”
Scary.
We've seen folks here desperately hoping that true Native spiritualism can provide some solace and hope in an otherwise very structured world of increasingly unfulfilling institutional religious doctrine. We've seen people asking about the possibility of holding a Sun Dance here, and THAT'S a scary thing.
Yes, Virginia, there are a LOT of wacko, space-case religious zealots here, and the scariest thing is that many of them are our own Indian people, financially feeding off of the fears, misconceptions and collective guilt of others.
One guy even preaches that you can “avoid Armageddon” by following the “Indian Way,” and, I bet, by paying him in cash. Hey, if you can “avoid” Armageddon at all, you sure as hell don't need money, OR the Indian Way.
What about me and my brother Scott? What's our deal over here?
Personally, I'm here to eat.
We're just a couple of guys who are trying to learn how to get along with people. We're talking about healing, not for the people of Mars, but for everyone here on OUR planet.
It's time we all had a wake-up call, moreover, an awakening, about our relationships to each other, to the animals, to our Earth and to our Creator. It all comes down to prayer — and you can't put a price tag on that.
And what about all these other blokes? Those who are busy selling phony ceremonies and guilt-tripping innocent people even further into their deepening doubts and fears?
I think maybe we oughta send 'em to their rooms.
Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.
John Potter, an Ojibwe from Wisconsin, is a gifted artist, illustrator and writer. After more than 20 years as an editorial artist and columnist with the Billings Gazette (Billings, Mont.), he now spends his full time and energy on his oils, painting the landscapes of the West that he loves the most. His work can be seen online at www.lonewolfgallery.com.
