Book - The wisdom of Native Americans
- The ways of the land
- The ways of learning
- The ways of living
- The ways of leading others
- The ways of believing
- The betrayal of the land
- The ways of dying
- The passing of the ways
- The ways of the white man
- The ways of civilization
- Heed these words
- The ways of the spirit
- The ways of the people
- The coming of the white ways
The ways of the land
“All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth.” - Chief Seattle, Suqwamish and Duwamish
For the Lakota [one of the three branches of the Sioux nation], mountains, lakes, rivers, springs, valleys, and woods were all finished beauty. Winds, rain, snow, sunshine, day, night, and change of seasons were end- lessly fascinating. Birds, insects, and animals filled the world with knowledge that defied the comprehension of man.
The Lakota was a true naturalist - a lover of Nature. He loved the earth and all things of the earth, and the attachment grew with with age. The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power.
It was good for the skin to touch the earth, and the old people liked to remove their moccasins and walk with bare feet on the sacred earth.
Their tipis were built upon the earth and their altars were made of earth. The birds that flew in the air came to rest upon the earth, and it was the final abiding place of all things that lived and grew. The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing, and healing.
This is why the old Indian still sits upon the earth instead of propping himself up and away from its life-giving forces. For him, to sit or lie upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply and to feel more keenly; he can see more clearly into the mysteries of life and come closer in kinship to other lives about him.
- Chief Luther Standing Bear, Teton Sioux
The ways of learning
Knowledge was inherent in all things. The world was a library and its books were the stones, leaves, grass, brooks, and the birds and animals that shared, alike with us, the storms and blessings of earth. We learned to do what only the student of nature ever learns, and that was to feel beauty. We never railed at the storms, the furious winds, and the biting frosts and snows. To do so intensified human futility, so whatever came, we adjusted ourselves, by more effort and energy if necessary, but without complaint.
- Chief Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux
No people have better use of their five senses than the children of the wilderness. We could smell as well as hear and see. We could feel and taste as well as we could see and hear.
The ways of living
When you begin a great work you can’t expect to finish it all at once; therefore do you and your brothers press on, and let nothing discourage you till you have entirely finished what you have begun.
Now, Brother, as for me, me, I assure you I will press on, and the contrary winds may blow strong in my face, yet I will go forward and never turn back, and continue to press forward until I have finished, and I would have you do the same…
Though you may hear birds singing on this side and that side, you must not take notice of that, but hear me when I speak to you, and take it to heart, for you may always depend that what I say shall be true.
- Teedyuscung, Delaware
The ways of leading others
With endless patience you shall carry out your duty, and your firmness shall be tempered with tenderness for your people. Neither anger nor fury shall lodge in your mind, and all your words and actions shall be marked with calm deliberation.
The ways of believing
From Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, there came a great unifying life force that flowed in and through all things - the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals - and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man. Thus all things were kindred, and were brought together by the same Great Mystery.
Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky, and water was a real and active principle.
The betrayal of the land
But, because for the Lakota there was no wilderness, because nature was not dangerous but hospitable, not forbidding but friendly, Lakota philosophy was healthy - free from fear and dogmatism. And here I find the great distinction between the faith of the Indian and the white man. Indian faith sought the harmony of man with his surroundings; the other sought the dominance of surroundings.
In sharing, in loving all and everything, one people naturally found a due portion of the thing they sought, while, in fearing, the other found need of conquest.
For one man the world was full of beauty; for the other it was a place of sin and ugliness to be endured until he went to another world, there to become a creature of wings, half-man and half-bird.
Forever one man directed his Mystery to change the world He had made; forever this man pleaded with Him to chastise his wicked ones; and forever he implored his God to send His light to earth. Small wonder this man could not understand the other.
But the old Lakota was wise. He knew that man’s heart, away from nature, becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans, too. So he kept his children close to nature’s softening influence.
