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Articles & FAQs Search for a Shaman
A teapot splotched with golden dandelions roosts in the middle of a pine coffee table in a first floor flat in the East End of London, an area where immigrants have traditionally lived. Outside there is a break in the Atlantic island drizzle and large wooden-framed windows, reminiscent of San Francisco, invite morning sunlight to pour into the room. Inside seven women clasp cups of steaming tea. Women from twenty-two to sixty-five. Caterina sits straight-backed on a cushion on the floor as if she’s practicing a yoga position. Martha and Abby are curled up on the sofa. Alison and Ellen lounge in chintz patterned armchairs. Elizabeth perches on a wooden stool. I toss the question to them, ‘Do you think Europeans are interested in American Indians?’ Caterina is the first to speak. ‘Yes, Europeans are very interested in American Indians.’ A small, slim woman with blonde hair and finely drawn features, Caterina is the daughter of physicians. She was born in the former Soviet Socialist Republic, in Communist Russia where women were routinely trained as doctors at a time when women were still struggling for admission into medical schools in Europe and the United States. ‘Nature and the relationship with the land is something that interests Europeans a great deal. I’m especially interested interested in herbal medicine.’ After the tragedy of Chernobyl, Caterina’s sixteen-year old daughter was diagnosed with cancer. In addition to Western school medicine, Caterina ensured that her daughter was treated with South American herbs, herbs that have long been a part of American Indian tradition. ‘I think that herbal medicine is very powerful and I think that Europeans would like to know a great deal more about it. I’m sure that the herbs helped my daughter in her recovery.’ Martha agrees with Caterina. With dark eyes and hair, born in Baden-Baden, Martha is in her forties. Well-known Cherokee names such as Hildebrand and Gunter are still common in the Catholic wine-growing Rhine valley, near where the German Revolution of 1848 began, when hungry impoverished farmers joined together with craftsmen, shopkeepers and merchants in a revolt against the nobility. ‘People in Germany are certainly interested in American Indians, but I’m not sure how deep the interest goes. My generation was influenced by Karl May and his characters Old Shatterhand and Winnetou. And James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans influenced thousands of Germans as well. But I think it’s probably quite superficial really. They romanticize Indians and see them as stereotypes, noble savages.’ Martha shifts forward on the sofa and peers intently at the women in the room, ‘A lot of people were interested in the American Indian Movement in the 1960s, don’t you think?’ Elizabeth, also German, nods agreement and Martha continues, ‘But what I’d really like to know is what’s happening now politically. How Indians live and deal with different environments, in the countryside, in small towns and in major cities. And what’s happening on reservations today. Their survival strategies.’ ‘Patronizing,’ Ellen says emphatically. Ellen lives in a village in Devon, a county in the West Country which took part in Monmouth’s 1685 Rebellion against the King. Some well known Cherokee and Shawnee names such as England (Cherokee) and Elliott (Shawnee) were common there. Allen, John, Philip and Thomas England, Cornelius and Matthew Elliott, Christopher Candy, John Foster and Thomas Daniell were arrested as rebels who supported the Duke of Monmouth as opposed to the reigning Catholic James II and were transported and sold at auction to wealthy plantation owners in the Americas. ‘Europeans,’ Ellen says and then qualifies, ‘Well, a lot of English people at least think that American Indians are wonderful. But they don’t see them as real people. They don’t give them credit or power. I think our own colonial history gets in the way.’ Ellen is thin, a little wirey, her gray curls are hennaed red. She sips her mug of Earl Grey tea. ‘People patronize Indians the same way they patronize Blacks. Oh, they’ve got rhythm. Oh, they’re really in tune with the earth. That kind of thing.’ She turns to Elizabeth. Born in Ethiopia with finely chiselled features, Elizabeth looks like an etching of Geronimo, but with blue eyes. She holds a German passport and works with emotionally disturbed adolescents. She lives in the Rhineland Palatinate, the source of many of the German immigrants to Pennsylvania between 1700 and 1750 who married into the Cherokee tribe. Elizabeth is on holiday in London just now. ‘I agree with Martha. There’s a large group of Germans who’re very interested in American Indian culture and history. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee touched us and influenced our thinking a lot. But again there’s a group who know nothing about it and don’t want to know. And I really think that one of the main interests is shamanism. I’ve got several friends who’ve studied with American Indian shamanic teachers. Elizabeth turns to Alison. Alison Stuart is Scots and the oldest of the women. At sixty-five she’s recently retired from a university faculty. Twenty years ago she was thrown through the windscreen of a car as the driver swerved to avoid a head-on collision, and although the left side of her face is scarred, the scarring has not touched her beauty. Her white hair frames a striking face. ‘It’s important to keep the historical perspective in mind,’ Alison explains. ‘If you look at conditions in Europe, famine, poverty, thousands of Europeans who travelled to America were either reprieved from the gallows and transported or fled to avoid starvation. Conditions in the Americas were very different. Food was more plentiful over much of the continent. American tribes and cultures evolved under different conditions. In this sense, perhaps, Indians appeared exotic to Europeans.’ ‘And I suspect that Scots and Germans are rather more interested in American Indians than some of the other nationalities. European assimilation into the Cherokee Nation shows very clear patterns in terms of both nationality and timeframe. The Jacobite Rebels from Scotland and the Germans arriving from the Alsace and southwest Germany between 1700 and 1750 were more likely to marry into the Nation than some of the later immigrants. What do you think?’ Alison asks Abby. Abby has dark brown hair, dark eyes. She looks Indian, both kinds, and Mediterranean as well. She could fit in almost anywhere. Born in London, she’s spent time on the eastern high desert of Oregon with her grandmother, a descendent of Cherokee who made their way to California after the Cherokee Nation was expelled from Texas. Abby is the youngest of the women, in her early twenties. She has an eighteen-month old daughter and is married to a Tibetan refugee. ‘Yes, I agree, it’s important to keep the historical perspective in mind. And that brings us back to your point, Caterina, that Europeans are interested in native herbal traditions. Here in Europe the Christian church killed off the traditional herbalists and healers. Priests said that women should suffer in childbirth, it was part of the Christian view of original sin. When they burnt midwives as witches they destroyed the European herbal traditions as well.’ Abby leans forward and pours brown steaming liquid from the pot into a ‘Best Mum in the World’ mug and adds a dash of milk, then leans back on the sofa. ‘There are a lot of people who want to know about American Indians today, not just the stereotypes, but what is actually happening in different places and how they really live. Their survival strategies. But it’s more than that.’ ‘People crave color, ritual, symbol. I think that’s a big part of people’s interest.’ Abby takes a sip of tea and continues, ‘They see American Indians as still holding onto myths and traditions that they lack in their own lives. Turtle Island. The Corn Woman Blessing. Wampum instead of plastic cash cards.’ ‘And people want images of women. At least, women do. Everybody knows about Bar Mitzvahs. The Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition has rituals for men. But the Apache have rituals for when their daughters become women. Friends and family are invited to come and celebrate and feast.’ ‘Today so many people feel alienated. Their lives are hollow. They have to work, work, work just to pay the gas, the electric. Nobody’s going to lend them a dime if they can’t afford to pay the bills. They see rich people and international companies getting richer while they have to struggle just to put food on the table for the kids.’ ‘People don’t want to live like that. They want decent living conditions. They crave ritual and beauty. A little bit of magic in their lives. It’s the search for a shaman. If you like, you could call it spirituality.’ |
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