Gaelic Polytheist Videos - Lá Fhéile Bríde, Là na Caillich, Bealtaine, Áine agus Grian, & Manannán

We've been busy at Gaol Naofa! Along with all the usual activities of summer, we've made some more videos. Here are five more in the series, focusing on the seasonal and local festivals.

We had fun making these, and hope they can provide a brief intro to the subject for those less inclined to read a 90 page article or scholarly book. Additionally, we've dedicated our efforts to capturing the essence of each topic in visuals and music in a way bare words cannot. After all, the lore says we must drink from all five streams of knowledge, and engage all the senses in absorbing the sacred.

Images are mostly of the sacred sites and activities associated with each of the deities, spirits and festivals. Music is either an old, traditional song on the topic, or a contemporary version of traditional lyrics and tunes. Traditional prayers are included. Some of these images are old, archival photos, others were taken very recently by our members in the Celtic Nations and diaspora (in some cases photographed expressly for this series). Much gratitude to all our friends and relatives who went trekking with their cameras in tow!

Feel free to share!

Lá Fhéile Bríde — The Festival Day of Bríd
As the sun sets on the last day of January, the goddess Brigid walks the land, bringing the first stirrings of spring. Even if the ground is still covered in snow, the earth begins to stir from her long winter sleep.



Là na Caillich — The Day of the Hag
Spring is starting to happen around us, and the Clumsy Old Woman who Shapes the World is stirring up the last of the winter storms, and considering lying down for a bit of a nap. Sometimes when she does this, she accidentally creates a river or loch. Other times she drops stones she's carrying and, Ooops, another mountain range appears. She's had a lot on her mind, and wants to take a break. 



Bealtaine
In the Celtic lands, the summer is here. When the hawthorn blooms, it's warm enough to move the flocks and the herds, and hold bonfires welcoming the light half of the year. Readers of this blog will recognize the song here. 



Midsummer — Áine agus Grian
The Celts do not have a "sun deity" in the way Classical mythology would frame it. Instead, our deities and spirits are multifaceted, with full personalities, like the people they watch over, like the ancestors some of them once were. (And still are, for many of us.) In the Gaelic areas, as in most Celtic cultures, the fire festivals of Samhain, Imbolc, Bealtaine and Lúnasa are the major festivals. Activities and beliefs connected with the solstices and equinox tend to be based either on older, pre-Celtic remnants that survived in some form as local festivals, or on imports that came with the Norse and were syncretised with local beliefs and customs. Not all communities acknowledge these solar phenomena, at all, but those that do tend to associate them with beloved local spirits, often those of sovereignty.



Manannán — Paying the Rents at Midsummer

Mac Lir, son of the sea, patron of the Isle of Man, guiding spirit of Gaelic Polytheism. Well, one of them. But Manannán has shown an especial interest in the development of Celtic Reconstructionism, and I am happy to have this lovely video about him and his work, an homage and thank you for the guidance he's provided us over the decades.

Irish Fairy Beliefs: Interview with Folklorist Dr. Jenny Butler

Here is an excellent interview with Dr. Jenny Butler about the living traditions of the Creideamh Sí ("Fairy Faith"). She discusses those who have maintained these traditional ways of interacting with (or at least respecting) the spirits, along with some discussion of Irish polytheism in general.

At the end the interviewer also seems to know about those of us involved in the preservation, revival and reconstruction of the old Irish ways and asks about the modern communities. While I wish she would have made a bit more of a distinction between the various folks who either observe these ways now and those who are simply inspired by them, as that only came up in the last segment and was not the focus of the interview it's understandable there were only generalizations.

Definitely worth a watch, especially as an intro to the Creideamh Sí.

Go raibh maith agaibh, a Jenny (agus a Mhícheáil for posting this)!



A bit more detail about the Creideamh Sí:

The Creideamh Sí is the foundation of our spiritual work in Gaol Naofa. The Creideamh Sí, aka "the Fairy Faith" is a collection of customs and beliefs which make up the living Gaelic ways of interacting with the local spirits. Most of the people who have maintained these ways down into the present day consider themselves to be Christian. I think it is very important to respect the living traditions and not try to redefine these terms to fit modern, American pagan sensibilities. So, the Creideamh Sí is a part of most contemporary Gaelic Polytheist paths. But any attempt to redefine "Creideamh Sí" to only mean "Modern Gaelic Polytheism" kind of misses the point and is offensive to those in the living cultures, without whom we would have nothing.

