By understanding the leitmotiv of Euro-Christian thought and all the ways it has distorted or created a parody of Native American thought, we can discover what our beliefs are not. And that, in turn, can open a window to an understanding of what a Native American philosophy is, a complex context of beliefs and stories—a worldview—that has sustained life in North America since times beyond memory, even against extraordinary efforts to exterminate it, a philosophy that has ideas that might sustain all of us into the future despite Euroman’s apparent efforts to exterminate the entire species. The challenge to find a way to live on the earth without wrecking it is so great, that we cannot afford to limit ourselves to only one way of thinking.
Native Americans do not see themselves as examples of “primitive” thought, ways of thinking that other cultures have experienced and outgrown. We see our ideas and concepts as rational, viable, and alternative means of interpreting the world. This fact is one of the reasons that Native Americans have managed to maintain a unique identity despite attempts to eradicate that identity. Compare this strong sense of identity to those who have “roots” in a European country. They have given up one identity in order to take on another identity, an American identity. Not all Americans have taken this step and many groups find it important to maintain ties with their original languages, cultures, and even countries, but still identify themselves, first and foremost, as Americans. Many Native Americans will be found in this category. Others will not.
The Native American and the Euro-American see the world from two different perspectives. In general, the Euro-American conducts his attempts to understand his world on the assumption that there are definitive explanations to be discovered. He searches for what I call the “universal-absolute:” there will be one universal—all encompassing—and absolute—beyond question—Truth. The Native American, on the other hand, understands the world as a more complex place. There can be no universals in the face of an infinity of complexity. There are no absolutes. The complexity is infinite because part of that complexity is change, motion.
In the Standard Average European (SAE) worldview, the world is portrayed through a language dependent on static nouns. It is a world of cause and effect. Other peoples, as an example the Hopi Indians of the American Southwest, segment the universe in a very different way. Rather than the static worldview of the Europeans, the Hopi depict a dynamic world of ceaseless and uncaused motion. To portray this world, the Hopi have developed a language largely dominated by verbs. Other American indigenous languages also are dominated by verbs.
The motion becomes more important than the consistent, or unchanging, quality.
The worldview provides, aside from a simple explanation of our physical circumstances, a strategy for survival. Once this worldview is in place it is very difficult to eradicate, precisely because it provides the structure for everything else we have to say about the world. It becomes the ground upon which we make all of our determinations of truth or falsity. A threat to a specific worldview is a threat to the culture that entertains it.
The cosmological theory that a culture adopts serves as a matrix into which all other theories about the world and human beings are woven. To remove the major ‘thread’ is to threaten all of the others.
Today, the major metaphysical view of the West can be depicted by one philosophical question: Why is there something rather than nothing? There is an assumption here that at one time there was nothing (no-thing). Things came into being out of nothing, but that is not possible, therefore a cause is sought. The original metaphysical view postulates a creator-being that causes something to begin; the current view, regarded as less metaphysical (meta-physical: beyond the physical) is that the world begins out of nothing—with a “big bang.”
The indigenous Americans believe that “something” always has been and manifests into the many diverse things of the world. Each thing is, in a sense, a “part” of the greater whole. Diversity is its hallmark.
One of the unifying factors that Native Americans share is the idea of separate creations. Each group has a creation story that tells only of their unique creation. No one group claims to have the one, and absolute, story of creation that concerns all peoples everywhere. The Christian mythology does have this view: there was only one Adam and only one Eve; there was only one creation of ‘man’ and ‘woman.’ All human beings, in this account, stem from one set of parents. There is, similarly, only one account of the creation of the world—before this creation there was nothing.
The diversity of the world, and thereby the diversity of peoples, is a concept that all Native Americans share. Each group rightfully occupies a place for which they were created, produced, or into which they emerged. No one group sees themselves as the one and only correct group; nor do any have a myth that postulates themselves as the owners of an entire planet. Christianity, of course, with its story of a singular creation, postulates that the entire planet is “made for” a specific people. The ‘other’ exists only as competitor, as enemy, that must either be converted, that is, made Christian, or destroyed—if not literally then in sufficient numbers that those remaining might serve as slaves to the “rightful” people.
