An old argument about recording Ceremonies is happening again, Indians are attacking other Indians over the recording of events, of Sacred Ceremonies. Me, I am in favour of sharing Ceremony even if it means recording some of the Ceremony. For many folk, recording a Ceremony is a sacrilege. Their point is to keep Ceremony Sacred it should not be abused and recording may lead to abuse. I understand as well. There is the probability a Ceremony could be bastardized. Someone could use it in demeaning ways or try to commodify the Ceremony. The selling of Ceremony and the abusing of Ceremony has been occurring and will continue to happen. There are people out there who police that abuse as we all should. Still the benefits of sharing Ceremony outshines the ugliness which comes with sharing. The Sacred will always be Sacred. Who determines if something is sacred or not? What is to be considered to be sacred?
I remember there was to be a "white event" over at the Oodena Circle in Winnipeg. The Oodena Circle is an amphitheatre built at a tourist section of called the Forks. Originally the Forks has a rich and significant history of Indigenous gathering place. The event was to have alcohol served and Natives objected. The reasoning for their objection was the Oodena Circle was a Sacred Place. I was not one of those who objected to the event serving alcohol. For me the site was just a theatre, a commercial venue. There are many Indigenous events held at the Circle. So I can see how it can be viewed as Sacred.
Are there things which we should not be recording? Of course there are. For me I am not sure what they are. Some things must remain so personal that they should be left alone.
I think the Sacred is to be shared. Not in a way to disrupt the Sacred but for sharing in a good way. We see the Mauna Kea as Sacred for Hawaii. People don't want to share it with scientists. Because the scientists want to desecrate the Sacred. This is a clear example of abusing the Sacred. There are people all over that have no regard for the Sacred. Close to us in the Dakotas is Bear Butte, a Sacred place. People, mainly Non-Native folk have no care if the site is Sacred. They want to tear down, to build buildings on the Sacred. Oak Flat is a Sacred site for the Apache but yet this fact is ignored by settlers, colonialists and individuals. The result a contamination of the water flows in the Oak Flat. There are many examples of Sacred sites being desecrated and threatened by the main stream population. The Mauna Kea is just one example of many. A common thread for this desecration and destruction is related to the Land. Indigenous folk are always connected to the land. A fact lost to the main stream population.
The thing is we need to protect the Sacred and that is a given. No argument about it. Still is recording the Sacred a desecration? Not in some cases. Recording a prayer is not a desecration. It is not damaging the Sacred. The Creator will still hear, won't they? One of the most Sacred things to happen is the Birth of a Child. Will recording desecrate this Sacred event? I do not believe so. If sharing the Sacred can bring awareness and a renewal of pride, then it is a good thing. Taking a picture of Women carrying a copper vessel with Water is not going to take away from the significance of the Ceremony.
With respect to recording Ceremony, the gate has been opened long ago and now we are trying to close a gate when it is far too late; the Beings have been let out.
“It is absolutely never acceptable to have that kind of hate expressed in communities,” ... “By doing these things, by defacing people’s property and religious sacred sites really to instill fear in communities, it’s reprehensible”.[i]
Why is it that Canadians will readily throw their arms up in the air in disgust when a Synagogue or a Mosque,[ii] such as the one in Peterborough, Ontario, is vandalized, yet when an Indigenous sacred place, such as the Chaudière Falls[iii] and the three Islands downstream, is further desecrated, rather than re-naturalized to its former holiness, Canadians don’t give a damn?
Is it because humans, pitiful as they are in understanding their location within the natural world, are of the thought that only human-made places of worship are sacred where as such the natural world offers nothing sacred? If this is true, humans are trapped in the humanistic tradition and have no concept that before humans came to the world everything was beautiful and everything was in its place. This was Creator’s gift: A beautiful place that predated our arrival so we could become the good human beings that Creator intended us to be.
An Anishinaabe teaching offers, with the coming of the Sacred Peace Pipe, “honor returned to be a guiding principle of life for many people. The sacredness of a person’s word became, once again, foremost in day-to-day transactions.”[iv]
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