State of Emergency: Another Week of Action to Save the Peaks

Activists on-site have announced a state of emergency. Old growth forest is being clearcut and burnt, the land bulldozed. Many of the trees are not even being used for lumber, but piled into twenty foot high slash piles and burned. All of this so privileged tourists can go snow skiing, all of this to destroy a watershed, destroy a landbase, destroy a culture.

Another Week of Action is in progress, with street actions and direct action on the mountain continuing.

"If not now, when? If not you, who?"



"The pictures do not really explain the massive scale. The stump in the foreground is 5ft across and the log pile peeking over the top has a few hundred trees that were many hundreds of years old."



"20 foot tall slash pile being burned. Thanks Lorena Caballero for the photo. Be sure to check her photos for another full album of pictures."



From the album: Converge on the Peaks - www.TrueSnow.org by Nuvatuqui Ovi

Save the Peaks Action: August 23

Passing on the word from truesnow.org

Silent Vigil
Tues, August 23
4PM
City Hall
Flagstaff AZ

Water is Life, Don't sell ours to Snowbowl!

On Tuesday August 23 we will hold Silent Vigil in front of City Hall and subsequently in city council meeting. It is time to stop for a moment and pay our respects to the plants, trees, animals, and insects who died or lost their homes in the clear-cuts that are taking place up on the mountain at the hands of Arizona Snowbowl.

It would only take four city council members with courage and vision to end this entire treated sewage effluent fiasco forever. With their simple vote to end the contract it could put an end to anger and racism and outright desecration and begin the healing process. It would also keep 180,000,000 gallons of water a year filtering through 1200 feet of volcanic rock back into our own aquifer, instead of dumping it directly above a perched aquifer on the peaks and uphill from the Hart Prairie aquifer.

Flagstaff water for Flagstaff, don't sell it to Snowbowl.

Please join us in the City Council meeting and let them know what their silence feels like. The council chambers can likely hold about 200 people, so come on down and help us fill the room.

Let them know that water is life, don't sell ours to Snowbowl.

Spread the word, and follow the updates at truesnow.org/vigil

"What is at stake is our prayers, our ways of life, our cultural survival."

Updates, additional photos, and statements from activists arrested on the Holy San Francisco Peaks on Saturday, courtesy IndigenousAction.org:

"What is at stake is our prayers, our ways of life, our cultural survival."

On the Gaelic front, so much of my work in recent years has been about preserving our prayers and songs for the coming generations. This is still culturally vital, but what good are these things if we no longer have the land on which to pray and sing? What use are our ceremonies if the land becomes too desecrated to sustain life? Without land we have no culture, no life, no future.

This is why my prayer is that our cultural preservation of language, songs, prayers and ceremonies, go hand in hand with our cultural preservation that prioritizes protection of the sacred land. The culture sustains us, the land sustains us, and neither can be separated from the other.

Update: Annie over at Tairis in Scotland has weighed in on the issue, as well. Good to see more international coverage, especially from a fellow Gaelic Polytheist who understands how vital this work is to our cultures, whether we are protecting sacred sites in Alba agus Éire or in the diaspora. Moran Taing!

And a Victory!

CMU returns Native remains to Saginaw Chippewa Tribe

By SUSAN FIELD
Clare Managing Editor

A somber group of Saginaw Chippewa Tribal members on Thursday brought some of their ancestors home.

A sunrise ceremony at Central Michigan University’s Special Olympics building was followed by a procession of Tribal members bringing the remains of Saginaw Chippewa Tribal ancestors and funerary objects that were returned to the Tribe from CMU’s Museum of Cultural and Natural History.

... ... ...

“The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe and Central Michigan University share a long and proud heritage of mutual respect,” said Pam Gates, interim dean of the College of Humanities and Social and Behavioral Science. “In honor of the proud culture, heritage and history of the indigenous people of this region, CMU will rightfully return the remains of Saginaw Chippewa tribal members in its possession to their families for proper burial.”

Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Chief Dennis Kequom said said he was humbled by CMU’s commitment to returning ancestral remains to the Tribe.

"I am very proud of what we have gathered here to do today and humbled by the care, understanding and sensitivity that Central Michigan University has displayed in the time it took to bring us to this point,” he said. “This historic event marks a new direction in our efforts to repatriate all of our ancestors.

“It is my hope for our Tribal community that other institutions throughout Michigan and elsewhere follow the lead of Central Michigan University. There are so many people to thank and we will have ample time for that over the course of these next two days. Today we proudly reclaim our own and return them home.”

View the video of the procession and interview with tribal spokesman

May this victory serve as inspiration and precedent to all those who are still fighting to have their ancestors remains returned and reburied with dignity. I particularly take it as inspiration today as we work on reburial issues for the ancestors in the Tara-Skryne.

Previous post on repatriation efforts for the Saginaw Chippewa ancestors:
- Is your grandmother’s skull in a box in a stranger’s closet?

How to learn Gaelic (or any "small, local" language)

Tim from Mill a h-Uile Rud writes:

Learning a small, local language like Gaelic is fundamentally different from learning a massive, international language like French or Spanish. Most people come to grief when they try to learn Gaelic because they approach it like French or Spanish, and you just can't learn Gaelic that way.

(More...)

Tim provides a number of online resources and has excellent suggestions that apply not only to Gaelic, but to any language spoken mostly by small, insular groups of people. Basically, you need to speak some every day, even when you only have a little bit of the language. The learner needs to shed their fear of making mistakes, and know that everyone knows mistakes are a part of learning. And if you can't find an immersive environment in person, you can get some of that effect via Gaelic radio on the Internet and (in some areas) Gaelic-language television.

It takes more persistence, and more effort to seek out the groups and networks of people who can help you practice. The learner also needs to understand a variety of cultural issues that can help or hinder the process. But with dedication and applied effort, it can be easier than you may think.

Gaelic speakers and learners are relatively lucky, compared to many of the endangered languages of the Americas: we have Internet radio stations, websites and good distance-learning programs, in addition to numerous courses in combined book and tape formats. While it's always easier to learn with others in a group, preferably with fluent, native speakers involved, it's possible to get a solid start on one's own.

Now back to increasing my skills anns a'Ghàidhlig ;-)

Is your grandmother’s skull in a box in a stranger’s closet?

The University of Michigan has the remains of about 1,400 Native Americans, as well as thousands of funerary objects. So far they have refused to return the already-studied and cataloged remains, or the sacred objects, to these people's surviving descendants and communities. Ancestors whose bodies and ritual objects deserve to be treated with respect have had their remains scrawled on with pens and are now gathering dust in the storerooms of the University campus. Check out the video below for more info.



Help our ancestors - sign the petition to bring them home:
http://www.petitiononline.com/remains/petition.html

Turning Point : Third Point : Gateway

Thoughts on the history of Celtic Reconstructionism and Gaelic Polytheism, 1985 - 2008

Recent heated discussions in the online Celtic Reconstructionist (CR) communities have brought to the fore some issues central to who we are as a community and a movement. Veterans of any sort of social, religious or spiritual movement, or students of history, may see some common patterns here:

◊ Something starts out small and controlled. Doesn’t mean anyone is particularly trying to “control” it – usually there’s no one outside the movement who would perceive the group’s efforts at self-definition as anything but that: self-definition.

◊ After a period of time, the movement becomes popularised. It moves beyond the realm of the small handful of people who’ve developed and defined it, into something that a larger group of people identify with.

◊ Once a large group of people identify with it, they are also invested in helping define it, and in making sure that the movement reflects their individual personal experiences and goals.

At this point, the people who initially developed the movement, and those who popularised it, can have a variety of responses, often determined by personal temperament as well as how much of their time, work and identity they have invested in the tradition. This turning point has happened with other traditions such as Wicca and Asatru, and it is now happening with CR. Opposing viewpoints are clashing… but also, a gateway is opening.