Perhaps the most distinctive difference between the Native American’s definition of the planet and that of the non-Native American is the description and/or definition of the Earth as living organism.
The Earth is seen as a primarily necessary being upon which humans, as well as all other “things,” depend for their survival. She is essentially “good” but subject to mistreatment by humans.
The Earth is not, as it is in a Western worldview, a potentially harmful place made up of “inanimate” or “dumb” matter. She is alive, but different from human life forms.
A response to “what is the world?” includes not only a description of the universe and the world we occupy but also a description of what it is to be human in that world. A worldview is not simply a description of the world—the description serves as the foundation of all subsequent concepts concerning the things in that world. It really does make a difference how we describe the world.
It is a commonplace among many Western researchers to propose that all diverse cultures, and their worldviews, represent merely so many variations of a general theme. They search for commonalities among the diverse accounts. The Native Americans take some general commonality for granted—we are, after all, all manifestations of the ONE thing. But it is the differences that intrigue us. An assumption of difference has built into it a tolerance that is absent from those views that see only one possible way of being-in-the-world. My difference, it can be said, is based on our mutual tolerance for our essential differences. Without it we would all meld into a field of sameness without distinction. The signature of the One, however, is to manifest itself into as many things as possible.
The term Usen may or may not contain all of the features that the individual tribal groups use throughout North America. It does, however, share in the notion of something that simply is, that remains unidentifiable, mysterious, supernatural in the sense that it is beyond pointing to. Nevertheless, this mysterious something precedes everything else; it serves at the same time as the ground of things and the manifestation of itself.
Some contemporary Western researchers have actually declared the concept of Usen, or “the all-pervading force,” to be “too abstract” and thereby beyond the conception of indigenous peoples. In actuality it is the Western thinker who cannot deal with the ultimate of abstractions—the concept of Usen.
The Western thinker suffers from a tendency to reify all of his abstract notions, think of them as real things.
We see all around us the vastness and the mystery of space. This experience frightens us and awes us at the same time. Out of our terror we make a metaphor. The metaphor is the term ‘God.’ Once having made the metaphor we need never be troubled by the original terror and awe that the universe inspires in us. We can control ‘God.’ We define the metaphor and give it attributes, We call it “Him” and give it desires, needs, purposes, and, in some circumstances, even claim to talk to “Him.” The awesome universe has been made manageable. The West has come to worship a metaphor. The terror has been reified.
The Native American’s response to the terror and awe inspired by the universe is to call it sacred. Its mysterious qualities are maintained. It is sacred precisely because it is beyond reification. To assign anthropomorphic qualities to such a substance would be to reify human nature.
The fact that people usually seen by Europeans as primitive relative to their own intellectual sophistication could hold a view that is only now coming to be examined by Westerners is very threatening to Westerners.
The Hopi language depicts a “dynamic” universe and contrasts this view with the “static” universe of the European languages. In the static universe, nothing happens unless there is a cause. In the dynamic model of the universe, something is always happening without an agent having to cause anything, because that is what the universe, by its very nature, does.
One notable ramification of a dynamic universe model is that there need be no anthropomorphic creator deity who must himself be explained as “uncaused”; nor is a human being the goal toward which all creation is striving.
Despite the findings of physicists about the existence of “matter-energy” that would deny the dualities typical of Western thought (matter/energy, mind/body, material/immaterial, animate/inanimate), common notions about the world and human beings in that divided state would persist.
Ideas that the North American aboriginal peoples arrived at through their observations of the world around them have finally arrived in the West. Whether it will take four hundred years (as in the case of Galileo) for Westerners to adapt to a more realistic view of the universe is not, at present, answerable.
This Earth, this planet, will create its own unique beings out of its own materials. The life force is essential and therefore not to be discounted in any manner, but the Earth becomes “parent” not only because of her act of creation but because of her continued sustenance of her creations. In this latter sense the Earth exists as a literal mother.
