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| 10/10/2009 6:00:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article |
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Journal/Sam Green
Art Neskahi is working with Jail Administrator Lt. Vici Worcester to improve Native American religious ceremonies at the county jail. |
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Religious rights sought for Native Americans inmates
Neskahi works with county jail to include Native rituals
Hope Nealson
Journal Staff Writer
Freedom of religion has been an inalienable right in America since its inclusion in the Bill of Rights - even prison inmates are allowed to practice their religion in jail. But what if that religion doesn't involve a priest or cross?
Art Neskahi, of Cortez, has been trying to help Native Americans in the county jail exercise their religious rights for more than a year. In 2008, Native Americans comprised 41 percent of the roughly 120 Montezuma County Detention center inmates.
Neskahi got involved when he saw, firsthand, the lack of religious options inside the jail.
"I would see other religions coming and helping with prayers and spiritual help but there was nothing for traditional Native believers like me," he said.
Neskahi helped the inmates around him by passing them cedar to smudge, or burn, a common Native purification practice.
"They told me that it really helped, so when I walked by an Evergreen or a Cedar bush, I would take some sprigs off that and bring it into jail. We had a lighter because back then we could smoke in jail and we would burn that Cedar for cleansing and use it for blessing and help with their prayers. Pretty soon the smell would attract a crowd."
Although Neskahi is not a medicine man, his paternal grandfather used to visit the jail down in Shiprock every week, which first opened his eyes to the need for spiritual healing inside prisons.
"I had that role model," he said. "I'm not a medicine man or any kind of spiritual leader, I just know there's a need there and no one is filling it."
Now out of jail and leading organizations like Southwest Intertribal Voice and Montelores Human Relations Commission in Cortez, Neskahi met with Jail Administrator Lt. Vici Worcester to come up with a solution.
Worcester began her correctional career in 1994 and has been working at the 104-bed facility in Cortez since it opened nine years ago.
"Art helps me understand what items are used for a (Native American) religious practice that will provide what they need religiously," she said. "I also need to maintain the safety of the other inmates and security of the facility."
Worcester said things like sweat lodges and peyote are "just not allowable" but they are open to working with Native needs.
Neskahi agreed: "I've talked to the jail administrator and she was all for it, then they passed me on to the preachers."
Neskahi said laid out the plan the jail chaplains asked for, noting items he would need - like an eagle feather, gourds and pillows or blankets for participants to sit on for a healing circle - but he has yet to hear back.
"It's taken from the Native American church ceremony," Neskahi said. "It's not a church meeting but it's a paradigm for how they do things and since the Native American church is intertribal, it would probably reach out to more inmates."
Worcester conceded the year-long process has been slow, but it's a work in progress.
"It's not that the religion isn't important - it's just that there are a lot of big projects going on," she said, noting a new camera system recently installed. "It's a matter of me, Vic and Art getting back together."
Montezuma County Sheriff's Chaplain Vic Powell said inmates can request him or Neskahi using the "kite" system of request forms for those wanting a special meeting.
"A lot of it is by request and on a case-by-case basis, and there is just not that many," Powell said. Both Powell and Neskahi said only a few Native Americans have used the kite forms.
"When we get one that falls outside of the nondenominational services offered, we sit down and talk about safety and security, we talk about feasibility and do we have the ability to provide these things, so all these things are taken into account," Powell said. Most of the requests are for bibles or other religious books - rarely a ceremony.
But last year a prisoner did request a ceremony to smudge a cell in which someone had died.
Worcester said she couldn't allow the smudge because, like tobacco, burning sage is illegal inside detention center walls.
"That's something I couldn't allow in because it's contraband," she said. "You're using your fire and smoke."
Worcester said she did call in Neskahi and was able to satisfy the inmate's request using a nonsmoking method.
"We were able to meet my goals and help the inmate with his," she said. "Anything that comes inside the facility, I'm accountable for."
Religious items that are deemed potentially dangerous or can't be verified by jail administrators, like medicine bags or even corn flour, can't be used.
"They can tell me it's corn flour, but I don't have anyway to verify that. I have to be able to verify," Worcester said. "You don't want anything in here that could be used as a weapon and there are certain herbs we don't want in here."
But the definition of a "potential weapon" is open to debate.
"A preacher can bring in a metal cross," Neskahi said. "Could those be used as a weapon?"
Neskahi added that meeting with Lenny Foster, a Navajo who travels the country to help Native American inmates through prayers, songs, peace pipe ceremonies and sweat lodges, would be good person to meet with jail administrators and jail ministries "to find some way to incorporate the Native American religious practices" into the detention center.
"It is something out of the norm of what (the jail) does and it will cause them to change some of their day-to-day security or practices," he said.
Reach Hope Nealson at hopen@cortezjournal.com.
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Reader Comments
Posted: Monday, October 12, 2009
Article comment by:
ashkiidine
I think that if they were serious about the need for religious freedom in the jail then they would find a way to make it work. Any items can be used as a weapon is the main issue I see as an excuse. There are items that are sold and used by inmates that are more dangerous then an eagle feather. Corn flour or pollen can be used too and they can be verified by sight smell and taste before they enter the facility. If they use one religious medicine man and he is trusted then that should be enough and he can have them check his items at the door and even have an officer in the room too. I just don't see these issues being to difficult to overcome. Just more excuses for domination of will. They make the jail out to be a high level detention center for extreme convicts. If Berry is a high level criminal in this county then i have to think twice about the inmates.
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