Suburban sweat lodge kindles clash of cultures
February 11, 2003
BY LISA PRUE
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_np=0&u_pg=36&u_sid=650034
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
To Rose Rose, the sweat lodge in her back yard is a spiritual gathering place.
To some of her neighbors, who complain about the smoke created by a fire pit
outside the lodge, it is a nuisance.
Whether the sweat lodge in the Brookhaven neighborhood in southwest Omaha is a
religious practice protected under the U.S. Constitution or a threat to public
health and safety will be determined in the next 30 days. Monday, the City of
Omaha said Rose could continue using her sweat lodge while it sorts out legal
issues in the conflict.
"This is my way of life," said Rose, a spiritual leader in the Northern Ponca
Tribe. "A lot of people rely on this."
Boyd Bell, who lived next door to Rose near 115th and Washington Streets before
moving to Columbia, Mo., in November, led a neighborhood petition drive against
the smoke created by the sweat lodge. The drive collected 10 signatures.
"It basically destroyed the appearance of all our back yards," Bell said.
Monday, Rose appeared before the Building Board of Review to ask that a fire
permit be reinstated for a third year.
The board voted 8-0 to issue a 30-day permit so Rose could continue to practice
her religious beliefs while the issue is studied.
The board asked that the Fire Department inspect Rose's property to observe how
the fire is handled during a ceremony and how much smoke it creates.
The Omaha Fire Department denied her a new permit in January, said Pio Porta,
assistant fire marshal, because of nine complaints in 2002 from neighbors about
smoke outside the lodge.
Porta said the department routinely renews fire permits unless it has received
complaints.
To American Indians, the igloo-shaped sweat lodge is a ceremonial, sacred place
to purify one's spirit. Rose's lodge, which is made of willow branches and
covered with tarp, is 5 feet tall and 11 feet wide.
The fire pit, just outside the lodge's entrance, is essential because it heats
rocks that create steam inside the lodge. The pit measures 2 feet square and is
surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped mound of earth, all rimmed by rock. The sweat
lodge is surrounded by a 6-foot privacy fence, her entire back yard by a
chain-link fence.
A member of the Building Board of Review asked Rose if she could enclose her
fire. No, she said, because of the special placement of the logs required by
the ceremony.
Brian Warner-Taylor drove from Gothenburg, Neb., to speak on Rose's behalf at
Monday's hearing. Warner-Taylor said ceremonies at Rose's sweat lodge had
helped his wife, Donna, cope with disabilities.
"My wife would be crippled today and in a wheelchair" if not for Rose and the
sweat lodge, he told the board.
For Bell, the smoke was simply a nuisance.
"The smoke is so bad when they go through this ceremonial thing," Bell said in
a telephone interview from Missouri. "It lays in the neighborhood and you can't
have your doors and windows open."
Rose said she built the sweat lodge so she and other Native Americans would
have a place to pray. In the fire pit she burns the same hardwood used in
fireplaces.
Since her request to renew the fire permit was denied in January, Rose said,
she has had to travel to Sioux City or to South Dakota to for sweat lodge
ceremonies.
Richard Shugrue, who teaches constitutional law at the Creighton University
School of Law, said that to deny Rose a fire permit the City of Omaha will need
to show that the sweat lodge endangers residents' health or safety.
"Oftentimes, these people who complain about such things don't really show that
they're in any kind of danger," he said. "It's an aesthetic thing."
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