Perhaps they are beyond the rules. That is the issue here. That is why he is visiting the Native Circle. The members have been subjected to a series of edicts and reversals over the past few years regarding ceremonial practices and objects. Headbands, drums, smudge sticks, sweetgrass braids, tobacco, the ceremonial pipe have all been alternately allowed and prohibited, subject to varying views and attitudes of different superintendents, commissioners, and governors.
Prison is political if nothing else.
For reasons embedded in the historical battle between Christian colonists and indigenous peoples, Native spirituality attracts more than its fair share of controversy within prison. A major source of trouble is the absence of an institutional hierarchy of Native spiritual authority. Native spirituality recognizes Medicine People, but Medicine People are not credentialed like priests and ministers. It offers no parallel to the institutional structure of churches, no bureaucratic reference point for prison administration. Here, in this Massachusetts prison, a succession of superintendents have differed in their perception of threat to security from headbands, sacred pipes, drums, medicine shields.