Sometimes it takes a prison sentence for someone to connect with his Indian heritage, Lenny Foster, a Navajo spiritual adviser who has worked with Indian inmates across the country, said.
Foster heads the Navajo Nation Corrections Project. He built his first sweat lodge for inmates at Arizona State Prison in 1980 and says the sweats have positive effects on prisoners.
"The intense heat or the steam, what we call grandfather’s breath, opens up not only the pores, the physical aspect, but it opens up the mind and the spirit, and there’s a real purification and a cleansing of the soul that takes place," he tells the Associated Press.
Not everyone has that luxury. Indian inmates have had to file lawsuits in order to be able to hold ceremonies, possess eagle feathers and practice their religion.
“I think for the longest time we’ve been denied, as Indian people, that right to practice our tradition, our culture,” Foster noted.
Walter Echo-Hawk Jr. of the Native American Rights Fund helped Indian inmates in Nebraska build the first sweat lodge in a prison system in the 1970s. Once officials learn about the issue, they are usually quick to accommodate.
Get the Story:Sweat lodge ceremonies reconnect Native American inmates with their culture, people and land (AP 5/30)
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