Numerous “environmentalists” have latched on to the concept of the Earth as “mother.” In this latter sense there is an attempt to acknowledge human beings’ dependence on the planet. There is however, accompanying this “environmental” notion, a very European (and Christian) notion of man as “steward” to the Earth. Stewardship implies a superiority of man over the planet—a notion that is decidedly absent from American Indian views. The American Indian gives preeminence to the dependency notion rather than the stewardship notion.
The universe of the Native American is based on the concept of Harmony. This leads to the idea that man, a part of that universe, must adapt himself to and be responsible for the continuing harmony he sees about him. There is no sense of man needing to war against nature or having to purchase his existence in competition with his fellows. Harmony, evidenced in the benefits of cooperation with his group and in man’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances in his environment (the seasons and the change of lifestyles required year in and year out), is in his eyes the right behavior. The war against nature is seen as wrong—futile and destructive. Competition with others is wrong because it leads to disharmony—isolation, selfishness, pain to others.
In a Native American worldview there is no divinity that exists outside the universe—primarily, because there is no “outside.” Whatever is, is an indivisible, infinite, and divine something. All things are perceived as either participating in this one thing or being manifestations of the one thing.
Being human, in a Native American perspective, requires having an “enlarged sense of self.” The self, in other words, does not suffer a dilution or eradication as is so feared in the Western view of individuality, but, instead, an “enlargement” of the sense of what one is.
The human being does not come in only “one flavor.” There is no single “correct” or “real” way of being human. All human groups are believed to be “created” or “produced” to fill a particular niche in the Earth’s environment. Therefore, it is assumed that each specific group will differ from all other groups. The fact that there are similarities between humans as a species is not as relevant as the fact that as groups they will differ in markedly important ways. This understanding of difference as a natural occurrence leads to a stance of toleration that is absent from a Western view. Western views tend to be based on absolute and universal truths that disallow the existence, or “correctness,” of those who do not conform to the “truth” (in this case, of what it is to be human) as defined by Western thinkers.
Human beings are a part of a whole that is greater than the individual. A human is not something apart from the Earth and the rest of its creations, including rocks, trees, water, and air; he is a natural part of the Earth.
A human is first and foremost a “herd being.” He is such even more so than other beings by virtue of the bonding “mechanism” of a common language that allows for shared traditions, rituals, and histories. No other life forms have an equally strong bonding mechanism. The individual has value because of his uniqueness (there has not been nor will there be again another just like him or her) and because of the potential gifts he brings to the group. But the group is preeminent. The sense of “we” dominates the sense of the “I.”
Human beings are not alone in having “intelligence”—all life forms are understood to have intelligence in one form or another. However, humans differ from other life forms in that they have a greater capacity for memory. This larger memory capacity allows humans to understand the consequences of their actions. Wisdom, or intelligence, consists of being able to see how our actions and their consequences affect the greater whole, not just the group but also the world around them.
Human beings, unlike, say, bears, have the capacity to change their behavior. They do not, in other words, act only from instinct.
Humans are not “fallen” creatures; they are what the Earth intended. Most of all, they “fit” in this world because they are products of it. A sense of alienation from the world and its many beings would not, in this context, be seen as the common malady of individuals but as a psychotic disruption, an illness.
Humans are not superior to other life forms. They are simply different. This difference is natural in a world that displays a vast variety of diverse life forms. Humans are one among many others, and all are “equal” in the sense that they all depend on some very specific conditions of the planet Earth in order to survive. All of the diversity, together, forms a complete whole that is what the Earth is.
Humans are not “meaningless bits of cosmic dust floating about in an infinite universe.” They are an integral part of the whole. However, just as the butterfly may be unaware of what role it plays in the general scheme of things, humans also may be unaware of their role in the world.
Humans are born “humanoid,” that is, with the capacity to become “fully human” through the exercise of all of their faculties. This includes not only “intelligence” but also the emotional component of being human: for example, guilt, which calls us to rectify what is wrong, and sympathy and empathy, which call us to be aware of the other as someone like one’s self.