Where we've been, where we are, where we may be going

Whether you pinpoint the birth of the Celtic Reconstructionist movement to the early discussions and rituals with our groups in the mid-1980’s; or to Imbolc of 1992 when I first published some explanation of what we'd been doing¹ and, in the next issue of the same magazine, Kym Lambert ní Dhoireann agreed with me and mentioned the term we'd been using for this ("Celtic reconstructionist")² – leading to exposure in the community at large; or to a few years later when the development of the World Wide Web led to much wider exposure and successive waves of new people coming in from the midwest and west coast; CR is now either a young adult or a teenager. I personally put the “birthtime” of CR in a liminal zone – somewhere in between the proto-CR rituals and discussions among my groups and friends in the mid-'80s and the time when we began to speak of it to a larger audience (late '80s and early '90s) and it grew beyond a handful of us. Either way, the birth was not one moment in time; it was a process of streams converging until something new emerged.

CR did not emerge fully-formed from anyone’s head. It was a process of collaboration and experimentation. As a living tradition, that journey is never-ending. Yet at the same time there have been a series of turning points. This is one of them.

We are going through a growth process similar to adolescence – some surges forward are happening, internal conflicts are arising, and some factions are splitting off. This is a natural process, and one I feel we’d be better to name and accept rather than try to control.

I realize that some observers of, and participants in, the recent discussions probably see me as one of the people who is trying to be too controlling. Let me say this: For everyone, there is their first few years of CR – where they explore it, see how it does or doesn’t match up with their life, decide whether it is for them, decide whether they need to make any personal changes (or whether they should try to change the tradition to better suit them, which is problematic, but some have been trying to do that...). My first years of CR consisted of a handful of people hanging out in my living room, or talking around the coffee at Pagan gatherings, or doing ritual experiments in the woods. Again, all of this happening with just a small handful of close friends. For years, whenever we tried to talk to others in the Pagan community, they didn't know what we were talking about or why we'd want to do such an odd thing. We were outsiders to the Pagan community. After Kym, Paul and I started sharing what we were doing with a larger audience, via our writings in the Pagan zines and Paul's and my early writings online, more people picked up on the name and some of the ideas. I was surprised people picked up on our terminology, as "Celtic Reconstructionism" is an awkward name, but it happened. In the early years of expansion I think we were so happy to find others who were interested in any degree of authenticity, or doing what might be similar things, that we got along well; either most of us agreed on the core principles and goals of the movement, or I believed that we agreed. Starting from these small and very personal beginnings... this is the reason I have an attachment to what CR means, and what CR is. I am not its only mother, but I think it’s understandable that at times I feel like it’s my baby.

Our baby is now a boisterous adolescent, and it often hates its parents more than anything else in the world.

Mathematically, we have reached a point where there are too many people who identify with the term “Celtic Reconstructionist” for us all to agree about what we believe, what we practice, what our boundaries are and, at times, even what the words “Celtic Reconstructionist” mean. Conversations of self-definition that happened decades ago, that I thought everyone was clear on, are being repeated recently and it’s all a bit surreal to me. Yet at the same time, I know this is natural in the growth process of a movement. I don't necessarily like it, but I know it's natural.

To backtrack a bit: After more people got online in the 1990s, many more people were drawn to CR than we had ever foreseen. But very quickly, this new influx turned the fledgling CR forums into places I did not want to be. We almost instantly switched over from arguing with the Wiccans who swore Wicca was Celtic, to creepy fights with newcomers who just wanted to yell about who had read the most books, and never discuss spiritual practices. I suspected most of these newcomers didn’t even have spiritual practices. I was disgusted, and I left all those forums for a few years. I considered no longer calling myself CR. I went back to just working with my in-person group and developing our own CR traditions – Nigheanan nan Cailleachan, agus Ora nam Bandia.

In 2003, Kym got a handful of the old guard to join the brand-new cr_r forum on Livejournal. I was skeptical, but I agreed to try. We dedicated ourselves to discussing actual practices, and a group of us got together to write the CR Essay. The CR Essay was written by whomever wanted to participate, which wound up being about a dozen people, and a handful of us did most of the writing. There are things I would change about that essay, as some of the phrasing was either too vague, or in more Neopagan terms, as opposed to terms more suited to discussions of traditional cultures. But we were writing it as something to post on WitchVox, so we oriented towards that audience.³

Three years later, a slightly different group of us got together to write The CR FAQ, and we vetted all the answers with anyone who chose to participate on cr_r. Like with the CR Essay, we advertised it on all the major lists, and welcomed input. Those with a lot of input were invited to join the core group writing the text on the CeltiWiki. After the fact, some people complained that they weren’t invited, but we chose to invite those who were already contributing writing of some sort in the community – at the very least message board posts with some content to them, on one of the major forums. At this point, it was harder to work together, as there were already some pretty serious differences of opinion among a number of the contributors. But, with struggle and perseverance, we managed to come to consensus on some basic principles, despite our differences.