- Chief Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux
Like the wildwood birds, our fathers used to hold their breath to hear, they sing in concert, without pride, without envy, without jealousy - alike in forest and field, alike before wigwam or castle, alike before savage or sage, alike for chief or king.
- Simon Pokagon, Potawatomi Chief
The ways of dying
“Death will come, always out of season.” - Big Elk, Omaha Chief
I was born upon the prairie where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures and where everything drew a free breath.
I want to die there, and not within walls.
- Ten Bears, Yamparika Comanche
Do not grieve. Misfortunes will happen to the wisest and best of men. Death will come, always out of season. It is the command of the Great Spirit, and all nations and people must obey. What is past and what cannot be prevented should not be grieved for. Misfortunes do not flourish particularly in our lives they grow everywhere.
-Big Elk, Omaha Chief
The passing of the ways
I remember the old men of my village. These old, old men used to prophesy about the coming of the white man. They would go about tapping their canes on the adobe floor of the house, and call to us children.
“Listen! Listen! The gray-eyed people are coming nearer and nearer. They are building an iron road. They are coming nearer every day. There will be a time when you will mix with these people. That is when the Gray Eyes are going to get you to drink hot, black water, which you will drink whenever you eat. Then your teeth will become soft.
They will get you to smoke at a young age, so that your eyes will run tears on windy days, and your eyesight will be poor. Your joints will crack when you want to move slowly and softly.
You will sleep on soft beds and will not like to rise early. When you begin to wear heavy clothes and sleep under heavy covers, then you will grow lazy. Then there will be no more singing heard in the valleys as you walk.
When you begin to eat with iron sticks, your tones will grow louder. You will speak louder and talk over your parents. You will grow disobedient. You will mix with those gray-eyed people, and you will learn their ways; you will break up your homes, and murder and steal.”
Such things have come true, and I have to compare my generation with the old generation. We are not as good as they were; we are not as healthy as they were.
How did these old men know what was coming? That is what I would like to know.
- James Paytiamo, Acoma Pueblo
The ways of the white man
I have attended dinners among white people. Their ways are not our ways.
We eat in silence, quietly smoke a pipe, and depart. Thus is our host honored.
This is not the way of the white man. After his food has been eaten, one is expected to say foolish things. Then the host feels honored.
- Four Guns, Oglala Sioux
The ways of civilization
Civilization has been thrust upon me… and it has not added one whit to my love for truth, honesty, and generosity… - Chief Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux
The attempted transformation of the Indian by the white man and the chaos that has resulted are but the fruits of the white man’s disobedience of a fundamental and spiritual law.
“Civilization” has been thrust upon me since the days of the reservations, and it has not added one whit to my sense of justice, to my reverence for the rights of life, to my love for truth, honesty, and generosity, or to my faith in Wakan Tanka, God of the Lakotas.
- Chief Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux
Heed these words
“Continue to contaminate your own bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.” - Chief Seattle, Suqwamish and Duwamish
Continue to contaminate your own bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.
When the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses all tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires, where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone.
And what is to say farewell to the swift and the hunt, to the end of living and the beginning of survival?
The path to glory is rough, and many gloomy hours obscure it. - Black Hawk, Sauk
The ways of the spirit
The great mystery
The attitude of the American Indian toward the Eternal, the Great Mystery that surrounds and embraces us, is as simple as it is exalted. To us it is the supreme conception, bringing with it the fullest measure of joy and satisfaction possible in this life.
The worship of the Great Mystery is silent, solitary, free from all self-seeking.
It is silent, because all speech is of necessity feeble and imperfect; therefore the souls of our ancestors ascended to God in wordless adoration.
It is solitary, because we believe that God is nearer to us in solitude, and there are no priests authorized to come between us and our Maker. None can exhort or confess or in any way meddle with the religious experience of another. All of us are created children of God, and all stand erect, conscious of our divinity. Our faith cannot be formulated in creeds, nor forced upon any who are unwilling to receive it; hence there is no preaching, proselytizing, nor persecution, neither are there any scoffers or atheists.
