WINDHAM — When the tarps of the sweat lodge are pulled back, a swirling cloud of steam wafts up toward the bear pelt draped overhead.
It dissipates before reaching the razor wire that caps the fences around the recreation yard at the Maine Correctional Center.
Between rounds in the ceremony, voices from inside command the retrieval of rocks warming in a fire pit a few feet away. Women carefully lift the rocks with shovels over an altar bearing a cedar bough and a turtle shell, and into the lodge.
As Savannah Smith, 28, crawls out of the roughly 12-foot-wide structure, she grins.