An infant is seen as becoming “human” when he or she demonstrates the fact that he is aware that his actions have consequences on others and on the world. Becoming a human is a responsibility of the group that teaches the new being what it is to be human in this group of beings.
He is taught to be human by showing him that he is one human among others. Because he shares the world with other beings, there is an emphasis on cooperation rather than competition; sharing rather than accumulating.
Humans, as part of a greater whole, become part of an ever-changing and ongoing process that is the Universe in process of being. We have the capacity to change the course of that whole—for good or evil—through our actions.
When Aristotle commented that “a man alone is either a god or a beast,” he intended to point to the fact that a human, unlike “a god or a beast,” is a social animal. Humans, by definition, in the Greek mind, could be likened to “ants” and “bees”—other species that exhibited a “social” nature. The contemporary West, on the other hand, sees such an analogy as an insult. The mention of ants and bees calls up visions of a mindless mass swarming through mere instinct, waiting to be led to whatever fate awaits them. There is granted the awareness of a human social factor, but it is explained as a factor that is artificially forced on an essentially independent, autonomous, singular individual.
[In the West,] the individual is defined as having some inherent quality that guarantees that he is not naturally a social being. He is something separate from the group and what he is must be guarded from the group’s intrusion. The group is always, in this view, an intrusion. Group values are an imposition on the individual. The individual has a “true self” that he must guard against the demands of the group. His membership in a group, and there is always such, is seen as a necessary imposition. It is necessary in order to guarantee the survival of the individual.
The fact that humans always exist in a social setting is not an argument, in the West, for a natural bent to be a flock or herd animal. Existence in a group merely extends the metaphor of “survival of the fittest”: groups exist in a state of competition for scarce resources with other groups. How much of this is drawn from actual observation and how much from justification for how Western man does indeed operate?
The argument for competition, for the “winner take all” atmosphere, would seem to imply an evolutionary process that strives for a lack of diversity. In fact, however, we have proof all around us that diversity is the hallmark of nature.
The attempt to depict a state of affairs in the world that leads to one massive “monoculture” would seem to be unrealistic in the face of the diversity displayed on the planet.
An individual, set apart from his group, can be more easily manipulated by others. He has no value except “self-interest.” The former stake of working for the survival of the group as a necessary condition for the survival of the individual as a specific type of individual is eradicated.
The autonomous being is seen as a higher state of being. But such beings seem to spend an inordinate amount of their lifetimes trying to find out “who they really are.”
A sense of oneself as a part of a greater whole does not lead to a loss of a sense of self. There is no such thing as a “herd mentality”; instead, there is a greater sense of oneself as a responsible human being.
The consequences of an individual’s actions carry much more weight in small groups. One is never anonymous. One can never claim ‘rights’ that demand that others exercise responsibility. I must be responsible—for myself and to others.
To imagine that the individual is “self-made” or that he comes into the world with a ready-made identity requires a denial that the individual is modeled by the group.
Take any infant, from whatever cultural group, raise him in another group, and he will grow up with an identity totally unlike that of his siblings left in his original group. Human beings appear to be highly malleable. Long before the question over personal identity arises, the individual has already been “imprinted” with a very definite identity. He can also be taught (or “imprinted”) with the idea that he has no group identity. This latter course seems to be the method of child-raising most employed in the West.
What is it that constitutes the group identity, or the sense of oneself as being a part of a greater whole? An infant receives a set of values, a set of approved behaviors, a language, perhaps a religion, and certainly a worldview. He comes to share this set of characteristics with his group. A sense of sharing such characteristics with others allows for a sense of self as a part of a greater whole. Believing that one’s values are “self-made” is an act of delusion.
I often encounter college students who claim to have “their own values,” “their own worldview.” No, I say to them, you do not. The person with his very own worldview is what we call a madman—a “crazy” person. That is the usual definition of madness in any culture—someone who does not share the worldview of his peers is seen as “insane.” “Sanity” is measured by one’s ability to communicate with others; an ability to communicate assumes some shared notions.
