Native Spirituality Behind Bars
Peter d'Errico
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(...) I eventually tell my story: “It’s been more than 20 years since I first got involved with American Indian legal issues. That’s when I began to understand the spiritual basis of life. My education prepared me to do legal work, but it was a dead weight on my spirit. I had to learn the difference between being a good person and being in a ‘good’ role in the system. As a lawyer, I can see inside the law, but my spiritual perceptions make me a critic of what I see.” The meeting is not only about complaints. Several men tell stories about friendly guards, cooperative superintendents. The predominant theme of their stories is how the Circle has changed them for the good. One after another tells me, “I was a rebel in the prison, violent and angry.” “I had constant disciplinary reports.” “I don’t act out any more, because I learned to deal with anger and pain in a different way.” “I know that the guards want me to get mad; it ‘feeds’ them and justifies their anger.” The lives of these men are evidence that the Circle has reshaped their understanding of what it means to be human, though incarcerated. We talk about the situation in states where “sweat lodges” are allowed in prison, where prison authorities marvel at the reduction in inmate violence and the surge of inmate learning that follows from Purification and other ceremonies. Why is this prison administration so recalcitrant? Is it only the craziness of this superintendent, or is it also the politics of a governor and a public who feed on stereotypes of crime, who need to reinforce these stereotypes in order to reinforce their own self-images as powerful, successful, deserving people? (...) PETER D’ERRICO graduated from Yale Law School and immediately went to work with Dinebeiina Nahiilna Be Agaditahe, the Navajo Nation legal services program. He has been involved as an attorney and teacher with indigenous peoples’ legal issues—including hunting, fishing and land rights, as well as American Indian spiritual freedom in prison. D’Errico is Emeritus Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst. He is a webmaster for NativeWeb (www.nativeweb.org)—a resource site for and about indigenous peoples worldwide. |
