r/IndianCountry • u/T0macock • Sep 05 '26
Discussion/Question Help an Unc out: Sweat lodge
Aho, she:kon, and a hearty "hey how are ya!?" cousins.
The saga of the south Tip brother continues. You know the story so far. Frybread survivor. All-Skate legend. Ketchup chip disney princess. Fastest man in a ten foot sprint. Unc daycare extraordinaire. The man who wears another man's tear-away pants. Co-architect of the fifty-eight dollar cauldron (rest easy, smiling fish).
This week's episode is a little different, cousins. Because this week, my old hockey buddies asked me to run them a sweat lodge.
Let me set the table.
I’ve played hockey my whole life. One of the few things I'm naturally good at. Guys I played against still play in the Show but my career took a different turn and all paths eventually lead to beer league. The league I play in is excellent. Skilled but very casual and fun. Good guys, cousins. Genuinely good guys. Shovelled my driveway when I had the plague in 2023 guys. Stood up at each other's weddings guys. Also, and I say this with love: some of the god damn whitest men the Creator ever assembled. We're talking about a group chat that once had a forty-message debate about why Hellman's was superior to miracle whip that descended into very harsh words and opinions.
And somewhere in the last couple years, cousins, the boys discovered Wellness.
It started innocent. Darren got a smartwatch and became insufferable about his sleep score. Then Cody built a cold plunge out of a chest freezer. Then the wives got into breathwork. And then, cousins, then Kevin went to Peru.
I don't have the space to fully explain post-Peru Kevin. Kevin came back from a two-week retreat with a bracelet, a new way of hugging, and the deep unshakable belief that he has "done the work." Kevin says "ceremony" now the way he used to say "playoffs." Kevin, cousins, has a frame drum. He bought it online… says it's made from “vegan” skin (I don’t know if that means, like, fake hide or a skinned vegan - I didn’t follow up) He plays it at parties uninvited.
So it was Kevin, of course it was Kevin, who put it in the group chat two weeks ago:
"Boys. August long shot but. What if [me] ran us a legit sweat lodge before summer's out?? Full authentic experience. We'll bring everything. This is on my vision board."
Cousins….
My phone started BUZZING. "Bro yes." "In." "The girls are in." "Can I do it if I had a vasectomy in June?" And then Darren, sweet Darren, typed the sentence that took a year off my life:
"What's your rate? We'll Venmo you."
They tried to Venmo me for ceremony, cousins. There's a number in my phone right now, sitting in a text, that represents what four hockey players and their wives believe a sacred rite costs. It's $60 a head. Kevin said he'd "cover the rocks." He'd already BOUGHT rocks, cousins. Lava rocks. From a landscaping supply store. He sent a photo of them in his trunk with the caption "found the good ones." Cousins, you cannot just… fuck sakes, those are DECORATIVE… I had to sit down.
Now. Here's where I need to be honest with this community, because you've watched me lie about frybread, foraging, handiness, my own name, and the direction of smoke. You know my pattern better than I do. Unc's mouth writes the check, Unc's skills bounce it, community watches, judgement falls. Multiple posts of that.
And cousins, I want you to know that for one dark second, the old machinery started turning. One second. I heard the distant engine of my own bullshit turning over. Because I KNOW things about a sweat. I've BEEN, cousins. I've sat in that dark and prayed with my relatives and come out feeling like a wrung-out cloth that the Creator had personally laundered. I could picture myself doing the voice. The Wise Old Rez Unc voice. I could feel "never walk against the day" energy gathering behind my teeth.
And then, cousins, for maybe the first time in this entire saga, my spirit reached over and took the pen out of my mouth's hand.
Because there are things you can bullshit, cousins, and there are things you cannot. I can counterfeit a teaching about smoke direction to a nine-year-old over dino-nuggests and survive the shame. But a sweat is not a vibe. A lodge is not a sauna with a backstory. There are keepers, cousins. There are men and women who spent their whole LIVES earning the right to pour that water. There are protocols older than this country, carried through the years when carrying them was illegal, cousins, illegal, people hid and took this knowledge underground so it would survive and I'm going to run one for the beer league because it's on Kevin's vision board? For sixty dollars a head?
