DoomsdaysCWIn #Maine prisons, #NativeAmerican #SweatLodges are part of the program
A #Passamaquoddy elder has led over 100 sweats for inmates since 2007.
Reuben M. Schafir, Posted November 6, 2025
WINDHAM — "When the tarps of the sweat lodge are pulled back, a swirling cloud of steam wafts up toward the bear pelt draped overhead.
"It dissipates before reaching the razor wire that caps the fences around the recreation yard at the #MaineCorrectionalCenter.
"Between rounds in the ceremony, voices from inside command the retrieval of rocks warming in a fire pit a few feet away. Women carefully lift the rocks with shovels over an altar bearing a cedar bough and a turtle shell, and into the lodge.
"As Savannah Smith, 28, crawls out of the roughly 12-foot-wide structure, she grins.
'It’s a lot right now,' she said, her calves dotted with goosebumps as her body readjusts to the cool fall air after two hours inside the lodge.
"Her halting voice and still-glistening eyes give her away: 'I cried at every session we had.'
"It’s been nearly 20 years since #IndigenousPeople in Maine’s prisons won the right to practice their religion while incarcerated. Inmates say sweat ceremonies help them stay sober and connect them to their communities. And the state’s corrections commissioner heralds them as a sign of Maine’s #inclusivity and says they are part of a progressive approach to ensuring safety inside prisons and reducing the likelihood of future offenses.
"Since inmates won the right to hold sweat ceremonies, #BrianAltvater has traveled from his Down East home on the #PassamaquoddyReservation at #Sipayik (#PleasantPoint) to facilitate them. He is a #PipeCarrier and a #SweatLodgeKeeper — designations, he explained, that are chosen by the ancestors.
" 'I don’t deserve to be a pipe carrier and do this sort of work,' he told his teacher, David Gehue of #Sipeknekatik, Nova Scotia, when Gehue noticed his potential.
'Deserve’s got nothing to do with it,' Gehue, himself a respected spiritual leader, said. 'Once the ancestors pick you, you don’t have a choice.'
" 'Let me think about it,' Altvater said.
"That was several decades ago."
Archived version:
https://archive.md/ImwsD
#WabanakiNews #PassamaquoddyNation #IndigenousNews #RightToPracticeReligion