That moment is gone, and will not come again.

As noted earlier, the number of people who self-identify as Celtic Reconstructionists is now far too big for every one of us to completely agree on who does and doesn't fit under the CR umbrella. We all have our opinions; we all believe we are right. Contrary to what recent events may have led some to believe, I don’t enjoy arguing about these things. I never have. I do it when I feel it needs to be done, for I am protective of those people and principles to whom and which I am committed. Some may feel I am overly protective of CR, but I hope that what I have touched on about my background helps explain this, as well as possibly explain the behaviour of many of us who identify as CR (or any tradition or group or movement).

With the FAQ, we have the basic principles we agreed to. Undoubtedly, some will want to debate interpretations of those principles. I don’t expect everyone to agree.

We have reached the point where the adolescent has not only left home, but we have realized the adolescent is actually a loose conglomeration of different groups, individuals and traditions. At this point, we need to acknowledge that “Celtic Reconstructionism” or “Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism” is not only an umbrella term, but it’s become so big that, beyond the basics we’ve agreed to in the FAQ, it’s barely more precise than saying “I’m a Christian.” Or, "I'm Norse." What kind of CR are you? If you have a tradition, what is its name? Not the name someone else has come up with, but a name for your specific practice, which is a branch, or maybe a subset, or maybe an offshoot, of CR.

There is great power in naming. It is a spiritual journey that a group or individual needs to take to truly find their place, their identity, their spiritual power.

It’s time for those who are arguing about who gets to define or redefine CR to do some soul-searching, to look at the roots of their beliefs and practices, what those things are for them now, as well as where they are headed, and name it.

For me, naming the tradition “Celtic Reconstructionism” wasn’t the choice to name a tradition based on the above principles. I wish I could say it was, but the truth is, it happened by accident. I was just using descriptive terms for what we were doing, and had no idea they would be picked up and codified as a name for the tradition. If so, I would have suggested something far more poetic!⁴

After our initial sharing of basic CR concepts with the broader community, a small number of us continued to develop these ideas and practices in person and, through their writings in Pagan zines, Kym and Paul in particular did a lot to publicize these concepts to a broader audience. My part in the developmental work in that period was mainly in the ceremonial and trance-priestess department, along with Gaelic folkloric input from my family of origin, my background in comparative religion, and my years of experience as a ritual priestess. Paul and I are also to blame for people on the Internet being exposed to the name CR and our ideas behind it, as we had been online since 1985, and started posting about it online around the same time, first on the CompuServe Religion forums, then the GEnie Celts forum, Podsnet and, once it was begun in 1994, the early days of Nemeton-L.

For the first few, in-person years of my contributions to the movement, I didn’t think I’d read enough of the old Celtic texts to qualify as CR myself, even though I was one of the few people reviving, defining and building the Gaelic Polytheist traditions. As I was having success at finding things through metaphysical means, I actually felt at that time that it was a strength to not have my nose buried in the books, as I couldn't have my visions and inspirations biased by scholarly expectations. But as I studied more, I found that study of the lore helped my spiritual work, instead of interfering with it. As time passed I became more dedicated to the language work. This happened because I was visited by ancestors and deities in a series of key dreams. They spoke to me in Gaelic, so I had to learn Gaelic to understand what they wanted of me, to progress on the path, and to help build CR. I am still learning. It’s not easy. But you know what, it’s been the most rewarding thing for me. What is rewarding for you?

In an earlier post on cr_r, Paul spoke of how the language, music and folk practices that we preserve and continue forms the “bright cord of tradition” at the center of what we do, a link to our ancestors and Deities that transcends our individual lives and experiences. A couple others took exception, one even claiming the cord, if it exists at all, is "dingy." My question is: if you haven’t found that bright cord at the center of your spiritual practice, why are you doing it? And if that bright cord isn’t of a specific Celtic culture, why do you identify as CR?