Our religion is an attitude of mind, not a dogma.
The temple of nature
There are no temples or shrines among us save those of nature. Being children of nature, we are intensely poetical. We would deem it sacrilege to build a house for The One who may be met face to face in the mysterious, shadowy aisles of the primeval forest, or on the sunlit bosom of virgin prairies, upon dizzy spires and pinnacles of naked rock, and in the vast jeweled vault of the night sky! A God who is enrobed in filmy veils of cloud, there on the rim of the visible world where our Great-Grandfather Sun kindles his evening camp-fire; who rides upon the rigorous wind of the north, or breathes forth spirit upon fragrant southern airs, whose war canoe is launched upon majestic rivers and inland seas - such a God needs no lesser cathedral.
The power of silence
We first Americans mingle with our pride an exceptional humility. Spiritual arrogance is foreign to our nature and teaching. We never claimed that the power of articulate speech is proof of superiority over “dumb creation”; on the other hand, it is to us a perilous gift.
We believe profoundly in silence - the sign of a perfect equilibrium. Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind, and spirit. Those who can preserve their selfhood ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence - not a leaf, as it were, astir on the tree; not a ripple upon the shining pool - those, in the mind of the person of nature, possess the ideal attitude and conduct of life.
If you ask us, “What is silence?” we will answer, “It is the Great Mystery. The holy silence is God’s voice.”
If you ask, “What are the fruits of silence?” we will answer, “They are self-control, true courage or endurance, patience, dignity, and reverence. Silence is the cornerstone of character.”
“Guard your tongue in youth,” said the old chief, Wabasha, “and in age you may mature a thought that will be of service to your people.”
Poverty and Simplicity
To us, as to other spiritually-minded people in every age and race, the love of possessions is a snare, and the burdens of a complex society a source of needless peril and temptation.
It was clear to us that virtue and happiness are independent of these things, if not incompatible with them.
Furthermore, it was the rule of our life to share the fruits of our skill and success with our less fortunate brothers and sisters. Thus we kept our spirits free from the clog of pride, avarice, or envy, and carried out, as we believed, the divine decree - a matter profoundly important to us.
Nature and Solitude
All who have lived much out of doors, whether Indian or otherwise, know that there is a magnetic and powerful force that accumulates in solitude but is quickly dissipated by life in a crowd.
The importance of prayer
Prayer - the daily recognition of the Unseen and the Eternal - is our one inevitable duty.
We Indian people have traditionally divided mind into two parts — the spiritual mind and the physical mind. The first - the spiritual mind - is concerned only with the essence of things, and it is this we seek to strengthen by spiritual prayer, during which the body is subdued by fasting and hardship. In this type of prayer there is no beseeching of favor or help.
The second, or physical, mind, is lower. It is concerned with all personal or selfish matters, like success in hunting or warfare, relief from sickness, or the sparing of a beloved life. All ceremonies, charms, or incantations designed to secure a benefit or to avert a danger are recognized as emanating from the physical self.
The rites of this physical worship are wholly sym- bolic; we may have sundances and other ceremonies, but the Indian no more worships the sun than the Christian worships the cross. In our view, the Sun and the Earth are the parents of all organic life. And, it must be admitted, in this our thinking is scientific truth as well as poetic metaphor.
For the Sun, as the universal father, sparks the principle of growth in nature, and in the patient and fruitful womb of our mother, the Earth, are hidden embryos of plants and men. Therefore our reverence and love for the Sun and the Earth are really an imaginative extension of our love for our immediate parents, and with this feeling of filial devotion is joined a willingness to appeal to them for such good gifts as we may desire. This is the material or physical prayer.
But, in a broader sense, our whole life is prayer because every act of our life is, in a very real sense, a religious act. Our daily devotions are more important to us than food.
Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new sweet earth, and the Great Silence alone.
