Category Archives: Indigenous Religion and Philosophy

The Origin of Agriculture: An Ojibwa Story

Indigenous People before Contact, Indigenous Religion and Philosophy, New Attitude to Nature

 

This is an Ojibwa story about the origin of agriculture among a people of great hunters. A young man or boy was taken out by his grandfather to a Vison Quest.  A vision pit was dug for him and he had to stay there in the wilderness for 4 days and 4 nights without food.

His grandfather and grandmother prayed for him, but before he went in he had to undergo rites of purification in the sweat lodge. It was hoped his dream would have healing in it or medicine. But this boy had no dreams so when he was done a Sky Being came down to visit him in tassels and plumes and they wrestled all day.

Even though the boy was weak from lack of food and water, under neath him there was tremendous earth strength. When he wrestled the Sky Being it was like the earth and the sky were wrestling together.

This happened for 3 days and they wrestled each day. The Sky Being had weakened from the exercise and was about to die and asked to be buried and asked the boy and his father to tend to his grave and keep it clear of weeds. As a result, there grew corn in the grave and it looked like in tassels and plumes. This is how corn became so important to Ojibwa people. In some sense at least it is how they moved from the Hunter Gatherer stage to the stage of agriculture. In the story the corn is born out of a person. It is not from a person like ourselves but it is a person from the sky.  In this way, “agriculture is born out of a wrestling of heaven and earth.”  That is a fabulous story.

 According to Professor Moriarty, in Ancient Greece, the corn was also a person. In fact this is the Mediterranean tradition. Moriarty explained that

“In Greece the corn was a divinity and the earth was Gaia another divinity. In the Old Testament God is totally transcendent. Sometimes that is unfortunate because it means that all value is now in the super celestial world. All value is divine value and it’s in super celestial world. And that means that the earth is basically just raw material and we can only   look at it with an economic eye. But in this vision of it, the earth it itself a goddess. And the corn is a goddess. If the corn is a goddess than I am going to treat it sacredly. I am going to respond sacredly to it. When I take my sickle to the garden, I know that I am cutting down the goddess. When I broadcast the seed I know that it will grow into the goddess. But we have totally de-personalized corn. It has just become another economic proposition—economic material for us. And that is a pity.”

 

Now from the European perspective  that is a new attitude to nature.

A Sacred Inuit Story

Indigenous Religion and Philosophy, New Attitude to Nature

 

Professor Moriarty told a sacred Inuit Story. He said he could only do that if he did so with great reverence, for if you do that you can remove “a Berlin wall of misunderstandings between peoples.” Takana Kapsalut[1]  was the name of an Inuit woman. Her father was angry with her for not having a mate and threw her out of the kayak. When she tried to hang on he chopped off her fingers which then floated on the surfaced of the ocean as she sunk to the bottom.

 

This was the creative dream time of the beginning. Her fingers became mammals of the sea. She is the mother of sea beasts. When people on the earth don’t walk in the great imagination or don’t walk beautifully on the earth, when they sin, and when they do things against the Great Imagination a wall of anger grows around her on the ocean floor no seals will rise up at the breathing holes. As a result, people are hungry so they visit a Great Shaman who takes a journey to the ocean floor and he will go through various states of mind on his journey down for his state of mind will be equal to the state of mind of the earth.

 

The Shaman climbs a ladder up a cliff, but the rungs are turned like knives. He wants to go across the river but this is a trap for on the other side is an evil person, a witch. The wall of anger is meant to protect Takana Kapsalut and the shaman sings in the voice of whale, the voice of a wolf, and in all the voices of nature. That helps dissolve the wall of anger and makes the journey of the Shaman successful so the people can again go and hunt successfully and end the hunger of the people.

 

Takana Kapsalut is the mother of archetypes and she walks beautifully on the earth and rescues it. Takana Kapsalut is the mistress of life or the mother of life. But we in Europe, according to Moriarty have not walked in the great imagination. In the depths of our psyches “which is one with the universe anyway,” says Moriarty. Somewhere there is a mother of archetypes or a mother of great visons. Only someone who takes a great journey down the depths of his or her own psyche and sings there with a whale voice and dolphin voice understands that  “ the great life can emerge up again into us and again arise into the surface consciousness so that we will again be walking within the great Imagination and the great world.”

In the 20th century not many of us can do this. Instead, as Teilhard de Chardin said,

 

“we will walk in the “noise sphere”. We don’t hear the Great Imagination coming out of our televisions and our radios We are walking in our desert of Zin. No we are not blessed. Like the children of Israel our souls have dried away.

