Prison at Night: Native Spirituality Behind Bars
I visited the Native Circle one evening in Winter, 1994, to decide whether to represent these inmates.
IN THIS POST: Slow Turtle, Wampanoag Medicine Man, worked with a Native American Spiritual Awareness Council in a Massachusetts prison. He said prison administrators subjected the Circle to varying forms of harassment and intimidation. Prayer pipes, headbands, drums, smudge sticks and other items of sacred significance were confiscated from time to time as ‘contraband’. Inmates who were not members of "federally recognized tribes" were told they could not participate in the Circle.
When he asked me to represent the men, I decided to visit the Circle to get first-hand insights. One evening in Winter, 1994, I went to the prison. I wrote the following essay after that visit.
In April, 1995, my colleague Bob Doyle and I filed Trapp, et al. v. DuBois, et al., (MA Superior Ct., Civil No. 95-0779). In March 2003, the case settled after the Massachusetts Appeals Court ordered the Defendants to negotiate with the Plaintiffs. In July 2003, the first Purification Lodge ceremonies were held in three Massachusetts prisons.
PRISON AT NIGHT
Prison at night, all light—not stars or moon but flood, orange-bright—all around glinting off concertina wire razor pointed atop high fences, two rows of fences and wire separating a clear zone perimeter, a no-man’s land like that between the two Berlins in years past or at any other high insecurity border.
All-night lights projecting glare against the buildings. In winter, glare reflecting from snow shining into night sky obliterating stars and moon. The denial of night vision of night darkness one of the pains inflicted on those incarcerated within this boundary of steel and light.
Guards and dogs patrol the outer edge of the fence at the edge of orange glow where earth’s night begins to overwhelm even the brightest of man-made lamps. A visitor is reminded to park in the space behind the trees, leaving front of building for official vehicles only.
Guard is courteous curious about the visitor cautious for any sudden strangeness beyond the ordinary strangeness of the unknown visitor.
The dog hangs on its leash like any dog, sniffing panting waiting for any command. Visitor parking area is cursorily plowed, snow in ruts over dirt sharply contrasting with heavily salted pavement cleared and reserved for official transport.
A small crowd of regular family visitors milling in the lobby waiting to be called by the guard to enter the pedestrian trap is surprised by the new visitor who peers into the lobby and returns to the heavy plate glass partition behind which two guards converse as if there were no one waiting to enter or exit, as if there were nothing to do but chat.
The visitor remembers these guards will ask for an ID; he walks out to the car to select a couple from his wallet—always in the car, and left there especially tonight because cash is contraband within the flood-lit razor-wired barrier.
He wonders whether his sudden leaving will attract the guards’ notice in a way that his arrival did not seem to. He suspects they are watching more carefully than they appear, their indifference being a studied attitude designed to unnerve outsiders.
His license is the normal form of identification, with its state seal and registry photo of his face. He knows they will accept that. His bar card, identifying him as an attorney, no photo no state seal, will be a kind of trump card, alerting them to his status as a visitor on the edge at least of right of access, more clout than a family member.
He takes both, leaves his keys under the seat because they too are not permitted inside the walls—the rules of the institution prohibit anything other than what is essential, whatever that may mean to a guard at the gate, so that his glasses will not be challenged and his pen may not, but his wallet and keys will be. His papers he can take as part of what he is there for—to visit a religious gathering.
His ring goes with him—”Is it religious?”
“Yes.”
“OK.”
Indeed, the turquoise stone set in silver with a Navajo Yei figure cut into each side of the band was his son’s ring, given to him after the son’s death by the mother during the hike to spread the ashes on the mountain. It is religious. It is his sacred link to the cosmos, the land of spirit, a bond-symbol of the bridge that exists between him and his son.
He saves this story in himself. The guard does not need an explanation. No explanation could be given.
Religious meaning is beyond rule-bound explanation.
Or is it?
That is the issue here in this joint.
That is why he is visiting the American Indian Circle weekly meeting. The Indians have been subjected to a series of edicts and reversals over the past few years regarding their ceremonial practices and objects. Headbands, drums, smudge sticks, sweetgrass braids, tobacco, the ceremonial pipe have all been alternately allowed and prohibited, as local prison administration is subject to the varying views and attitudes of different superintendents, and central administration to different governors and commissioners.
Prison is political if nothing else and American Indian religion is a lightning rod for politics inside and outside prison.
