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SECTION: Section 1; Page 7; Column 1; National Desk
LENGTH: 897 words
HEADLINE: Indians Complain of Religious and Cultural Theft
BYLINE: By DIRK JOHNSON, Special to The New York Times
DATELINE: June 12, 1993, BOULDER, Colo.
BODY:
In a trendy art shop here, a fur-covered doll identified as a Navajo dancing bear glares from a shelf, its mouth agape and arms outstretched in a furious stance.
With a $170 price tag, the doll seems to be a cherished artifact of American Indian culture.
But there is a hitch: no such thing as a dancing bear exists in the Navajo tradition. Moreover, such an image would be considered a sacrilege.
"We would not make such a trophy," said Gloria Emerson, a Navajo who is executive director of the Center for Research and Cultural Exchange at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M. "It would be considered disrespectful."
Tribal leaders say the dancing bear is one example of a growing trend to falsify or twist Indian culture for commercial gain. In particular, they blame the New Age movement for appropriating Indian culture into a kind of secular mysticism.
While some artifacts mimic Indian culture, others are copies of objects used in sacred ceremonies and never meant to be sold, like ghost dance dresses, sand paintings, medicine feathers and war bonnets.
Rituals on View
Some outsiders are selling vision quests, an Indian spiritual exercise not meant to carry a price tag. Others have erected imitation shrines on the Hopi reservation and conducted Indian-like ceremonies. Curiosity seekers have been flocking to authentic sacred ceremonies in such great numbers that some villages have been forced to close their roads during the religious rituals.
"We recognize that there's a great deal of yearning for spirituality out there," said Leigh Jenkins, the director of the Office of Culture Preservation for the Hopi tribe. "With all the madness in the country, people are looking for something to fill the vacuum. And, of course, they think we're exotic. But it's wrong to simply impose yourself on someone's else's religion."
To try to stop the fraudulent use of the Indian name in art, Congress strengthened the Indian Arts and Crafts Act in 1990. It provides for civil and criminal penalties for non-Indians who pass off forgeries as the creation of a tribe.
"We're talking about the need for truth-in-advertising here," said Representative Jon R. Kyl, Republican of Arizona, the sponsor of the bill. "We have a lot of people claiming to be Indian who are not."
Defining Indian
The law, which had become tangled in a dispute over the definition of an Indian, has yet to be enforced. The Indian Arts and Crafts Board, an independent agency in the Interior Department, has a request to Congress for money to draw up needed regulations.
Martin Link, the publisher of Indian Trader magazine in Gallup, N.M., said some unscrupulous makers of art had found creative ways to dupe the customer without exactly lying.
In a store in Flagstaff, Ariz., a few years ago, a retailer sold jewelry under the brand name of Indian Maid. "So the guy behind the counter would tell the customers that everything was Indian Maid," he said. "To the customers, of course, it sounded like 'Indian made.' "
In another case, Indian-style pottery came with words printed on the wrapping: "Certificate of authenticity inside." But when customers looked inside the box, they found a certificate that stated that the pottery had been "authentically made in Japan."
An artist named Randy Lee White, who called himself White Horse, claimed to be a member of the Sioux tribe in South Dakota, sold paintings for as much as $20,000. It was ultimately revealed that Mr. White was a Texan with no Indian blood. The new law would provide for criminal prosecutions in such cases.
Law on Sacred Objects
In the last few years, Congress has passed laws requiring museums that get Federal assistance to return Indian remains and some sacred objects to tribes. But the law does not cover sacred objects privately owned.
"People see Indian culture as being up for grabs," Ms. Harjo said, as if being an Indian were "a fashion statement or a state of mind."
Craft stores around the country now sell Sioux "dream-catchers," which carry a legend about stopping nightmares, and the Pueblo Kokopelli, a hump-backed, flute-playing figure that is a symbol of fertility and gaiety. The Kokopelli now appears on wind chimes, night lights, refrigerator magnets and T-shirts.
To many Indians, the trivial use of Indian tradition seems inappropriate. "It makes our stories and religious cute and naive," Ms. Emerson said. "They see things like Kokopelli as some kind of fetish. They make it profane."
A store in Boulder recently removed several items after The Indian Country newspaper in Rapid City, S.D., criticized the use of holy ornaments on dolls made by a company here called Charades, whose literature claims that many of its workers are Lakota Sioux. In fact, no Indians now work for the company.
No More Sioux Workers
Kathi Jackson, the owner of Charades, said some of her former workers were Sioux, but they left.
But another shop, El Loro, has continued to sell questionable artifacts, including the dancing bear.
The owner, Pat Hynan, said she had bought the dancing bear from an Indian artist, a man she described as "the most authentic-looking Indian I've ever seen."
She defended the use of the word authentic in describing the dancing bear. "Authentic just means it's real," she said. "It doesn't necessarily mean an Indian made it."
GRAPHIC: Photo: Pat Hynan, owner of a store in Boulder, Colo., defended the selling of a doll described as a Navajo dancing bear although no such thing exists in the Navajo tradition and would be considered a sacrilege. She said she had bought the dancing bear from an Indian artist, a man she described as "the most authentic-looking Indian I've ever seen." (Michael Lewis for The New York Times)
LOAD-DATE: June 12, 1993
Copyright 1993 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
June 12, 1993, Saturday, Late Edition - Final
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