 

Moriarty said we need someone to go down to the bottom of the ocean to the floor of the psyche and sing there with the commonage voice with voices of nature and comb out Takana Kapsalut’s hair to comb out the sins of the people against grass, against elk, and all the creatures of the world against whom we have waged war. We need to comb out Cartesianism, comb out our Medusa mindset and comb out our economics. We need a entirely new attitude to nature. One that is foreign to European consciousness.

 

Then perhaps we can walk on the soil of Europe again the way our Paleolithic ancestors walked among the animals of the earth.  This is not walking among the animals to declare war on them. They walked among the animals in commonage consciousness. Then we can again walk on the earth in a great and sacred way.  This is what the Inuit story urges us to do.

 

[1] I am not sure how to spell the name

Commonage Consciousness: An ecologically better way of being on the earth

Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous People before Contact, Indigenous Religion and Philosophy, Indigenous--Indian Act, New Attitude to Nature

 

There were some ways in which Europeans had a completely different attitude to things than the Indigenous people of North America they encountered when they first had contact with each other.  For one thing, as I have been saying, they had a completely different attitude to nature.  Closely associated with that, was that they had a completely different attitude to property—at least real property (land and buildings). Europeans believed in private ownership of land. That idea was foreign to Indigenous people. Indigenous people believed in tribes or first nations having rights to land. Not individuals. That has had a profound impact.  The idea of private property is part of capitalist society. At least it has always has been so until they encountered the Indigenous people and recently, with the rise of capitalism in Communist countries or formerly communist countries such as China.

The Indigenous idea of property held in common was blessed by the Parliament of Canada when it enacted the Indian Act in the late 19th century as it tried to assert jurisdiction over First Nations in Canada. That notion is still part of the federal law in Canada since then, even though it has been criticized by some.

Professor John Moriarty though considers the issue from the perspective of a poet. As he said:

“It is time now in western Europe to reinstitute Commonage consciousness. We have to reinstate it in a way that would reinstitute a new sacrament. Unless we reinstitute commonage consciousness, then we are going to continue to inflict appalling damage to the earth. That is a story that could take us into an ecologically better way of being on the earth.”

 

When Moriarty went to the hills in Connemara  Ireland and saw no fences, he was awe struck. Moriarty noted how people thought it was a big deal to take down the Berlin wall between 2 European political systems, communism and capitalism. Was that really such a big deal? John Moriarty did not think that was a big deal.

 

However, Moriarty thought “it was hugely important to take down the wall between us and blades of grass, between us and trees, between us and the stars, between us and everything that is.” That is an entirely new attitude to nature, at least for non-Indigenous people.

 Talking about an Indigenous nation in North America, Moriarty said

 “the Blackfeet did not see the difference between them and the buffalo. They saw what was common between them and the buffalo. And what is common is grace. What separates us in a way is trivial but what we have in common is grace and immense.

 

Moriarty wants to take us back from our “us and them consciousness” to a commonage consciousness and then we will be walking the earth in a more beautiful way.”

 

 

Moriarty says the world will not reveal itself to a scientist who confronts it only as a scientist, or to a theologian. The world will reveal itself to a Saint Francis of Assisi who will walk out naked into the world and says “Brother sun and sister moon.” Some Christians had a similar point of view.

We must recognize that we are all kin with all creatures on the earth. As he said, “What else is this Blackfoot Indian story but an amplification of the story of Saint Francis of Assisi?”

We must learn that the sun is our brother. The moon is our sister. The fire is our kin. We must consider what we have in common. Consciousness is common. Moriarty liked the idea of the English novelist and writer D. H. Lawrence who said we should “take a great arc back into the past and come forward.”

As Moriarty said, “It is only to someone who walks beautifully on the earth that the earth will reveal itself.”

 

Inuit: The Eucharist—eating God

Indigenous Religion and Philosophy, New Attitude to Nature

In my day in University, starting in 1967, most European or Canadian professors assumed we had nothing to learn from Indigenous people. I did not realize it at the time, but Professor Moriarty was different. He was an Irishman teaching English literature. Somewhere somehow he learned better. He learned we could learn a lot from indigenous people. it took me many years to learn better as well.

