98 NATURE-BASED EXPRESSIVE ARTS THERAPY
2003). Centuries of broken treaties and exploitation of Native
Americans have characterized the encounter of Western European
culture with almost every group of Native Americans. Native
Americans have been the victims of both cultural and geographical
exploitation and denigration since the arrival of Europeans on the
American continent, and it continues today. Even as we have been
writing this book, protests continue to be carried out over the land
and water rights at Standing Rock, North Dakota with regard to the
proposed Dakota Access Pipeline. The outcome remains to be seen.
In the United States a further complication has been the tendency
of many people in recent years to romanticize and to expropriate
many of the practices of Native Americans. Perhaps due to a longing
for meaningful ritual, ceremony and a sense of belonging, many
non-native people today participate in and conduct rituals such as
sweat lodge ceremonies and vision quests without fully understanding
the depth and complexity of the worldviews from which these
practices emerge. With this in mind, we are careful to discuss only our
own experiences and information that has been given to us explicitly
to share or information from scholarly publications. In this book
we are dedicated to presenting only what we have been encouraged
to share by our native teachers and our personal experiences with
them. We believe the teachers, artists and healers whom we have met
personally offer some important lessons that inspire us and resonate
with our work.
The tendency for exploitation and expropriation has been pointed
out by many scholars, none more eloquently that the late Native
American scholar, Vine Deloria Jr. Deloria (2003), who critiques
the exploitation of native practices by non-native people and also
discusses what has been lost in many of the contemporary practices
of Native Americans today by the cultural genocide of native people.
Meeting Deloria firsthand, and receiving his generosity in sharing his
philosophies, were a strong encouragement to continue to learn from
native teachers. This openness and generosity have characterized
each of our personal encounters with indigenous peoples.