From the late-May edition of The North Woods Call
As a light-skinned man of predominantly European heritage, I can’t claim much Native American descent.
There is some, however. My maternal great-great grandmother was reportedly a full-blooded Cherokee.
Be that as it may, as a typical boy growing up watching 1950s-era television westerns, I was more influenced by the cowboy and Indian mythology that permeated our lives. On one family trip west in 1963, I remember looking for telltale signs of this exciting history in the desert sands along Route 66 in Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.
Roadside attractions on the “Mother Road” in those days included staged cowboy shoot-outs and traditional native dances presented by colorfully dressed Indians scraping for a living on wooden platforms outside rural truck stops.
In many ways, these things were responses to stereotypical images in the media and literature.
Fortunately, I got a more realistic interpretation of the two cultures in back-to-back classes at Central Michigan University that focused separately on the “Westward Movement in America” and “Indians of North America.” It was a splendid opportunity to get both views of an awful cultural clash in a single semester.
Conventional wisdom says that Native Americans were the first conservationists in the United States—even before the states were united—living close to the land and harboring a deep reverence for the animal and plant life left to us by the “Great Spirit.”
I’ve never been sure if this conservation ethic was deliberate, or simply evolved because Native Americans didn’t have the population numbers, or the means, to cause wholesale damage to the environment. But that’s just a 21st Century white guy talking.
Native writer Vine Deloria Jr. has linked this strong environmental ethic with the religion of native peoples—a close connection between what they believed and how they lived.
“We have on this planet two kinds of people—natural peoples and the hybrid peoples,” Deloria said. “The natural peoples represent an ancient tradition that has always sought harmony with the environment.”
Hybrid peoples, he concludes, view the planet not as our natural home, but something that is ours for “total exploitation.”
I’ve seen the natural view of the world first-hand when I’ve visited Native American communities in Washington State, Oregon, New Mexico, Arizona, North Carolina and northern Michigan. And I’ve read about it in countless books.
Many traditional religious ceremonies performed by indigenous people are done on behalf of the earth, its people and other forms of life.
I like to think that pure Christianity similarly honors God’s creation and promotes good stewardship of the earth and its resources—although Deloria has harsh criticism of the Christian church and its unwitting role over the years in aiding the exploitation.
In an introduction to his book, “God Is Red”—Deloria said late 20th Century U.S. Supreme Court rulings “all but prohibited the practice of Indian traditional religions and opened Indian lands to coalitions of developers, mining interests and other exploiters.”
Clearly, he said, the struggle is between a religious view of life and the secularization that science and industry have brought.
In a society that now seems intent on wiping all vestiges of religion out of American life and culture, this does not bode well for the future. Have we already ignored biblical warnings and those of native conservation advocates for too long and “in our knowledge become fools?”
“It gives me no comfort to have predicted religious confrontation two decades ago, only to see it now in its most virulent form” Deloria said. Nor do I look forward to paying the penalties that Mother Earth must now levy against us in order for her to survive. ... It remains for us to learn once again that we are part of nature, not a transcendent species with no responsibilities to the natural world.”
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