No, cousins.
I called Rosie anyway, because that's my protocol now. Told her the whole thing. Long pause. Then she said, "Well. At least your dumb ass knew to call first. That's growth." Roasted and blessed in one breath, the Rosie special. And then she said something I've been carrying all week: "You can't give them the lodge. But you also don't have to give them nothing. There's a lot of room between those two things, kid. Find it." The fucking Yoda shit was that?
So Saturday, they all came out. Four trucks. The boys, the wives, Kevin's skinned vegan drum (uninvited). Perfect late August evening, cousins, you know the kind: air like soup, sun going down gold and thick, the bugs holding an intertribal of their own.
And I sat them all down around the fire pit, and cousins, I gave them the speech. I'd rehearsed it on Sconey, who gave notes by leaving. Here's the heart of it, best as I can remember, at least:
"Boys. Ladies. I love you. You shovelled my driveway. You stood up at my lowest and you never once let me buy the first round. So I'm going to give it to you straight, because you've earned straight.
I can't run you a sweat. Not won't, cousins, CAN'T. I'm not qualified. And I need you to hear what that word means here, on this land, because it's not like being unqualified to fix a timing belt. Nobody handed me this. A lodge gets carried, cousins. It gets passed down, earned over years, from keepers who were taught by keepers, all the way back. Our people went to JAIL protecting these ceremonies. Our children were chained to basement radiators in reeducation compounds. My own mom. We hid them. Kept them alive in secret so that they'd still exist for us. And there's a whole industry out there now, boys. I call it rezsploitation. Motherfuckers with a headdress from a costume shop charging terminally caucasian suburban folks two hundred bucks to bang a drum in a yurt. Every time somebody like ME runs a fake ceremony for cash, that's another cut on something my ancestors bled to protect. I won't be that guy. Not for sixty bucks. Not for sixty thousand. Kevin, put your Venmo away, brother, I can see you reaching.
But here's the other side of it, and this is the part I really need you to hear: I'm not turning you away. I’d never turn you or anyone that asks for help away. Because you asked, cousins. You came to the actual community instead of booking some feathered grifter off Instagram, and I honour that, and I'm not sending you home empty. I love my culture. I love my people. And the parts of it that are MINE to share? I want to share those so bad it keeps me up some nights. So here's what we're going to do instead.
We're going to sit here. We've got a fire. I've got tea and I made corn soup. Kokum's teaching it to me and she said, direct quote, 'they can have the soup, the soup is not sacred, I made that shit up in the seventies.' And we're just going to have a chat. A real one. You can ask me anything, and I'll tell you what I actually know, and when I don't know, I'll say the sacred words: 'I don't know, ask an elder.' And if you're serious about a sweat, a REAL one, I'll walk that road with you. I'll ask around. There are keepers who welcome guests who come correct, I'll help you come correct. That's what I can offer, cousins. Not the ceremony but the promise of friendship that could someday get you invited to one."
Silence, cousins.
Then Kevin stood up, crossed the fire circle, and hugged me with the new Peru hug, the long one, the one where he exhales, and when he stepped back this man had TEARS coming down, cousins, and he said "that's the most authentic thing anyone's ever given me," and cousins, I knew he'd cry, I called it in the group chat with auntie, but I didn't know I'D be misty, and yet…
And then, cousins, we had the best night of the summer.
We sat around that fire for hours. They asked everything. Real questions, respectful ones, the ones people are usually too scared to ask, and I answered what was mine to answer and said "ask an elder" so many times it became a drinking game (tea, cousins, we kept it clean, mostly). I gave them my one verified teaching: the drum is the heartbeat of the earth, and I FINALLY confessed, publicly, to actual white people, that I learned it off the back of a bar of artisan soap, and Darren laughed so hard he went over backwards in his lawn chair.
