The Importance Of The Sweat Lodges In Native American Culture

Native Americans’ customs and religion relies on oral transmission rather than written texts. This allows for fluidity, as the customs can change and evolve over time along side with new technology and innovations. When Europeans first came to the Americas, they force the Natives to convert to a from of Christianity, thus, creating the long struggle as Native Americans battles with their beliefs and this new world religion. In modern times, the struggles still continue and Native Americans are still fighting to protect their customs. One such ritual that many Native Americans participates in is the sweat lodges. Sweat lodges are distinctively Native American and it highlights the Native Americans’ identity. Sweat lodge is an important

This idea of changing without actually changing is prominent in philosophy. Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, was quoted to have said, “on those stepping into rivers staying the same other and other waters flow” (Barnes, 116). That is to say, the river stays the same but the water inside the river is always changing. Relating this to the sweat lodge, the internal self is always changing but the bodily self stays relatively the same. There are minor changes to the body, as there are to the rivers over time, but it is the internal self that continually transform. Purification is a form of change. There can be fewer troubles plaguing the mind; a person with a sense of peace acts differently than those traps with troubling thoughts. So while the body stays the same, the mind does not. Black Elk mentions that upon completion of the ritual, “those who participate are as men born again” (Black Elk, 6), signifying change. The participants are different people and those within the community also know that the participants are different. In a way, the sweat lodge becomes a physical signifier of personal transformations. Of course, one must be aware of Black Elk’s history and religious conversion. He mentions being “born again” (6), which can be seen as a very Christian ideology. Are the participants born again, or are they simply changed? Furthermore, it cannot be assume that

Before, they had been force to convert, and they fight to retain their beliefs, and now the fight continues with many sacrifices along the way. The sweat lodge is one such ritual that many Native Americans are ferociously defending. The sweat lodge ritual is more than a ritual for purification and for change. It evolved into becoming a space for Native Americans to create a pan-native identity that unites all their struggles. Unfortunately, it also becomes a new mean of profit and many are selling the ritual for monetary gains. With Native Americans fighting for the sweat lodge under one intertribal identity, how many unique and different tribes’ rituals are lost and forgotten along the way as a new identity emerges from the