Archie Fir Lame Deer’s Lethal Vision Quest Kills a Man

Source: LAURINDA KEYS, Associated Press Writer
September 1, 1980

Diabetic Dies During Indian Rite

DATELINE: SANTA BARBARA, Calif.

Ronald Delgado died alone and naked in a shallow pit, covered with buffalo hide and willow branches. Food, water and the insulin the young diabetic needed were 100 yards away.

Another man was in a similar pit 200 yards away in an area above Point Conception, which the Chumash Indians consider sacred.

Delgado, raised a Roman Catholic in a family of eight children, died during an Indian "vision quest," an Indian cultural and religious rite during which a young man proves his endurance and readiness for manhood, and also hopes to see a vision, to get guidance from the spirit world.

No legal ruling has been made on the death as yet, but Archie Lame Deer fears the death will harm his efforts to revive interest in native American Indian religion.

Lame Deer, a hereditary Sioux medicine man, had left the two men in the pits for four days and returned July 16. He says he was performing a ceremony at the 3-foot-deep pit when he realized Delgado was dead.

"I still had another man to attend to," he said. "I went to the other man, we smoked a pipe together and halfway down the hill I told him our brother had passed away. I fed him and then we went back up and I called the police."

Why didn't Delgado call for help from the other nan, or go get his insulin?

"That's something we will never be able to understand," said Lame Deer. "Ron was very secretive. He never gave us his telephone number."

A toxicological screening of the body by the Santa Barbara County coroner has produced no significant results yet, said Sheriff's Lt. John Wells.

"The cause of death will probably be a combination of exposure and his diabetic state," Wells said.

Wells said, however, that the Delgado case probably will go to an inquest jury, which will decide if the death was due to natural causes, suicide or negligence.

Delgado's mother said that during a family argument she told her son, "One day without insulin, Ronnine, and you are going to be dead." She said that her son responded, "Archie won't let me die."

Lame Deer said he had no guilt about Delgado's death. He said Delgado had helped him prepare others for vision quests and knew the procedure.

Wells said that as part of his investigation, he is gathering information on Indian religion and on Lame Deer.

"How are you going to be able to rule on his authenticity?" Wells asked. "How are you going to judge when it's legitimate ...(if) you don't understand the Indian instructions and traditions."

Lame Deer said Delgado took a sweatbath and smoked a pipe containing wild tobacco, but no hallucinogens, before the vision quest began.

Delgado's family and friends say he wanted to go through the quest to cure his diabetes. But Lame Deer said vision quests don't cure. He said he had never taken a diabetic on a quest before.

Delgado grew up in Oxnard, studied music at the University of California-Santa Barbara then took up a study of Indian culture.

Lame Deer said Delgado took a vow to make a vision quest during a session in a sweat lodge.

"I tried to discourage him. I try to discourage everyone who wants to go on a vision quest," he said. "I'm afraid for everyone that goes up on the mountain. I'm afraid about rattlesnakes, about anything that could happen."

But he also said it was his job to try and discourage participants just to make sure they are ready to undergo the test.

"If a man makes a vow, it's hard to make him break it. If a man begins preparing himself, who am I to tell him no?" Lame Deer said.

Lame Deer said his work is fulfilling a prophecy made by his father, who he said, was also a chief and medicine man. He said he earns some money as a spiritual adviser to Indians in California prisons, and otherwise supports himself and his family of five children on private and federal grants.

Keith Taylor, coordinator of American Indian programs for the state Department of Corrections, said he hired Lame Deer for the prison counseling job nine years ago. He said Lame Deer has a reputation in a cross-section of Indian communities "for his ability and knowledge with herbs and ceremonies. It's something I consider much more valid than some certificate or college credentials."

He said Lame Deer's Sioux ceremonies can be applied to California Indians because all tribes have some similar traditions, such as pruification rites and sweat lodges.