Native American Smudging: What “Saging” Gets Wrong

Sephora pulled a forty-two dollar “Starter Witch Kit” from its shelves in 2018. Native writers had called out its bundle of white sage online just days earlier. The kit paired the sage with tarot cards and rose quartz, part of a wider witch aesthetic trend. Native American smudging is not something a company can package into that trend. It is a ceremony that survived a law banning it outright for nearly a century. The backlash barely touched why that history still matters.

What Native American Smudging Actually Means

Among the Anishinaabe and many other Indigenous nations across the Americas, tobacco, sweetgrass, sage, and cedar hold a special place. Together they are known as the Four Sacred Medicines, according to the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund. Each medicine carries its own teaching and its own place in ceremony. Tobacco is typically offered first, to open communication with the spirit world.