Professor John Moriarty tells a story about Inuit [though he calls them Eskimos as they were once referred to]. They stand at a breathing hole in the ice waiting for a seal to arise. Once they saw the water rippling, they knew there was a seal and they would launch their harpoon.

 

When the seal was captured and killed they would cut out the liver and eat it “Eucharistically.”  It was a religious ceremony to eat that seal’s liver together. Each hunter took a part. The indigenous people believe that the animal had offered itself up to the hunters. An animal that did not want to be caught would not be caught. While eating the liver raw they would talk to the spirit of the seal and thank it for offering itself as food to the hunters. They believed that after that the animal would take upon a new body. What a beautiful way to relate to prey. Is this pure fancy? Indigenous people believe it. Are they wrong?

The eucharist meant that God was being eaten.  Is this barbaric? Or is it sublime? In the Christian tradition you can only sin against God or man. You cannot sin against a blade of grass. You cannot sin against a cow about to be slaughtered. That is barbarism. That is a barbaric attitude to nature. That is why we need a new attitude to nature.

Christians should admit, says Moriarty, that

“you can sin against a blade of grass. You can sin against the Aids Virus. To look at a tree and see only cubic feet of timber that is to sin against the tree. When you see anything as smaller than it is, you are sinning against it. When you see something only with an economic eye you are sinning against it.”

 

This brought Moriarty back to the buffalo dance or buffalo song. The Blackfoot say that death is not final. You can go back and the spirit is left intact. The. Spirit is not wounded by the spear [that wounded the buffalo]. It can take on a new body of its choosing.

So too the buffalo did not damage the land.  The land learned to live with the millions of hoofprints and poop. You could say the land was blessed. And so are we.

Indigenous Stories: The Song of the Universe

Indigenous Religion and Philosophy, New Attitude to Nature

 

Moriarty started with a Navajo story that told about the 2nd or 3rd day of the world. He called it the Great Creative Beginning. It is the story of the first man and first woman.

Moriarty told the story of the Buffalo Dance and the Buffalo song of the Blackfoot people of North America. It was the story of a buffalo and a beautiful young Blackfoot girl coming together and separating again. The Buffalo danced without damaging the grass. It seemed that the mountains were dancing with them as were the constellations dancing with them.  They actually did that. Hundreds of thousands of bison (not really buffalo) would converge on the land the hooves cut the soil and the excrement fertilized it and the land was reborn. Moriarty said this dance was this was the song of the universe. It was the song of which the earth and the stars are manifestations.

This story came to Moriarty in Connemara Ireland where all the land was in commonage. All the farmers sent their cattle to that land. All used it together in common.  As Professor Moriarty said about this Buffalo story,

“Unlike the Christian creation story where you feel a Berlin Wall between each day of creation, what this story speaks to me of is commonage consciousness. That there is one consciousness, one universal consciousness and it is there in buffalo, it is there in rocks, it is there in trees and there really are no fences between us.”

Moriarty says this story though it came from Indigenous people of North America, it  could have been told anywhere. It was told in Europe and then went to Eurasia where it went to Asia and then it went down across the Bering Straits and ended up in Blackfoot territory and it could be our creation story. This story has survived in this old consciousness and the only way to save the world and make something new as D. H. Lawrence said is to go back into that consciousness. These old levels of consciousness are still alive in us.  As Moriarty said,

“It is only in commonage consciousness that the earth can be saved. We have to take down the fences between us and animals. We have to take down the fences between us and stars. We have to acknowledge the oneness of consciousness that is in the universe.”

 

These are beautiful thoughts and they show how indigenous learning can teach us to walk beautifully in the world, which, of course, was Moriarty’s goal. He wanted to help us do that. I think he succeeded. Brilliantly. With the help of indigenous people.

Becoming Aboriginal

Bog Guy, Indigenous Religion and Philosophy, Ireland, New Attitude to Nature

 

What surprised me most when I listened to Professor John Moriarty decades after he left the University of Manitoba was that he  had engaged some of the same thoughts as I did.  Specifically, he like I, had encountered Indigenous thought and spirituality, something frankly in 1967 this  was not something I ever considered. What could we possibly learn from indigenous people I thought. I never heard anything of my professors suggest otherwise either.  We all missed out on a lot in other words. Thankfully, for Professor Moriarty and I we both encountered indigenous thought later. We smartened up.