There are no self-made persons. There are only those who cannot (or refuse to) acknowledge their debts.
The concept of a singularity, such as the term ‘mankind’ signifies, is a pernicious concept. It flies in the face of the actuality that human beings do exhibit different means of adapting to the diverse circumstances offered by the planet.
The Earth exhibits tremendous diversity, not only in environmental circumstances, but in the plethora of creatures and vegetation that occupy these environmental niches.
“Monoculture,” in agriculture and in forestry, has been found to lead to a less healthy environment. Monoculture in the ranks of human beings has yet to be viewed as equally harmful.
We do not acknowledge that the price of “progress” is the misery of other peoples—that the hunger of others is the price paid for the West’s access to the world’s foodstuffs and the world’s ores.
Europeans fail to see the diversity of which the human species is capable. How many different ways can humans understand and adapt to the world as they find it?
What it is to be human in both the Christian and Western secular views is that humans are seen as existing in a state of competition with one another, even within the group of which they are members. Human membership in a group is not understood as a natural state; there can, therefore, be no “natural” explanation for ethical behavior between human beings. Moreover, since a human being, in the Western/Christian context, is defined as separate from “the world,” there is no need to include the Earth in one’s ethical calculations.
Human beings have an instinct that draws them to others. It is this instinct that provides the basis for cooperative behavior. Cooperative behavior is “right” or “normal” behavior. Persons act ethically because they want to maintain their membership in the group. In order to maintain membership in a group, the survival of the group is as important as is the survival of the individual, perhaps more so. The individual is dependent on the group for his survival, and the group is dependent on its individuals for its survival.
What would a culture be like if it had a conceptual framework different from that of the Western tradition? What if there existed a culture that described the planet as a whole, living organism, itself teeming with numerous life forms, rather than as an inanimate object that exists merely as raw material for human use? Would such a perspective entail from that culture a different set of actions? If humans were to see themselves as part of a natural and ongoing process along with plants, rocks, animals, stars, would this view influence their actions? Would there be different expectations of themselves and their fellows? Of their ethics?
Imagine a universe with no beginning—absolutely infinite. Imagine this also as a living thing that exhibits its life as motion. The motion displays diversity. Motions encountering motions create new motions. You might call these motions “things.” I would call them “events,” “happenings.” There is no dichotomy of matter and energy—but rather one “event” manifesting itself as something temporarily distinct from its surroundings. Within this distinct event are other events, multiple “evolutions,” if you like. The “evolutions” are necessary events given the circumstances in which they come into existence.
No Native American is a thing separate from his or her surroundings. The universe operates in an orderly fashion; things have their rightful places. If there is change, it is to be expected. The universe is not a still and static place, but rather tends to recreate its own harmonious order.
Human beings are not meaningless things in this universe. Their every act affects the universe.
Human beings, in this conception, live in a good universe—in a fertile and generous world that is, as is the human, exactly what it is meant to be. Humans sustain their being by acting in a manner that is balanced with the rest of the environment. They exist best in harmony with the land. Their ethical principles are drawn from the universe at large: balance, harmony, beauty, rightness.
The image of the Native American that is prevalent in the United States is a product of someone other than the Native American. The Native American’s own image was one that allowed him not only to survive but thrive on this continent for thousands of years. When Europeans first arrived on these shores they described a paradise. Five hundred years later the land suffers almost three hundred million people. The air, even on the mountaintops, is dirty, and you can no longer safely drink the water in even the most isolated of streams.
The American aboriginal peoples have no such thing as an environmental ethic; the environment is not something separate from themselves. The Earth, being their producer and sustainer, their Mother, is a part of a greater whole to which the Native American must extend a sense of responsibility.
It is unrealistic to expect that residents of the United States will give up their time-honored view of themselves as superior beings trapped in mundane bodies in a “hostile” environment. Or that the view of themselves as being the product of very specific circumstances in a very specific environment might prevail. The people remain, after five hundred years, sojourners, ghostly beings residing in decadent “bodies,” on inanimate and alien ground.