Whenever, in the course of our day, we might come upon a scene that is strikingly beautiful or sublime the black thundercloud with the rainbow’s glowing arch above the mountain; a white waterfall in the heart of a green gorge; a vast prairie tinged with the blood-red of sunset - we pause for an instant in the attitude of worship.
We recognize the spirit in all creation, and believe that we draw spiritual power from it. Our respect for the immortal part of our brothers and sisters, the animals, often leads us so far as to lay out the body of any game we catch and decorate the head with symbolic paint or feathers. We then stand before it in an attitude of prayer, holding up the pipe that contains our sacred tobacco, as a gesture that we have freed with honor the spirit of our brother or sister, whose body we were compelled to take to sustain our own life.
We see no need for the setting apart one day in seven as a holy day, since to us all days belong to God.
The appreciation of beauty
In the appreciation of beauty, which is closely akin to religious feeling, the American Indian stands alone. In accord with our nature and beliefs, we do not pretend to imitate the inimitable, or to reproduce exactly the work of the Great Artist. That which is beautiful must not be trafficked with, but must only be revered and adored.
I have seen in our midsummer celebrations cool arbors built of fresh-cut branches for council and dance halls, while those who attended decked themselves with leafy boughs, carrying shields and fans of the same, and even making wreaths for their horses’ necks. But, strange to say, they seldom make free use of flowers. I once asked the reason for this.
“Why,” said one, “the flowers are for our souls to enjoy; not for our bodies to wear. Leave them alone and they will live out their lives and reproduce themselves as the Great Gardener intended. He planted them; we must not pluck them, for it would be selfish to do so.”
This is the spirit of the original American. We hold nature to be the measure of consummate beauty, and we consider its destruction to be a sacrilege.
I once showed a party of Sioux chiefs the sights of Washington, and endeavored to impress them with the wonderful achievements of civilization. After visiting the Capitol and other famous buildings, we passed through the Corcoran Art Gallery, where I tried to explain how the white man valued this or that painting as a work of genius and a masterpiece of art.
“Ah!” exclaimed an old man, “such is the strange philosophy of the white man! He hews down the forest that has stood for centuries in its pride and grandeur, tears up the bosom of Mother Earth, and causes the silvery watercourses to waste and vanish away. He ruthlessly disfigures God’s own pictures and monuments, and then daubs a flat surface with many colors, and praises his work as a masterpiece!”
Here we have the root of the failure of the Indian to approach the “artistic” standard of the civilized world. It lies not in our lack of creative imagination - for in this quality we are born artists - it lies rather in our point of view. Beauty, in our eyes, is always fresh and living, even as God, the Great Mystery, dresses the world anew at each season of the year.
The miracle of the ordinary
Let us not forget that even for the most contemporary thinker, who sees a majesty and grandeur in natural law, science cannot explain everything. We all still have to face the ultimate miracle - the origin and principle of life. This is the supreme mystery that is the essence of worship and without which there can be no religion. In the presence of this mystery all peoples must take an attitude much like that of the Indian, who beholds with awe the Divine in all creation.
The ways of the people
We taught our children by both example and instruction, but with emphasis on example, because all learning is a dead language to one who gets it secondhand.
The beauty of generosity
It has always been our belief that the love of possessions is a weakness to be overcome. Its appeal is to the material part, and if allowed its way it will in time disturb the spiritual balance for which we all strive.
Therefore we must early learn the beauty of generosity. As children we are taught to give what we prize most, that we may taste the happiness of giving; at an early age we are made the family giver of alms.
The sacredness of honor
He sets no price upon either his property or his labor. His generosity is limited only by his strength.
Friendship
Among our people, friendship is held to be the severest test of character.
It is easy, we think, to be loyal to family and clan, whose blood is in our own veins. Love between man and woman is founded on the mating instinct, and is not free from desire and self-seeking. But to have a friend, and to be true under any and all trials, is the truest mark of a man!
Bravery and courage
In the minds of outsiders, our courage is ignorant, brutal, and fanatical. Our own conception of bravery makes of it a high moral virtue, for to us it consists not so much in aggressive self-assertion as in absolute self-control.