The wives asked the best questions, obviously. Cody's wife asked about the counterfeit teachings saga (she READS THE POSTS, cousins, hi Amanda. S’up girl.) And made me do a live accounting of which of my teachings are real. Somebody asked what "aho" means (They pronounced it “ah-who”... fucking white people, am I right??) and I got to give the honest answer, which is a whole beautiful thing in itself.
Around midnight, Kevin quietly asked if he could play his drum, and cousins, here's the thing: he asked. Didn't just start banging. Asked. Peru Kevin would've just started. So I said, "Kevin, that's an ask-an-elder situation, but tonight, around this fire, between friends? Play it soft, brother." And he did, cousins. Badly. With his whole heart. Some things are hard to watch and good to see at the same time. He started singing Wonderwall. White people…
And here's the ending I didn't expect, cousins. Monday, Rosie called ME. Turns out word travels (it always travels, the telegraph doesn't rest). An elder she knows, a real keeper, heard about the guy who turned down sweat lodge money and fed the white boys soup instead. And he told Rosie, and Rosie told me, quote:
"Tell him when he's ready to start learning properly, there's a fire that needs keeping."
Cousins.
Cousins, a fire that needs keeping. That's how it starts. That's the bottom of the ladder. Years of hauling wood and shutting up and listening before anything else, if anything else ever comes at all. I've been walking around all week like a man carrying something warm, cousins, and this time the bundle isn't empty. It's got one job in it. Keep the fire.
Somewhere in the distance a hawk screamed: HAAA KAWWW. Me too, brother hawk. Me too.
Anyways. Pour one out for the $480 I turned down, the most money I've ever refused in my life, mvto to my knees in advance for what fire keeping is about to do to them. And cousins, if your buddies come asking you to run them something you've got no business running: there's a lot of room between the lodge and nothing. Find it.
Mvto. Come correct, relatives. We’re keepers by blood of something greater than ourselves. Heart in the stars, feet in the grass. You matter because this is your time to BE. So let’s never Walk Against the Day together, eh?
P.S. Kevin's lava rocks live at Leonard's now. Leonard heard "free rocks" and materialized like smoke. Told him he’s internet famous now and he said “Not the first time. Not the last time.”I don’t know what that’s about.
P.P.S. Sconey pony sat with Kevin most of the night, cousins. Sconey, who defects from me for nuggets, chose Kevin freely, no food involved. Kevin said "he can sense my energy shift since Peru." Cousins, I looked at my dog. My dog looked at me. And I swear on the Sacred Pantaloons he was doing a bit. He knows exactly one joke and he committed to it for five hours. Comedic patience I'll never have. Good pup.
Past Stores:
[Hot Tub](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/pUjxilwFEN)
[Kokum](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/l0hahrR4Hx)
[Babysitting](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/WHcCWUd3UV)
[Yard Sale](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/nRZ4eM8Slm)
[Bingo Night](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/QEo67nIq2m)
[Disney Princess](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/dcziW5TdrG)
[Tim's Arsonist](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/IBAixKep6i)
[Career Change](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/QKwnSaRXjI) [Foraging](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/kqwVUxJRPu)
[Frybread Follow-up](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/E6wbMUSolj) [Frybread](https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianCountry/s/bnqjnRA97k)
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u/culfinglin Sep 05 '26
You know these stories of yours are also soup, right?
You’re a good chef, cousin.
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u/T0macock Sep 05 '26
Like a good bowl of chili dropped down a flight of steps!
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u/culfinglin Sep 05 '26
How are things going with auntie, by the way?
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u/T0macock Sep 05 '26
Steady as so goes, Cuz.
Haven't fucked it up yet so I think that's a good sign!
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u/MacawIsland Sep 05 '26
Ohhh yes great question! Can't wait for a comedic episode of passionate love.
