People of the Rainbow: A Nomadic Utopia

7. Fakelore

They want to become Indian without holding themselves accountable to Indian communities. Ifthey did, they would have to listen to Indians telling them to stop carrying around sacred pipes, stop doing their sweat lodges, and stop appropriating our spiritual practices. Rather these New Agers see Indians as romanticized gurus who exist only to meet their consumerist needs. Consequently, they do not understand our struggles for survival and thus they can have no genuine understanding of Indian spiritual practices. -Andrea Smith (1994, 70) The Rainbow Family, as a spiritual manifestation, often carries neocolonial baggage. Rainbow spiritual practices frequently involve the mimicking, perverting , or outright ripping off of Native American religious rituals. As ersatz Indians, Rainbows range from silly to offensive. Ralln..ow Spllrll.ualll.y: A Fakelorlle Prophecy Journalist Nancy Swanson, writing for a Pennsylvania newspaper, likened the lifestyle she witnessed at the 1986 North American Gathering to what she imagined American Indian life once was: "I have always wished that for a day I could be an invisible part of the life of an Indian tribe as they were before the settlers lit . Fakelore had introduced their diseases and bad habits. On Sunday when Pop and I visited the Rainbow Gathering along the banks of meandering Queen Run, I had the impression that my wish was being granted in some respects" (1986). Many Rainbows would agree, seeing themselves as a contemporary incarnation of "Indians of old" (Rainbow Oracle 1972, 50), whom they romanticize. In various ways, Rainbow Gatherings consciously mimic imagined "Indian" ideals. Gatherings include many of the trimmings mainstream Americans expect of Indians, such as tepees, loincloths, and feathers. The Rainbow Family's Council takes a reconstructed "Indian" praxis as a model. Rainbowized "Indian" motifs pervade Rainbow iconography. Howdy Folks! invitations (see Appendix), for example, often conglomerate images oftepees, wigwams, feathers, and Indians in ceremonial dress. Rainbow language is full of "Indian" tropes. Many Rainbows believe their mimicry of imagined Indian ritual is the real thing, which they describe as sacred and traditional . One Rainbow explains his perception of the Family's Native American tie: "Since the Gathering[,]s inception[,] traditional Native American beliefs have been among the strongest and most widely practiced[,] as can be seen in sacred sweats, pipe ceremonies, beadwork, medicine bags, and ceremony [sic] tradition lodges (tipi's [sic] etc[.]) which are the center of our sites, our counsel methods, the use ofthe sacred eagle feather, drums, our respect for nature and all the great spirit[']s creation, often our clothes, our trading circles, chants, stories, etc[.], etc." (Rainbow Hawk 1985). The Rainbow Oracle reads: "The Family is the union of all races and all peoples; into the family is reborn the true spirit of the Indians" (Rainbow Oracle 1972, 52). This vision, the Oracle proclaims, marks "[t]he resurrection of the American Indian " (1972, 52). Native Americans, however, are not a historic relic, but are very much a part of the here and now. The notion that the "spirit of the Indian" died and needs resurrection has long been a part of European mythology, manifested in areas of European American life as diverse as poetry, anthropology, the Cub Scouts, and the Mormons, as exemplified in the writing of Ernest and Julia Seton: She was introduced to us as a Mahatma from India, although bom in Iowa.... Her eyes blazed as she said [to E. T. Seton, a white author of animal stories and one-time head ofthe Boy Scouts of America], in tones of authority: "Don't you know who you are?" We were all shocked into silence as she continued: "You are a Red Indian Chief, reincarnated to give the message ofthe Redman to the White race, so much in need of it. Why don't you get busy? Why don't you do your job? (Seton and Seton [1937] 1966, v-vi) Despite what they view as respect for American Indian life and what they perceive as American Indian traditions, Rainbows are still in the American "main- Fakelore • Iii stream" as far as how they reconstruct Native Americans. Vine Deloria, a Lakota author, writes, "The American public feels most comfortable with the mythical Indians of stereotype-land who were always THERE. These Indians are fierce, they wear feathers and grunt.... To be an Indian in modern American society is in a very real sense to be unreal and ahistorical" (Deloria 1970a, 10). The Rainbow Oracle (1972, 50) pays homage to...