I have named what we do Nigheanan nan Cailleachan,⁵ for my extended family, over multiple generations, has seen many times that we are Daughters of the Storm Hags. When we include the male members of the family, we are Clann nan Cailleachan – Children of the Storm Hags. In broader terms, our tradition is Ora nam Bandia - Song/Prayer of the Goddesses. In broader terms,  Ioma-Dhiadhachd Ghàidhealach / Ildiachas Gaelach - Gaelic Polytheism: As traditional as possible; reconstructing only when the earlier, polytheistic version of a practice has been fragmented; and rooted in the languages, music, and traditions of the living cultures.

Who are you?

Kathryn Price NicDhàna
April 30, 2008
Taigh na h-Aibhne

May be linked to, reposted or quoted as long as text is unaltered and the above attribution is included. Copyright ©2008 Kathryn Price NicDhàna.

crossposted

---

Notes
1. Theatana, Kathryn [K.P. NicDhàna] (1992) "More on Names", Harvest, Southboro, MA, Vol. 12, No. 3, Imbolc [Feb] 1992, pp. 11-12: "As time passes and I get to know the Goddesses more intimately, I've also had these same feelings of discomfort about white Neo-Pagans taking the names of major ancestral Goddesses like Rhiannon, Cerridwen or Danu - in this case it's more the hubris angle than the cultural ignorance/racism reason. ... My experience is that as we move to deeper and deeper levels with the Deities who guide us, They demand more and more of us. Often these demands include developing and/or reconstructing Their traditional forms of worship. (As in, you may be able to get a Deity to show up within a ritual structure foreign to Their cultural tradition, but it may not be what They want to work with over the long haul.)"

2. Lambert, Kym [K.L. ní Dhoireann] (1992) "Celtic God/Goddess Names", Harvest, Southboro, MA, Vol. 12, No. 4, Spring Equinox [March] 1992, pp. 11-12: "I'd like to add a couple of comments to Kathryn Theatana's letter in the Imbolc issue... Kathryn's 'digression' about the fact that '... you may be able to get a Deity to show up within a ritual structure foreign to Their cultural tradition, but it may not be what They want to work with over the long haul' is a good point. It is also one that is too often overlooked or misunderstood by a Pagan Community too focused on Wicca. ... There are lots of other Pagan religions, old and new. (By the way, I'm not Druidic either - I fall into that wholly unromantic sounding category of Celtic reconstructionist.) Like Kathryn I'm really glad to see these topics being discussed and hope the discussion continues. Perhaps it will lead to more understanding of non-Wiccan Pagans and more information about reconstructionist forms of Paganism."

3. I now regret having posted on a site with "Witch" in the name. But at that time it was the central networking site for contemporary Pagans, there were no alternative Polytheist sites, and some were concerned that if we did not post something there, that Wiccans or others with no connections to our communities would try to define it for us.

4. Varn, C.D. (2007) "An Interview with Kym Lambert", The Green Triangle, Jan. 2007: "It will always amaze me that this term, this path, has developed any sort of a following at all. When Kathryn NicDhàna, Paul and I were sitting among their books one night and Kathryn, we think, first uttered the term in the context of such a path, my thought was 'This is perfect, it's so unromantic and cumbersome that no one else will want use it!' (this being around '90 or '91 when there were huge fights about the titles 'Witch' and 'Druid')."

5. Grammatically, Nigheanan nan Cailleach and Clann nan Cailleach are more proper. We named the traditions when we were beginners at Gaelic, and I've tended to stick with this spelling to make sure people know we are talking about the Storm Hags and not just The Hag. Your mileage may vary :-)

---

Kathryn Price NicDhana

Official Statement on Cherokee Spiritual Leaders

This is an official statement by Richard L. Allen. EdD, who is the Research & Policy Analyst for the Cherokee Nation. I am reposting it here (and over at the CAORANN board), because we still have the problem of people thinking that any person of American Indian ancestry, or who claims such ancestry, is somehow a representative or spiritual leader for a particular Nation, or indeed all Native Americans. Hopefully this will clear some of that up.

