Smudging and sage
A Native American cleansing ceremony with burning herbs, now widely copied, which many Indigenous people ask outsiders to respect.
Also: smudge, white sage, sweetgrass, smoke cleansing, saging
Smudging is the burning of herbs such as sage, sweetgrass, cedar or tobacco so that the smoke can be wafted over a person or place in a cleansing rite. It is part of ceremony for many Indigenous nations in North America, and practice differs between them. The United States restricted Native ceremonies, with a ban from 1883, and only the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 promised protection. Since the 1990s, bundles of white sage have been sold widely as wellness products, and some Indigenous people, in particular Californian nations such as the Chumash, say this is appropriation and that overharvest threatens wild stands. Herbal cleansing with smoke exists in many other cultures, with its own names and rules.