The brave man, we contend, yields neither to fear nor anger, desire nor agony. He is at all times master of himself; his courage rises to the heights of chivalry, patriotism, and real heroism.
“Let neither cold, hunger, nor pain, nor the fear of them, neither the bristling teeth of danger, nor the very jaws of death itself, prevent you from doing a good deed,” said an old chief to a scout who was about to seek the buffalo in midwinter for the relief of his starving people. This was our pure and simple conception of courage.
The coming of the white ways
The two great “civilizers,” after all, were whiskey and gunpowder, and from the hour we accepted these we had in reality sold our birthright, and all unconsciously consented to our own ruin.
Once we had departed from the broad democracy and pure idealism of our prime, and had undertaken to enter upon the world’s game of competition, our rudder was unshipped, our compass lost, and the whirlwind and tempest of materialism and love of conquest tossed us to and fro like leaves in a wind.
The hypocrisy of the christians among us
There was undoubtedly much in primitive Christianity to appeal to the Indians, and Jesus’ hard sayings to the rich and about the rich were entirely comprehensible to us. Yet the religion that we heard preached in churches and saw practiced by congregations, with its element of display and self-aggrandizement, its active proselytism, and its open contempt of all religions but its own, was for a long time extremely repellent.
To our mind, the professionalism of the pulpit, the paid exhorter, the moneyed church, was an unspiritual and unedifying thing, and it was not until our spirit was broken and our moral and physical constitution undermined by trade, conquest, and strong drink, that the Christian missionaries obtained any real hold upon us.
We found it shocking and almost incredible that among this race that claimed to be superior there were many who did not even pretend to profess the faith. Not only did they not profess it, but they stooped so low as to insult their God with profane and sacrilegious speech! In our own tongue the name of God was not spoken aloud, even with utmost reverence, much less lightly and irreverently.
More than this, even in those white men who professed religion we found much inconsistency of conduct. They spoke much of spiritual things, while seeking only the material. They bought and sold everything: time, labor, personal independence, the love of woman, and even the ministrations of their holy faith!
The higher and spiritual life, though first in theory, was clearly secondary, if not entirely neglected, in practice.
The true spirit of Jesus
This lust for money, power, and conquest did not escape moral condemnation at our hands, nor did we fail to contrast this conspicuous trait of the dominant race with the spirit of the meek and lowly Jesus.
The old warrior got up and said, “Why, we have followed this law you speak of for untold ages! We owned nothing, because everything is from the Creator. Food was free, land as free as sunshine and rain. Who has changed all this? The white man. And yet he says he is a believer in God! He does not seem to inherit any of the traits of his Father, nor does he follow the example set by his brother Christ.”
Another of the older men, called upon for his views, kept a long silence. Finally, he said, “I have come to the conclusion that this Jesus was an Indian. He was opposed to material acquisition and to great possessions. He was inclined to peace. He was as unpractical as any Indian and set no price upon his labor of love. These are not the principles upon which the white man has founded his civilization. It is strange that he could not rise to these simple principles which were so commonly observed among our people.”
Christian civilization
I confess I have wondered much that Christianity is not practiced by the very people who vouch for that wonderful conception of exemplary living. It appears that they are anxious to pass on their religion to all other races, but keep very little of it for themselves. I have not yet seen the meek inherit the earth, or the peacemakers receive high honor.
It is my personal belief, after thirty five years’ experience of it, that there is no such thing as “Christian civilization.” I believe that Christianity and modern civilization are opposed and irreconcilable, and that the spirit of Christianity and of our ancient religion is essentially the same.
The gift of my people
Indeed, our contribution to our nation and the world is not to be measured in the material realm. Our greatest contribution has been spiritual and philosophical. Silently, by example only, in wordless patience, we have held stoutly to our native vision of personal faithfulness to duty and devotion to a trust. We have not advertised our faithfulness nor made capital of our honor.