SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 9D
LENGTH: 880 words
HEADLINE: ARE WHITES USING INDIAN RITES; 'SHAKE 'N' BAKE MEDICINE MEN'?
BYLINE: Karen Lincoln Michel 1994, Dallas Morning News
DATELINE: February 13, 1994 TIOGA, TEXAS
Each Saturday, Darrel Hallbick asks the Stone People to release ancient American Indian teachings through steam rising from heated rocks splashed with water.
Perspiration drips from his body as mist from the holy water and heated rocks turns the ceremonial lodge of willow and tarpaulin into a sauna for spiritual cleansing.
Sitting in total darkness with his followers, the 45-year-old white man tries to summon spirits through Native American song and prayer.
A former United Methodist minister and psychotherapist, Hallbick says he can't put a price on the spiritual healing he shares through his rendition of a sweat lodge ceremony, an American Indian purification rite.
But he and his partner, Jenny Kays, advertise a $ 20 admission fee for those who come to Healing Springs Ranch in northeast Denton County to experience the ceremony.
Non-Indians practicing American Indian culture for profit have become a national trend in recent years. Everything from medicine pouches to sacred rituals are sold, some advertised in the back pages of New Age magazines, newsletters and directories.
Many American Indians, understandably, consider the trend sacrilegious.
Members of many tribes believe that age-old ceremonies are not to be tampered with or taken lightly. If abused, many American Indians believe, the Creator will find a way to punish the abuser.
"Quite truthfully, I struggle because I'm not Native American," says Hallbick, who says his respect for American Indian culture is honorable. "I understand there's a lot of anger out there about white people leading ceremonies. But all I can worry about is our own intent."
Clyde Bellecourt, co-founder of the American Indian Movement and director of the Peacemakers Center in Minneapolis, said hundreds of thousands of non-Indians across the United States exploit native culture by selling what they know about traditional beliefs and ceremonies.
He calls them "shake-'n'-bake medicine people." In just a few easy steps, he says, something ordinary becomes something new.
Bellecourt added, "I don't care if he was charging five cents a person. He's still exploiting Indians, and he's wrong."
He says true medicine people accept only tobacco and food as payment. Tobacco is used as part of the prayer offering to the Creator. The food is prepared for a meal that follows the sweat ceremony. "Once you charge people, you lose your power," he said.
Hallbick said the $ 20 charge is for the counseling he gives people who come to the ceremony. And because he has given up his psychotherapy practice, the sweat lodge is his only source of income.
Hallbick said he had grown used to criticism and threats aimed at him since he started teaching others about American Indian ceremonies.
But he continues with his weekly ceremonies, he said, "because I was taught to share." What he shares, he said, is a chance for others to purify their souls in the early-afternoon-to-dusk ceremony.
Participants wear light clothing, such as T-shirts and shorts, or a swimsuit. Requests are honored to leave the lodge and return if a person becomes too hot. Drinking water is allowed in the lodge.
The ceremony, he said, consists of four rounds of singing and prayer. During the first round, he calls spirits of the ancestors.
In the second round, he prays for "letting go" of fear and other anxieties. In the third, participants are asked to pray for themselves and others. The fourth round is designated for prayers of gratitude.
Copyright 1994 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
February 13, 1994, SUNDAY, THREE STAR Edition
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