environmental concerns of red indians
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The environmental wisdom and spirituality of North American Indians is legendary.
Animals were respected as equal in rights to humans. Of course they were hunted, but only for food, and the hunter first asked permission of the animal's spirit. Among the hunter-gatherers the land was owned in common: there was no concept of private property in land, and the idea that it could be bought and sold was repugnant. Many Indians had an appreciation of nature's beauty as intense as any Romantic poet.
Religious beliefs varied between tribes, but there was a widespread belief in a Great Spirit who created the earth, and who pervaded everything. This was a panentheist rather than a pantheist belief. But the pantheistic tone was far stronger than among Christians, and more akin to the pantheism of William Wordsworth. It was linked to an animism which saw kindred spirits in all animals and plants.
The Indians viewed the white man's attitude to nature as the polar opposite of the Indian. The white man seemed hell-bent on destroying not just the Indians, but the whole natural order, felling forests, clearing land, killing animals for sport.
Of course, not everything that every Indian tribe did was wonderfully earth-wise and conservation-minded. The Anasazi of Chaco Canyon probably helped to ruin their environment and destroy their own civilization through deforestation. In the potlatch the Kwakiutl regularly burned heaps of canoes, blankets and other possessions simply to prove their superiority to each other; the potlatch is the archetypal example of wanton overconsumption for status. Even the noble plains Indians often killed far more bisons than they needed, in drives of up to 900 animals.
In other words, the Indians were not an alien race of impossibly wonderful people. They were human just like the rest of us. And in that lies hope.
Wisdom derives from way of life, and is as fragile as nature. Many Indians shared their animism, their respect for nature and their attitude to the land with other hunter-gatherers. But when ways of life change, beliefs change to support them. The advent of agriculture and then industry brought massive shifts in attitudes to nature (see How we fell from unity.)
Beliefs can also change ways of life. Our present way of life is laying waste to the environment that supports us. New beliefs can help us to change that way of life, and in arriving at those beliefs, we can learn immensely from the beliefs of the North American Indians.
Perhaps the most famous of all Indian speeches about the environment is the beautiful speech of Chief Seattle of the Squamish tribe of the Pacific Northwest USA. But alas, Seattle's "environmental" speech was written by scriptwriter Ted Perry, in the winter of 1971/72, for a Canadian film on ecology, and attributed to Seattle for aesthetic effect. It is still a brilliant piece of work which distills the essence of many scattered Indian speeches. Those who wish to read Perry's piece can follow the above link. Also read in full Seattle's original speech, a moving lament on the passing of the Indian, but with only a fraction of the ecological awareness.
In a sense it's a pity that the story came out - it undermined a very fruitful myth. But by assembling the wisdom from many different Indian speakers and writers, as I have tried to do below, it is possible to glimpse that same embracing pantheistic attitude to the earth.
Animals were respected as equal in rights to humans. Of course they were hunted, but only for food, and the hunter first asked permission of the animal's spirit. Among the hunter-gatherers the land was owned in common: there was no concept of private property in land, and the idea that it could be bought and sold was repugnant. Many Indians had an appreciation of nature's beauty as intense as any Romantic poet.
Religious beliefs varied between tribes, but there was a widespread belief in a Great Spirit who created the earth, and who pervaded everything. This was a panentheist rather than a pantheist belief. But the pantheistic tone was far stronger than among Christians, and more akin to the pantheism of William Wordsworth. It was linked to an animism which saw kindred spirits in all animals and plants.
The Indians viewed the white man's attitude to nature as the polar opposite of the Indian. The white man seemed hell-bent on destroying not just the Indians, but the whole natural order, felling forests, clearing land, killing animals for sport.
Of course, not everything that every Indian tribe did was wonderfully earth-wise and conservation-minded. The Anasazi of Chaco Canyon probably helped to ruin their environment and destroy their own civilization through deforestation. In the potlatch the Kwakiutl regularly burned heaps of canoes, blankets and other possessions simply to prove their superiority to each other; the potlatch is the archetypal example of wanton overconsumption for status. Even the noble plains Indians often killed far more bisons than they needed, in drives of up to 900 animals.
In other words, the Indians were not an alien race of impossibly wonderful people. They were human just like the rest of us. And in that lies hope.
Wisdom derives from way of life, and is as fragile as nature. Many Indians shared their animism, their respect for nature and their attitude to the land with other hunter-gatherers. But when ways of life change, beliefs change to support them. The advent of agriculture and then industry brought massive shifts in attitudes to nature (see How we fell from unity.)
Beliefs can also change ways of life. Our present way of life is laying waste to the environment that supports us. New beliefs can help us to change that way of life, and in arriving at those beliefs, we can learn immensely from the beliefs of the North American Indians.
Perhaps the most famous of all Indian speeches about the environment is the beautiful speech of Chief Seattle of the Squamish tribe of the Pacific Northwest USA. But alas, Seattle's "environmental" speech was written by scriptwriter Ted Perry, in the winter of 1971/72, for a Canadian film on ecology, and attributed to Seattle for aesthetic effect. It is still a brilliant piece of work which distills the essence of many scattered Indian speeches. Those who wish to read Perry's piece can follow the above link. Also read in full Seattle's original speech, a moving lament on the passing of the Indian, but with only a fraction of the ecological awareness.
In a sense it's a pity that the story came out - it undermined a very fruitful myth. But by assembling the wisdom from many different Indian speakers and writers, as I have tried to do below, it is possible to glimpse that same embracing pantheistic attitude to the earth.
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