Like D.H. Lawrence, Moriarty says he has learned a lot about coming down to earth from Native Americans.  Lawrence had challenged himself to “follow the trail of vanished Native Americans at the foot of the crucifix and take upon the primordial Indian obstinacy.”  Lawrence wanted to make a new day with them. Lawrence did that in Taos New Mexico.  Even though he had lots of fine contact with Native North Americans he eventually realized he was just another Pale Face.  This is what Lawrence wrote:

 

“I was born of no virgin of no Holy Ghost. I know these old men telling the tribal tales were my fathers. I have a dark-faced, bronze-voiced, father far back in the resinous ages, but he like many old fathers with a changeling son, he would like to deny me, but I stand on the edge of their finite now, and they neither deny nor accept me. My way is my own of Great Father. I can’t cluster at the drum anymore.”

 

Moriarty says that like Lawrence he can’t deny he is a pale face and can’t cluster at the drum any more but he said when he came back to Connemara Ireland from Canada he couldn’t use Aristotle or Plato or other European thinkers to help him on that journey because he found Connemara to be cold and savage and the only way he could do that was to become aboriginal.

Now I must interject that I have been to Connemara and did not find it cold and savage, but admittedly I was there in summer. There was nothing cold and savage about it. One thing Moriarty learned from Canada was to face into the blizzard. That is what the buffalo do. They don’t run from the blizzard: they face it. They have the hairy face to do it too.

Moriarty said one day he was travelling among one the bogs of Connemara and he was in distress. So he fell down and asked the bog to heal him. He wanted the bog to suck out his “expensive European education”. It was not helping him there he thought. He realized his European head hurt the earth. His European head was doing damage to the earth. He did not want to continue like that. All of this also astonished me. After all I consider myself a bog guy. I don’t think I have blogged about that yet, but intend to. As well, I believe that the attitude to nature of Europeans and their descendants has been harmful to the earth, and we can learn a lot from indigenous people about learning a new attitude to nature.  I also believe bogs can do a lot to improve that.

Like me, Professor Moriarty wanted to start again in the bog. Shakespeare, whom he loved, as do I,  would not take him up but he found some old Native North American stories that helped him to get up again. He says some of those stories he learned from Indigenous people in Canada who took him back to the earth. He wanted to tell some of those stories. Some of those stories have helped me as well.

I will blog about them next.

Chief Seattle: An Old Attitude to nature can provide a New Attitude to Nature

Affinity, expansive religion, Indigenous Religion and Philosophy, New Attitude to Nature, Philosophy/Ideas, religion

 

A few years ago, in New Zealand I purchased a poster containing the complete text of the response by Chief Seattle to the President of United States to his offer to purchase land from his tribe, which I posted about yesterday.  I had only read part of it before.  It was one of the most eloquent statements I have ever heard about a genuine approach to nature that was, to some extent, the position of  many North American indigenous people.  It was radically different from the approach of the arriving Europeans.

I recognize that there is controversy over the extent to which this version or any other version accurately records what Chief Seattle said to the President, but I believe the general tenor of the letter records a profound philosophy which I am content to ascribe to Chief Seattle as I don’t know who better deserves the credit for it. I certainly think the thoughts deserve our attention.

The renowned English philosopher A. N. Whitehead once said, “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” I think the same things can be said about Chief Seattle. At least as far as environmental philosophy goes. And to think I learned absolutely nothing of it in 4 years of university studying philosophy, proving how deficient my education was at that time, nearly 50 years ago.

Chief Seattle was a Suquamish and Duwamish chief in what we now call western North America. The city of Seattle, in the U.S. state of Washington, was named after him.

As Chief Seattle said,

 

“We are part of the earth and it is part of us.

The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers.

The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man—all belong to the same family.”

 

Another way of saying is to say we are all kin. All people and all creatures of the natural world are kin. This basic premise has profound philosophical consequences. For if we recognize that we are all kin we ought to treat each other, and other creatures too, with respect.  I will get to Darwin later, for he gave the scientific basis for this view. I cherish the idea that indigenous philosophy and western science are deeply interwoven. Realizing that also has profound consequences.

To many of the First Nations of North America, they saw themselves as a part of their world.  Their philosophies vary from tribe to tribe, but a common thread, is the recognition that the Earth is our Mother and we are all together. We are all connected. We are all part of Mother Earth. Earth is not separate and apart from us. We are woven together.  This is profound fellow feeling. This philosophy recognizes that what we do to nature we do to ourselves. That is what I call affinity.

