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He calls himself the “Father of the Modern Primitive Movement, Teacher & Artist.” He was “born in 1930 on what was then an Indian Reservation, Fakir is a depression baby from Aberdeen, South Dakota.” South Dakota people! (see http://fakir.org/aboutfakir/index.html).
Many of the images you will find on his website highlight bare-breasted women pulling chest piercings. Yes I’m serious and from what I can see on his website, Fakir has turned sacred Sun Dance into a modern performance meant to entertain others. Sundance on a stage to entertain? What’s next?
Flesh offerings for fun, entertainment, and for shamanistic ecstasy? Talk about yet another example of a sick and twisted co-optation of sacred Indigenous traditions.
I’m still in a state of disbelief and it’s difficult for me to even look at the images on the website.
I have an idea – let’s organize as many Sundancers and Sundance families as we can and show up to his “Spirit + Flesh” workshop and ritual in San Francisco December 6, 2014?
#lablogadora #cooptation #respectindigenoustraditions
I’ve see pictures post of these events on Facebook and always wondered why they were doing that. When learned about the Sun Dance, I really started questioning there true intensions. I find this troubling and sad.
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Yes it is very troubling and pathetic if you ask me. These people are lost and I feel some pity for them but co-opting is wrong. Their rituals are a disrespect to Sundance ceremonies.
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I share your sentiments on this topic. It is tragic and infuriating when our cultura; the wisdom and deep medicine within it, is taken and bastardized for the sake of acheiving “ecstacy.”
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