Outside prison—if the concept has any meaning to people whose lives have been circumscribed by reservation boundaries and special government regulation—Indian religion raises serious challenges to government’s authority over land, the pivotal issue, the fulcrum of Indian religion.
Inside prison, virtually all religions pose challenges—to ”security”—since religion of whatever sort asserts claims on life apart from secular concerns.
Religion in prison presents the classic contest between God and Caesar, between the “now” of cosmic eternity and the “now” of alarmed gates and floodlit barrenness.
For reasons that must be part of the historical battle between Christian conquerors and indigenous peoples, American Indian religion attracts more than its fair share of controversy with prison administrations.
Here, in this prison, a succession of superintendents have differed in their perception of threat to security from headbands, sacred pipes, drums, medicine shields. So far, none have been able to see their way to acceptance of a sweat lodge on the premises.
The meeting tonight is part of an ongoing Circle of inmates who practice American Indian spirituality. Only part of their problem with administration has to do with sacred objects. A perhaps more crucial part is the attempt to restrict American Indian spirit practices to inmates who are officially recognized as “Indians.”
So there are two kinds of issues here: one is the right of people to practice their religion—to wear whatever garments, use whatever instruments, partake of whatever food, make and display whatever images are part of that religion.
The other is the right of people to practice whatever religion they find most suitable for making and maintaining their connection to spirit in nature and in the universe.
When law is exerted against religion in the United States, questions arise under the Constitution—the First Amendment right of freedom of religion, and the Fourteenth Amendment right to due process and equal protection.
Law makes its claims around the issue of human behavior—what is the proper way to behave?
Religion makes its claims around the issue of human being—what does it mean to be?
Not surprisingly, perhaps, the courts have tended to side with claims of behavior when these appear to conflict with claims of being.
An inmate wears a sacred headband. The superintendent calls it a disguise, or says it is unsanitary, or that it may provoke rivalry with another inmate. The court says the superintendent’s view is “reasonable.” And the highest court says that this “reasonableness” is all that is necessary to uphold the Constitution.
Does it matter that the headband is too small for an effective disguise, or that other headgear including simple woolen caps worn in winter are not prohibited and would make excellent disguises? Does it matter that a sacred skull-cap is permitted for another religion? Does it matter that there is no evidence of any rivalry, religious or otherwise, about headgear, or that cleanliness of all clothing is equally a concern or of no concern? Do these facts not matter because they were not presented to the court, not argued, or because the court does not find “unreasonableness” in them?
These questions are in the visitor’s mind as he waits for an escort, waits to be processed through the search and metal detector. He has given them his driver’s license, not wanting to alert them to his specifically legal interests or talents, wanting to see what happens to a regular visitor to the Indian Circle, a religious visitor, an outside counselor perhaps, or whatever they think he may be, knowing only so much about him as may be revealed by the clearance papers they have received for his visit.
The search is routine, polite, a respectful asking for his coat and boots, for his pockets to be turned out, for his belt to be removed. The coat, belt and boots are examined, returned to him with a thank you. He takes his time to dress, wonders out loud whether they will shine his boots. Smiles.
The next door is opened and he is escorted across the yard to another building, where the Circle is taking place. The lights glare against the sky shutting out all the wonder of the cosmos, imposing a visibility that is alien to nature.
He wonders as he walks what else has been denied here, whether there will be sage to purify the Circle, tobacco to smoke in the prayer pipe.
The guard inside the building takes his name, tells him where the meeting is. Third floor, far end. Halfway through the third floor hall two men wait, conversing. They look to be casual, but he senses they are waiting for him.
Walking between them he asks for the room number and is directed further. As he passes them he smells the sage, the sweetgrass, smiles, lets his heart open. The Circle will be clean. Not everything has been taken away.
Later, a few moments after he has entered the room, the two from the hall join the circle. He acknowledges to himself the correctness of his sense. They were waiting. They were guarding the purification of the Circle.
He is greeted by the chief and a sub-chief—who have corresponded with him—with a hand-to-forearm grip and an arm clasp around the back. He shares the embrace, and walks around the room, greeting and being greeted by each man. Only one or two are reticent, offering instead a single handshake, which he gladly accepts.
A place is made for him in the Circle and he sits. This is his first face-to-face meeting with these people, with whom he has corresponded over the past year, coordinating some legal research, reading documents they have filed with the court, lending a hand to their medicine man in his efforts to push back the bureaucracy of Corrections that threatens to block this circle from happening. Over half the men in the circle are wearing headbands, some beaded or painted, some not.