 

This idea also has profound significance in the history of religious thought.  The Indo-European word “religio” , which is the root of the word religion, means “linkage” or “connection” and is in my view the basis of all major religions. In fact, it is the core of all religions. More on this later.

I never learned any indigenous philosophy while I pursued a 4 year Honours Arts program in philosophy and English literature. I never even heard of indigenous philosophy. I did not even think such a thing was possible.

This philosophy echoes or even sums up much of what I have learned over the years, starting with German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s concept of being-in-the-world.  Only Chief Seattle was much more clear and easier to understand, without being any less profound than Martin Heidegger.  The natives of North America often felt a deep connection to the land.  They felt that they were a part of it.  To the Europeans on the other hand, nature was a resource ready to be exploited.  And from these two disparate attitudes springs much that is wrong with western society.

This is an old attitude to nature, which I am proposing as a new attitude to nature. It owuld be a worthy replacement for the old western attitude,.

Chief Seattle’s statement is a stunning statement about humans and nature, and all the more amazing because a “savage” (as he was wrongly called made it in 1854. Who was the savage?

 

Chief Seattle

Fellow Feeing, Indigenous Religion and Philosophy, New Attitude to Nature

 

Let me say at the outset that I am a white guy so what you read here is my interpretation of indigenous philosophy. Everyone should talk to indigenous people or read their own works to get the perspective of indigenous people about indigenous philosophy.  I think their philosophy is important and worth everyone’s attention. That is why I am giving my interpretation, but it is not intended to displace indigenous perspectives about their own philosophy.

I will start with a famous work of indigenous philosophy often attributed to Chief Seattle a famous indigenous chief. The I will give my views on it.

The Earth is Precious

 

How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land?  The idea is strange to us.

If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

 

All Sacred

 

Every part of this earth is sacred to my people.

Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people.  The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man.

The white man’s dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars.  Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red man.

We are part of the earth and it is part of us.

The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers.

The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man—all belong to the same family.

 

Not easy

 

So when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us.  The Great Chief sends word he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves.

He will be our father and we will be his children.  So we will consider your offer to buy our land.

But it will not be easy.  For this land is sacred to us.

This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors.

If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people.

The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father.

 

Kindness

 

The rivers are our brothers; they quench our thirst.  The rivers carry our canoes, and feed our children.  If we sell you our land, you must remember, and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers, and yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.

We know that the white man does not understand our ways.  One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs.

The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on.

He leaves his father’s graves behind, and he does not care.  He kidnaps the earth from his children, and he does not care.

His father’s grave, and his children’s birthright, are forgotten.  He treats his mother, the earth, and this brother, the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold, like sheep or bright beads.

His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a dessert.

I do not know. Our ways are different from your ways.

The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man.  But perhaps it is because the red man is a savage and does not understand.

There is no quiet place in the white man’s cities.  No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring, or the rustle of an insect’s wings.

But perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not understand.

The clatter only seems to insult the ears.  And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around a pond at night?  I am a red man and do not understand.

The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond, and the smell of the wind itself, cleaned by a midday rain, or scented with the pinon pine.

 

Precious

 

The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the breath—the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath.

The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes.  Like a many dying for many days, he is numb to the stench.

But if we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares it spirit with all the life it supports.  The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh.

And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where even the white man can to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow’s flowers.

 

One condition

 

So we will consider your offer to buy our land.  If we decide to accept, I will make one condition:  the white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers.

I am a savage and I do not understand any other way.

I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train.

I am a savage and do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive.

Why is man without beasts?  If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of the spirit.

         For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man.  All things are connected.

 

The Ashes

 

You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers.  So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin.

Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother.

Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth.  If men spit upon the ground they spit upon themselves.

This is we know:  The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth.  This we know.

All things are connected like the blood which unites one family.  All things are connected.

Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of he earth.  Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it.  Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny.

We may be brothers after all.

We shall see.

One thing we know, which one the white man may one day discover—our God is the same God.

You may think now that you own Him as you wish to own our land; but you cannot.  He is the God of man, and His compassion is equal for the red man and the white.

This earth is precious to Him, and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its Creator.

The whites too shall pass: perhaps sooner than all other tribes.  Contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.

But in your perishing you will shine brightly, fired by the strength of the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave you dominion over this land and over the red man.

That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are 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.

The end of living and the beginning of survival.

 

 

I have been blogging about a new attitude to nature.  The ancient attitude of indigenous people as exemplified by Chief Seattle in my mind sums up that new attitude to nature.