ONEIDA, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – For more than 20 days, smoke has been rising from a teepee at the corner of Hwy 54 and Seminary Road in Oneida.
The smoke is the result of a sacred fire which the Oneida Nation community believes will help keep drugs off their streets.
“This fire is a spiritual battle,” Ron Goodeagle Jr. of Oneida tells FOX 11.
“We’re praying and we’re singing to combat the spirit of the heroin. It’s not just a physical battle, it’s a spiritual battle.”
Initially the community planned to keep the flame going for 30 days, but organizers said it’s already making an impact, encouraging members to stay clean and sober.
The plan now is to keep it glowing for as long as they can.
Geronimo Powless of Oneida says, “We’re bringing awareness, unity to the youth, young adults, to bring them to this fire, to show them there’s another way of life.”
Powless said every day at least one person driving by stops at the location to check it out.
“They’re coming over and seeing what we’re about, and usually everybody has a story about someone who has been on heroin or opiates in their family, you know, so it’s been really good.”
According to the most recent report from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, overdose deaths are highest among whites and American Indians.
Goodeagle Jr., one of the fire keepers, said he knew someone who was part of that statistic.
“He had a wife, a kid, and no matter how many times he went to rehab and tried to heal and recover from that, you know he would go back to it. He OD and was in a coma and then died.”
Goodeagle has a simple answer to the question of what motivates him to continue his job as a firekeeper.
“The people, I want my people to live, I want my people to be healed.”
Tribes across the country are also using a sacred fire to raise awareness about the dangers of drugs.
