‘A pipe cannot hear your prayers’; Northern Arapaho Tribal members protest, speak out against pastor’s comments about Sundance rituals

(Fremont County, WY) – Over 100 Northern Arapaho Tribal members gathered at various locations in Fremont County on Tuesday afternoon, July 7, to peacefully protest and speak out against comments made during a recent service by local pastor Sarah Lucas with the Foundations for Nations Ministries.

“…This nation gathered this week and they prayed, and they prayed to pipes and prayed to the ancestors, believing that this is the way for their freedom, to get free from addiction, for people to be healed from their sickness… this is what this culture did this week,” Lucas said during the service in reference to the recent Sundance ceremony. “…We’re going to pray for our indigenous nation, our tribe this week as we’re coming out of this, because we know that Jesus is enough. He’s enough. It’s not Jesus plus, it’s Jesus everything. He’s everything.”

“Jesus is the chain breaker,” Lucas continued. “He is the only God that we should be praying to. A pipe cannot hear your prayers. It’s just a piece of material. Right? And this is the cycle that they’re caught up in…”

The comments made in the video of the service, which has since been taken down, sparked outrage among Northern Arapaho Tribal members, prompting many to initially take to social media to express their anger. The social media response spread throughout the indigenous community, with native rights advocate and Yellowstone actor Christian Wassana (who has ties to the Wind River Reservation) sharing a post on the matter.

“A pastor speaking at a church on the Rez in Wyoming condemning Sundance, one of our oldest and most sacred ceremonies,” Wassana said in the Facebook post. “It feels like history repeating itself, with attempts to erase and discredit our traditional way of life. Our lodges and ceremonies existed long before any church came to this land. Our ceremonies and way of life are a way of healing, identity, and connection for our people. Everyone has the right to practice their own faith. But claiming that one path is the only path while belittling and condemning ours is deeply disheartening. Respect should go both ways. Our traditions deserve the same dignity and respect as any other faith.”

Northern Arapaho Tribal members then moved from online criticism to protests at different locations throughout the County, starting with the Ministry, located on Mission Road off of 17 Mile Road.

Keenan Groesbeck, chairman of the Northern Arapaho Business Council, spoke with County 10 at the site of the first protest, where he called the comments “totally disrespectful to our Northern Arapaho traditional way of life.”

“It’s not right to be sitting there putting down our religion, our way of life, and talking about our Old Man Pipe, who’s our leader, that we fall under,” Groesbeck said. “If they don’t want to get with the program over here, they can leave. …If they don’t want to give us an apology, they can leave because they’re visitors on our reservation.”

“…They don’t know our prayers, they don’t know how powerful our prayers are when we come together, and we pray out of our hearts to the Creator,” Debbie Lonebear added to Goresbeck’s words. “The Creator is the same. It’s the same as who they worship. Anywhere we go, it’s the Creator that we talk to. …So, no apology accepted. They said what they said. They’ve done the damage. They need to go.”

Local indigenous rights advocate Big Wind Carpenter said that traditional native beliefs and Christianity don’t have to be “mutually exclusive,” and highlighted the work they have seen done at the St. Stephen’s Mission.

“I think that there’s a lot of people who would consider themselves both traditional and Christians. I don’t think that those ideas are mutually exclusive,” Carpenter commented. “This land was given to churches. You have seen St. Stephen’s Mission, and I think it’s a prime example of how a group can come in and actually respect those people’s ways. St. Stephen’s Church has never treated us like that, has never said it’s one way or the other, that it’s black or white. They have actually accepted a lot of our traditions. Sweats have been held at St. Stephen’s plenty of times.”

“I’m a direct descendant of Chief Black Coal. All of this was a part of his land. He gave it so that they wouldn’t have to send people away for schooling,” Carpenter said in reference to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. “Some of his friends didn’t come back, so he gave this land for churches… that’s what it’s for.”

“I think one of the most shocking parts of her statements was her saying that these ceremonies have been happening for generations and they bear no fruit,” Carpenter continued. “As a person who is an active participant in our ceremonies, I can say that that’s false. She doesn’t actually have a viewpoint to be able to say that because she’s never experienced it. She hasn’t been there. So how can she make these statements?”

Carpenter said there needs to be reconciliation for the comments.

“One thing that you see right when you get up here (to the Ministry) is a tipi. …They get to cherry-pick our culture for aesthetic purposes, but then tear apart parts of our other identity, parts of our religion, parts of our spirituality. You can’t have one or the other. So either take down the tipi and talk that way, but you can’t have both.”

After rallyers gathered at the Ministry, they moved on to the Foundations for Nations Food Pantry on E Monroe Ave. in Riverton.

Protest-goer Alice Thomas quoted Exodus 25:8 in response to Lucas’s comments.

“When Sarah Lucas made her comment about how the Sundance ceremony was wrong, she didn’t look at scripture when she made the comment. In Exodus 25:8, it states, ‘let them make a sanctuary for me so I may live among them.’ And in Exodus, God describes the sanctuary, and the sanctuary is essentially the Sundance Lodge. I carry (a sign that says) ‘judge not, lest ye be judged,’ because she judged us without knowing. …She did not look at her own scripture to make those comments.”

Fellow protestor Tahnee Ferris called the comments “blatantly disrespectful.”

“Basically, she undermined and mocked our whole tradition, culture, and lifestyle.”

Rallyers then came together for prayer and song before taking the protest to the Riverton City Hall parking lot.

County 10 is in the process of reaching out to Lucas and the Foundations for Nations Ministry for further comment in response to the protests, and additional reporting on the situation is forthcoming.

“Foundations For Nations is a multi-cultural and multi-generational non-denominational Christian church,” according to the ministry’s Facebook page bio, with the Ministry’s website bio stating that it is “dedicated to the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone Indians on the Wind River Reservation.”

“The Native Americans have often been called the forsaken and forgotten people, yet God has not forgotten them,” the Ministry website bio also states. “Where broken treaties have betrayed them and history has cast them aside, God has a redemptive plan to revive, raise up, and restore this unreached people group.”