Native American Sweat Lodge

From Luxton Museum: "Sweat Lodge of the Plains Indian"

On June 7th I took part of a Native American Sweat Lodge ceremony up in the mountains of Escondido, California. The sweat lodge, surrounded by massive native oaks and fields of white sage, was located just a few hundred yards from Nate Harrison's cabin and its archeological site.

Nate Harrison (1823-1920) was one of San Diego County's legendary pioneers.

The ceremony was powerful and touching. The absolute darkness of the lodge combined with the intense heat and traditional native songs, chants and drumming made the whole experience very intense and meditative.

The sweat lodge was a dome-like tent made from fresh cut willow branches and covered with hides and blankets. A round pit was dug in the center. There was always a leader and a fire keeper in the ceremony. The leader was the teacher of the ceremony and the fire keeper had many different responsibilities.
The ceremony would begin with the participants entering the sweat lodge in a clockwise direction. The rocks (which had been heating outside) were brought into the lodge by the fire keeper and placed into the center pit by the leader. The door to the sweat lodge was closed and the interior heated up like a sauna. The ceremony consisted of four rounds of prayers, spiritual songs, and drumming. As the participants prayed, the leader threw water and herbs on the heated rocks. Sweet grass, cedar, and white sage were burned. After the ceremony was finished the participants exited in a clockwise direction and lay on the ground to cool their bodies. An expression often heard describing the Sweat Lodge was that you emerged 'feeling like a new born baby'. This comes from the belief that the Sweat Lodge had the spiritual powers and feelings of a woman's womb.

Mikkel Aaland reports "...the white man saw the sweat lodge, with its sacred and religious implications, as a threat. Even after the Indians were subdued, Christian missionaries and government officials systematically denied use of the sweat lodge, interrupting a continuity that lasted thousands of years. Enforcement depended upon how great a threat they felt from a particular tribe...The most popular form of sweat bathing among North American Indians was the hot rock method and its variations. These were used exclusively by tribes in the central plains, the southwest, the Great Basin and the eastern woodlands. Whether permanent, temporary or portable, they were smaller than other Indian structures, and usually domed and sometimes oblong. Nomadic tribes drove pliant boughs, such as willow, into the ground and arched them into a hemisphere, secured with withes. Stationary tribes used more substantial materials--logs and heavy bark. Temporary sweat lodges were covered with blankets or skins, while the permanent types were sealed with mud or sod. In either case, a depression was dug near the door or in the center to cradle the rocks, which were heated outside and brought in on forked sticks. Steam was produced by sprinkling the rocks from a straw broom or a hollowed buffalo horn. Although simple to build, every detail was symbolic. The Sioux, for example, see the interior of the sweat lodge as representing the womb of Mother Earth, its darkness as human ignorance, the hot stones as the coming of life, and the hissing steam as the creative force of the universe being activated... "