Greetings --

The Cherokee Nation is overwhelmed with those charlatans who fraudulently claim to be shaman, spiritual leaders or descendents of a Cherokee princess.

Such individuals make such claims without ever having lived within the Cherokee communities. They claim to be descended from some nebulous and mysterious ancestor who was from "a reservation in North Carolina" (there is only one) or "a reservation in Oklahoma" (there are none). The ancestor is never just a plain ordinary everyday Cherokee citizen but a "Cherokee Princess," a "Cherokee Shaman," or a "Cherokee Pipe carrier" none of which actually exist or ever have. Those who claim to be "shaman" do not reside within the known boundaries of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.

Cherokee medicine people and spiritual leaders are known to the Cherokee people and do not practice medicine for a fee nor sell "shamanic" lessons to anyone. They do not advertise their services through any form of media and certainly not over the internet.

Traditional Cherokee healers and spiritual leaders provide their services to the Cherokee people. A Cherokee medicine person or spiritual leader is fluent in the Cherokee language and would conduct any medical or spiritual practices by using the Cherokee language. Therefore, our medicine people are those who were born of a Cherokee mother and a Cherokee father and would have been reared within a Cherokee community speaking the Cherokee language. Our traditional Cherokee healers and spiritual leaders are humble people and would not present themselves as such nor "hang out a shingle" so to speak.

Cherokee medicine people are acknowledged and recognized by members of the Cherokee community as effective healers and leaders. It is the recognition of the Cherokee people that validates these persons as medicine people and healers not self-proclaimation. We may provide them small gifts, a token amount of money or foodstuffs in payment for their services. They do not charge for their services nor would they withhold their services when asked and they certainly would not prescibe payment by credit card.

Cherokee medicine people may provide services to recognized members of other tribes or may provide services to non-Indians who would seek them out for treatment, but certainly would not mix their spirituality or medicine with that of other nations.

Cherokee medicine and spiritual practices do not include tarot cards, palmistry, psychic readings or sweatlodge ceremonies.

One may assume that anyone claiming to be a Cherokee "shaman, spiritual healer, or pipe-carrier," is equivalent to a modern day medicine show and snake-oil vendor.

You have my permission to print this response as is.

Richard L. Allen. EdD
Research & Policy Analyst
Cherokee Nation
P.O. Box 948
Tahlequah, Oklahoma 74465

Additionally, if someone claims to be a spiritual leader, ask for details: who trained them, where are they from, and then contact their claimed tribe to check on their claims. If you don't know a respected member of that person's claimed Nation to ask, come over to the New Age Frauds and Plastic Shamans site and search from the main page of the forum to see if others have already discussed the person in question. Indian Country is a pretty small and interconnected place and, if the person is not already known to the community, it usually only takes a phone call or two to find out whether someone is legitimate. Even better, by learning some things about cultural protocols, you can learn to hone your own bs detector.

This video by the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma also explains the problems of fake Cherokees and the dangers posed by fake tribes:


Cherokee Nation: What is a real Indian Nation? What is a fake tribe?

Visit the Cherokee Nation Taskforce
Note: The CNO website has been undergoing a prolonged period of reorganization.
For now, these links go to the archived version of the page.
Check for updates at the main site: cherokee.org

The Historical Importance of Rath Lugh...

... and its relevance to us now.

"One of the physical features in the area of the Gabhra Valley that they could have imagined as being the “great Rath” and commemorative mound of the dead Fianna is the present-day Rath Lugh."

from The Tara Skryne (Gabhra) Valley in Early Irish Literature
by Dr. Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin

As Dr. Ní Bhrolcháin explains in the linked article, it is sometimes difficult to find written references to Rath Lugh in the mythology. I tend to concur with her position that this is due to name shifts over the centuries, and that Rath Lugh (more correctly, "Rath Lugha") plays a crucial role in mythology, history and the current metaphysical lay of the land.

The current road plans intend to pave over at least one of the holy wells of Rath Lugh, and pave over or bulldoze into the tombs. The outer edge of the Rath and the forest around it have already been badly damaged. Anyone with the slightest interest in Irish history and Irish mythology must realize the importance of this sacred site, and protect it.