The meeting unfolds with descriptions of the craziness of the current superintendent, who has not limited himself to attacking Indian religion, but has attacked birds, flowers, trees as well—all bird houses in the yard were removed, and a patch of sunflowers cut down, for “security reasons.” Forty trees were cut down or lopped off above the trunk for a similar reason.
Are these “reasons”? Is anything the superintendent calls “security” a reason? Is his obvious insecurity in relation to the natural world a valid “security” concern for the institution?
The headbands had been returned under pressure from central office, but the super makes known that the inmates will “march to his drum” inside the walls. Is he aware of what he says? Does drum mean anything to him?
The visitor explains his own history, over two decades since he first got involved with American Indian legal issues, two decades since he began to understand the spiritual basis of life as the ground of his quarrels with the legal system. His advanced education has prepared him to do legal work, but has been a dead weight on his spiritual growth. He has had to clarify for himself the difference between being a good person and being in a “good” role in the system of things. His access to power has provided him with an insider’s view of the system, while his own spiritual perceptions have made him a critic, an outsider.
The meeting is not only about complaints. Several stories are told about friendly guards, cooperative superintendents.
The overwhelming evidence of positive good that flows from the Circle is told in people’s stories of their own prior pasts as rebels within the prison, acting out violence and anger, building records of disciplinary incidents, actions and incidents that no longer occur as each of these people comes to deal with the anger and pain of life in a way that reshapes his understanding of what it means to be human, though incarcerated.
News from other states is shared, 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 sweat lodge and other Indian ceremonies.
Why is this institution so recalcitrant? Is it only the craziness of the 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?
The visitor is pleased to be pulled back from the complaints. He fears his own presence and his habits as a lawyer may cannibalize the good of the Circle this night, focus energy on wrongs and rights rather than on the mutual fellowship and integrity that the Circle provides to these men.
He voices this fear, says that he recognizes the good that is happening here, says that there is no amount of legal action that can accomplish anything unless the reality of this Circle is maintained. The spiritual foundation of their legal work must be real and vital, not sham or veneer. Several of them smile at him, assure him they are not bummed out by this meeting, have not lost sight of the Circle.
Coffee and dessert is provided. Food for the body as for the spirit. A pipe is filled and lit, prayers offered to the directions, and the pipe is passed around the Circle to close the evening.
A final prayer follows the pipe, for those who are sick this night or in other need, homeless, perhaps, or hungry, prayers in the traditional way, not for ourselves but for others.
Out of the room, down to the door, wait for an escort, the visitor shares a few last comments as some of the men stay behind to clean up, pack the ceremonial items.
Into the false brightness of the yard, with the escort, followed by most of the men now, the chief drumming softly behind him, the visitor turns at the final drumbeat, says “Ho!” waves and departs into the true night darkness outside.
Penitentiary.
The original religious purpose and method of imprisonment. Quakers in Pennsylvania.
If, after all these years of loss of faith in penitence there should arise within the imprisoned population a Circle of faithful practice of fellowship and meditation and communication with All That Is, if, I ask, this should happen, would we see it as a sign of the original purpose fulfilled, or would we stamp it out to prevent any rupture in the solid cynical walls of incarceration?
This essay was presented as "Prison at Night: Discrimination Against Native Americans in Prison” to the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, Albuquerque, NM, March 1998. It was published as "Prison at Night: Native Spirituality Behind Bars,” in Publio: Culture at the Boiling Point, No 3, 2008 (pp. 66-71).
I love your essay, thank you.
The University of Hawaii- Dept. of Hawaiian Studies 1992-1993, Kwame Ture aka Stokely Carmichael, gave a speech explaining the difference between Spirituality vs. organized religion. He shifted my consciousness from a soulless / secular mindset to a Spiritual divine consciousness. The first book I read by Stokely Carmichael & Charles V. Hamilton was Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America, copyright 1967, Vintage Books, I graduated from Kailua High School 1969. The Hawaiian Studies Lecture series 1992-1993 was open to the public. Russell Means and John Trudell also gave speeches at the Dept. of Hawaiian Studies. Russell Means spoke about AIM in relation to the Hawaiian sovereignty movement which on January 17, 1993 would mark 100 years after the US overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii on January 17, 1893. John Trudell & his band Bad Dog did a concert on campus. And he read some of his poetry.
Peter is your mailing address, Leverett, MA USA, 01054 ? With your permission, I was thinking about mailing information to you, concerning political history of Hawaii.
My mailing address is
Larry Inn
428 Keaniani St.
Kailua, HI 96734