Brook Medicine Eagle gets exposed ..
Abuse and Exploitation of American Indian Sacred Traditions
A Statement from the Center for the SPIRIT
One phenomenally successful exploiter of traditional Indian spirituality is a woman named Brooke Edwards, who transacts her business under the assumed name of "Brooke Medicine Eagle". Ms. "Medicine Eagle" operates "spirituality camps" in Montana, charging as much as $1,500 per person for the privilege of putting up a tent on her ranch for two weeks. (Assuming that at least twenty people participate in each session, Ms. "Medicine Eagle" takes in at least $30,000 every two weeks, all summer long.) Ms. "Medicine Eagle" has been denounced by the Crow Tribe of Montana, with whom she claims affiliation as a spiritual "teacher", for misrepresenting and abusing the spiritual traditions of the Crow people through her high-profit cottage industry. According to John Pretty On Top, traditional Crow sundance chief and the officially designated Cultural Director and Speaker for the Crow Tribe, Ms. "Medicine Eagle" is neither a traditional medicine woman (contrary to her paid advertisements) nor an enrolled member of the Crow Tribe. Rather, Ms. "Medicine Eagle" is a profound embarrassment to traditional Crow People, says Mr. Pretty On Top:
"The book she published is so far away from Crow spirituality she's not recognized anywhere in our traditional ways". Mr. Pretty On Top has expressed concern for the harm to the reputation of legitimate Crow spirituality that inevitably follows from the prosperous charlatanism of imposters like Brooke Edwards and he urges non-Indians not to support Ms. "Medicine Eagle" financially or otherwise.
We join with John Pretty On Top and the Crow Tribe of Montana in urging all supporters of American Indian people to help us in our struggle for social justice and religious freedom by actively opposing the spiritual genocide manifest in the exploitation and abuse of our most precious sacred traditions by cultists, con artists, hucksters, charlatans and "plastic medicine people" like Brooke Edwards. And we invite you to contact us at Center for the SPIRIT whenever you become aware of situations in which American Indian sacred traditions are being exploited and abused, so that we may help you and your community develop and implement an effective strategy of community education and active resistance to such exploitation.
Center for the SPIRIT (Support and Protection of Indian Religions and Indigenous Traditions) is a nonprofit organization of American Indian people dedicated to the preservation and revitalization of American Indian spiritual practices and religious traditions. Headquartered in Oakland we have begun to systematically address the momentous problem of "New Age" exploitation and expropriation of the sacred traditions of American Indian tribes--a problem which has proliferated alarmingly in the Bay Area and throughout California in recent years.
We can be reached at P.O. Box 17002, Oakland , Calif. 94601.
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