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u/_bibliofille Sep 06 '26
After a bad day my husband remembered there was leftover ham. He heated it up and was somewhat cheerfully marching down the stairs with it. I heard the sound of tumbling, followed by a yell of "IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE?". He picked it up and ate it anyway. It took several tries over the following days to remove the grease stain from the carpet.
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u/draquonmess Sep 05 '26
I swear I’m going to embroider “Never walk against the day” and hang it in my office as a reminder
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u/MacawIsland Sep 05 '26
It makes a lot of sense. I think about this saying as I navigate daily life.
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u/Careless_Bee9723 Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
I am in Tahlequah right now at Cherokee national holiday reading through all of your posts. I am laughing so hard because I live such a different life outside of Oklahoma. My life is full of awkward flubs and jokes some people miss because I’m going between different worlds. I feel like a jackass way too often. it’s nice to see someone write things out who also has an amazing sense of humor… it makes being a millennial trying to figure this all out a little bit less cringe. I love my dumb canoe jokes… I’m Algonquin- let me sing “once around the River-bend” so I can show people how ridiculous it is. I have a water bottle with a Disney logo that says “decolonize” I live in the Midwest suburbs… I carry that everywhere around on purpose.
And yes, every family does have a Leonard. It’s my brother. He’s basically our mascot… everybody loves hanging out with him and then having a good story.
How did you learn to write like this?
You are so fucking funny.
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u/T0macock Sep 05 '26
Welp, I usually write when I find something moving... By that I mean: I typically write when I'm on the shitter.
Beyond that, if you happen to find it funny, that's just a happy accident, cuz!
Once around the riverbenndddddd
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u/Monkey_of_Chaos Sep 05 '26
I don’t know how you do it, but you nearly always manage to post these stories when it’s slow at work. Thank you for saving my ass from a very boring day once again
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u/T0macock Sep 05 '26
I'm very pro wage theft! Happy to entertain!
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u/Monkey_of_Chaos Sep 05 '26
Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, so I read Reddit stories on company time
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u/T0macock Sep 05 '26
I make a dime while the boss makes a buck, that's why I liberated the catalytic converter off the company truck.
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u/Careless_Bee9723 Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
Holy shit this is so funny.
I need you to understand the multiple levels this hit me as a fair skinned native who absolutely loves fucking with people. I’m going through all of your stories now. Your stories are so funny cause I make some of the same ridiculous flubs in the moment. “All skate” 🤣
I am obsessed with guy who MCs Haskell POW Wow in Lawrence, KS. That dude is a legend. You should listen to him go during “inter tribals” he’s hilarious.
As far as messing with people- that is so fun.
I do some language stuff sometimes, I’ll say stuff in Cherokee language that’s so close to English because it was stolen…. Or I’ll play indigenous country music, and when people say wow that sounds really interesting. I’ll say “this is the original stuff. What you listen to is actually stolen 🤷♀️”
I usually drop historical “slaughter facts”, where I drop truth bombs about the native people that were actual Christian martyrs who were killed in the name of their Christian God. Every single state on the East Coast has like 5 historical sites where natives were slaughtered while praying.
My favorite is listening to Kansans talk about their beloved “free state” and then I just rip that entire fallacy to shreds.
It’s beautiful watching smiling faces turn horrified when they learn what privilege really means…
When I do all of this, I’m not doing it out of anger. The only way to educate people is to show them how ridiculous they are being.
