Can anyone do my wk. 4 Anthropology?

Indian Prisoners Claim Spiritual Needs Ignored

November 21, 1993|By Hugh Dellios, Tribune Staff Writer.

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MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. — Whispering a prayer, convicted burglar Charles Yellow Thunder lit a match to a thick braid of sweetgrass, then waved an eagle feather over it to waft smoke toward all four walls of the prison cafeteria.

Yellow Thunder says the sweetgrass ritual assures sincerity and good luck, and it is one way he tries to observe his traditional Indian religion in the minimum-security unit of the state prison here.

Despite his efforts, the Winnebago Indian says it hasn't been easy to maintain his faith behind bars. He says he only recently has been allowed to enjoy pipe and sweetgrass ceremonies.

Yellow Thunder, 32, has sued prison officials for holding him down in a chair and forcibly cutting his hair, which his religion dictates should only be done during a time of mourning.

"What I did to put myself here, I accept that. That's me," Yellow Thunder says. "But the way we believe, to have your hair cut like that, it was just degrading."

The free worship lawsuit, one of more than 40 filed by Indian prisoners across the U.S. in the last 20 years, illustrates what Native Americans say is a chronic problem in the nation's prisons.

Indians claim that while chapels and religious services are readily available to Christian, Jewish and Muslim inmates, aboriginal Americans' spiritual needs can be frustrated by a lack of understanding and even contempt among prison wardens and guards.

Prison officials say limits on Indians' religious freedom has less to do with discrimination than with security.

This year, the struggle to balance prison safety with Indians' free worship rights has been taken up in Congress, where activists are fighting to preserve traditional Indian religious practices.

Backers of the proposed Native American Free Exercise of Religion Act say it finally would extend the Constitution's guarantee of freedom of worship to Indians who observe religions that existed centuries before the United States was founded.

The bill, now being analyzed by federal agencies, would protect sacred sites on federal land from commercial development and exempt the religious use of peyote from drug laws.

It also would give Indian prisoners equal access to spiritual leaders and ceremonies, the right to wear their hair in traditional ways and to carry a medicine pouch with tobacco, sage, sweetgrass and other sacred plants. The bill would not allow prison inmates to consume peyote, a hallucinogenic plant that is considered sacred by some Indians.

"It's been a real struggle getting these things recognized as valid religious practices in prisons," says Lenny Foster, director of the Navajo Nation Corrections Project.

Citing security concerns, federal courts have given officials wide latitude in limiting religious services inside prison walls. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1987 established a "reasonableness" test that weakened prisoners' free worship rights.

Sweat lodge and pipe ceremonies are allowed in some federal and state prisons with a substantial Native American population. In many cases, inmates have to prove their Indian heritage, and rituals are practiced under the supervision of a spiritual leader from outside the prison.

Indians argue, however, that even where the practices are allowed, their needs sometimes are ignored by unsympathetic prison officials.

Currently, Indian activists are fighting for use of sweat lodges in prisons in Ohio and Oklahoma, while a federal judge ordered Utah to provide the service in 1989. At the same time, Indian leaders complain they often have trouble visiting inmates for a simple pipe ceremony.

Since Yellow Thunder filed his lawsuit to stop the cutting of Indian inmates' hair, Indiana officials have been struggling to come up with a policy on spiritual practices for the 38 Indians in state prisons.

Indian leaders complain the officials repeatedly have delayed the policy, while at the same time Indiana boasts that it was one of the first prison systems to provide a synagogue.

Doris Woodruff, director of religious services for the Indiana prison system, said the state has allowed pipe ceremonies since 1988. She said she has proposed a more lenient policy on hairstyles, medicine pouches and possession of sacred items, but added that sweat lodges likely will not be allowed.

Prison officials are concerned that sweat lodges and medicine pouches, normally off-limits to non-Indians, could be used to conceal contraband weapons or drugs. They fear that long hair might help inmates escape by making it easy for them to change the way they look.

"There are security concerns. Some of our folks are not familiar with the practices, and we're trying to keep it from becoming a management nightmare," said Woodruff, formerly a chaplain at a women's prison.

"Offenders are never supposed to be out of sight of the staff," she said. "Even if a staffer is inside the sweat lodge, it's completely dark and it puts the staffer at risk."

On Nov. 16, President Clinton signed into law a broader religious freedom bill that some prison officials fear could allow inmates to demand costly privileges based on bogus religious claims. But Indians argue there is no question about the legitimacy of their ancient, though at times neglected, religious practices.

In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, which incarcerates about 8,000 Native Americans, published a booklet in 1991 to educate its staff on Indian ceremonies. The booklet said a sacred Indian pipe should be accorded the same respect as the Bible, Koran or Torah.

The booklet described the sweat lodge ceremony as a symbolic return to the womb of Mother Earth to gain strength, purification, guidance and healing, and it told how to build a domed lodge in a prison yard with saplings, bark and a blanket or canvas cover.

In the Arizona prison system, where 580 of 17,100 inmates are Indians, officials allow long hair, the burning of sacred substances and sweat lodge ceremonies. Chaplain John Thompson, head of pastoral services, said he knows of only two incidents where lodges were misused.

He said three years ago, non-Indians used the lodge to hide a batch of prison-brewed alcohol, and eight years ago a fight broke out during a ceremony.

Guards now monitor more closely who enters the lodges, but officials have not considered ending the service. "Sweat lodges have been a very good rehabilitation tool for the inmates," Thompson said.

"I don't know what the problem is," said George Sullivan, head of prison operations in Colorado, where a law was passed last year protecting Indian inmates' religious rights. "The deprivation of opportunity for Indians to even learn about their faith has been absolutely tragic. It's a matter of ignorance."

Both Minnesota and Wisconsin, which have large Indian populations, have allowed the use of sweat lodges and pipe ceremonies in prisons for almost a decade. They also have fairly lenient policies toward traditional hairstyles.

The Illinois prison system has 38 Indian inmates but no policy regarding their religious needs. A spokesman said officials have never been asked to provide a sweat lodge or pipe ceremony.

Charles Yellow Thunder's ponytail has grown back since the day in 1991 when Indiana prison guards forced him into a chair and lopped it off. The Wisconsin native said it was cut only three times before in his life, after the deaths of his mother, grandmother and grandfather.

At the time of the forced haircut, Indiana prison policy stated that male inmates' hair could not touch their collars. Yellow Thunder's lawsuit claimed prison officials denied him his First Amendment free worship rights and discriminated against him because he was a man.

State officials and his appointed attorney have discussed settling out of court, but Yellow Thunder said he will persist even after his scheduled release Dec. 17. He said he won't drop the suit until a formal policy assures him no other Indian will be treated in the same way.