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Star Trek Voyager:  Chakotay
(12/15/03)


A response to Star Trek Voyager:  Chakotay:

A correspondent writes:

Once again, do not assume. Some tribes allowed women to have vision quests. It depended on the tribe.

Al Carroll responds:

Part of the problem is that New Age people have so vaguely defined vision quest to mean what they would like it to be. Most of them turn it into a rather silly "empowerment," feel good about yourself pop psychology thing, or attempt by white wannabes to make themselves into a kind of "Red Gandalf".

The vision quest, as the name was originally very specifically applied, was strictly a tribal ceremony for adolescent boys among some Plains tribes involving detailed and elaborate rules for fasting and seeking the counsel of spirits in prescribed sacred places. Most tribes don't have the same thing, again, unless you make the term so generic as to mean any kind of "what's the meaning of my life" search or coming of age ritual.

But a ritual for middle aged white women looking for "power animals" (like Janeway) performed by an estranged alienated non-traditional non-medicine man (like Chakotay) in the setting of a carpeted luxury apartment?

Only in the most deluded kind of New Ager's fantasy such a thing exist.

Related links
New Age mystics, healers, and ceremonies
TV shows featuring Indians


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