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u/MacawIsland Sep 05 '26
Your comment goes well with the thoughts I had reading the amazing story Unc is generous enough to share with us. So I'm a mixed person with one, for lack of bettter genealogical understanding, fair skinned non native trespasser from the lands which are now known by some as Tennessee and a mother from the country of Peru. She moved here when she was very young and because of lack of community among other things I have a yearning for wanting to know more about Peru. Then comes my f***ing capitalist programming, as much as I hate it, thought I could make some money off of this connection. I recently learned how to make Chicha Morada, guys this stuff is seriously great! If you suffer from drinking too much wine this is an excellent replacement and no alcohol. Tastes like sangria. What Unc said about the keepers and what people have had to endure to keep the knowledge hit me hard. It challenged the newly forming capitalist thought about selling the Chicha Morada. From the little I know it was used by the elite and royalty in Peru. So I am grateful to both of you Unc and Careless_Bee for ensuring that I respect my mother's homeland and although I may not know all my ancestors yet I respect and honor them too. 🌽💜🍍🍎🍊🫚🇵🇪🦙🇺🇸🦅
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u/Careless_Bee9723 Sep 05 '26
You’re always going to fight that capitalist urge. You cannot get away from it and unfortunately, you’re part of it. But what you did is the exact right thing. You took a step back and looked at the bigger picture. That’s what a true indigenous person does. We are (usually + hopefully) always looking at the bigger picture. Nothing is ever about us as individuals. We’re on this turtle Island together figuring things out. We need to be nice to each other…. And handle things with both humor and respect. That is our way. I have no problem being the most mature person in the room…. Indigenous people usually are. We have all been through shit and are tired of it. But people don’t listen when you yell 🤷♀️ unfortunately again, we have to be really diplomatic
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u/f_ckitupbuttercup Sep 05 '26
Your writing is the equivalent of a feel-good TV show for me.
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u/T0macock Sep 07 '26
I need to meet a real life Rory and Lorelai to make it especially cozy.
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u/f_ckitupbuttercup Sep 07 '26
Low-key was thinking about them when I wrote this. Maybe Luke would like to tag along with you and Leonard.
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u/GoodGollyMrOlli Sep 06 '26
As someone who grew up with my white side and has had to approach my own culture from the outside as an adult, this hits all kinds of good ways
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u/T0macock Sep 07 '26
Being of a culture, but having so seek out immersion on your own and not being born in it, in my opinion, is a deeper way of finding personal meaning.
Stoked I can be a small part of your adventure.
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u/bmw5986 Sep 05 '26
Kevin is awesome! You now owe him more treats and wet foods. And lots of belly rubs! Hes earned them.
My advice for hauling wood, advil. 😄
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u/T0macock Sep 05 '26
Advil makes my tummy hurt.
Just have to touch my toes a few times before physical activity and just go give 'er and pay for it the following morning.
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u/bmw5986 Sep 05 '26
"Advil makes my tummy hurt", do you eat before you take it? If not, thats probably why.
Im sure you will be fine. Meanwhile, I have not one, but two tiny vioins playing for you. 😄
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u/Revolutionary-Air599 Sep 06 '26
OMG, you're an amazing writer!
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u/T0macock Sep 07 '26
I trained for years reading the prose on the back of shampoo bottles while pooping. Now is my time to shine, cuz.
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u/Revolutionary-Air599 Sep 15 '26
Hahaha, you're hilarious! I'm honored to be called cuz but I'm just a white lady who appreciates First Nations culture.
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u/T0macock Sep 15 '26
We're all on the turtle's back together. Sooner we start realizing we're all family in the eyes of the Creator, the better for us all, cuz.
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u/ocherthulu Sep 07 '26
This should be the last one in your first book. Good read.
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u/T0macock Sep 07 '26
By first book you mean "Mac and Cheese Through the Ages: A complete Compendium"??
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u/ocherthulu Sep 07 '26
By first book title do you mean: "Mac and Cheese: Never Walk Against The Day--An Unc's Complete Compendium." ???
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u/PCapnHuggyface Sep 11 '26
Dude. You have a gift. Thank you for sharing it. Also, while I cannot speak for white people as a whole, I can confidently say that text string was 39 texts too long. Hellmans is mayonnaise. Miracle Whip is abomination. This is the way.
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u/haukehaien1970 ᎣᏏᏲ, ᏣᎳᎩ! Sep 05 '26
This is amazing. Wado! You made me laugh, and you made me think.
Rosie's line ("You can't give them the lodge. But you also don't have to give them nothing. There's a lot of room between those two things, kid. Find it.") is now living in MY head.
Thank you for sharing, and blessings on your friendships and you.