In Luther Standing Bear’s “Nature” and Louis Owens’s “The American Indian Wilderness”, the authors dictate differences in Indian and white relationships with nature. They stress how Indians see nature, their balanced relationship with it, and how they know wilderness is just a European idea. While agreeing here, Standing Bear focuses on the Lakota view of how Indians truly lived while Owens reveals both sides and thinks white views can shift with time. Standing Bear thinks the difference in how whites and Indians see nature stems from childhood. He believes Indian children are aware of nature and by seeing the world this way their love and respect for it flourishes (10). This appreciation sharply contrasts to ignorant whites who do not see the knowledge nature gives and views it only as something to use. He says whites are bored with nature because they do not have the “Indian point of view” (11). This distance whites have from nature harms their relationship with the land and others, making them less compassionate when they do not see that “man’s heart, away from nature, becomes hard” (12). Owens also says whites see nature differently because of their childhood experiences. Instead of growing up living in nature daily, white children go on sporadic vacations camping. He states Indians embrace nature because to them it has family meaning. They call the Cascades the “Great Mother” because of stories they have heard growing up, and things like this cause them to appreciate their surroundings more than whites (1). Standing Bear realizes whites do not have a relationship with nature or see everything connecting. While Indians only use what they need from nature, whites sacrifice this balance and try to control instead (12). H... ... middle of paper ... ...ch other” (12). On the other hand, Owens has hope for whites because he did not grow up with Indian traditions. Since he has seen whites trying to preserve nature even if they do not understand it, he has hope that one day they can truly appreciate it for more than what it does for them. The Indians appreciate and acknowledge nature more than white people and Standing Bear and Owens understand that. They believe the trouble with white attitudes is they do not truly see nature or form a harmonious relationship with it, and they think there is an idea of wilderness that can be separated from them. Although Standing Bear is critical of whites and believes they will never change, Owens thinks they will if they continue to redefine how they view nature. Overall, both authors want white people to respect the Indian view of nature and aspire to see it that way also.
Pages one to sixty- nine in Indian From The Inside: Native American Philosophy and Cultural Renewal by Dennis McPherson and J. Douglas Rabb, provides the beginning of an in-depth analysis of Native American cultural philosophy. It also states the ways in which western perspective has played a role in our understanding of Native American culture and similarities between Western culture and Native American culture. The section of reading can be divided into three lenses. The first section focus is on the theoretical understanding of self in respect to the space around us. The second section provides a historical background into the relationship between Native Americans and British colonial power. The last section focus is on the affiliation of otherworldliness that exist between
If the whites had not been so judgmental of the Indians, a people which they knew so little about, then friendships might have been formed and a common ground established. The Indians openly accepted John as a friend after he embraced the ideas and traditions of the Indian tribe. An example of this is after John reports that the buffalo are near and he joins in the hunting party they welcome him into their village to the victory festivities where many times he tells his story of the great hunt.
As an outsider looking in we are transformed through an era where a young Indian boy grows up to become the man he is today, a medicine man. We are taken through his assimilation in to the modern white society, and as we look at this we are reminded, through Lame Deer, of the hardships that he went through, his experiences as a single individual and many important events that defined who he is. We also took a look into his later years as he grew up to be an elder and developed a natural calling to be a leader. It explains throughout that he clings to the lingering fact that he desperately holds onto what he assumes is little dignity he has left and the worth of the land that has been diminished through the destruction of white culture. Once we have a correlation between Lame Deer’s life stories, events that he endured, and overall perception of what went on we can then look at the accuracy of his claims in correlation to world events that occurred. We can also observe, though this book, the tremendous clarity and insight it provides us about natural medicines that were used during his time, and major cultural and tradition ceremonies that where conducted, which in turn provided Native American Indians with self-purpose and self-identity and a unique form of symbolize that can be traced back to their ancestors. Lame Deer stresses the importance in self-identification through these forms, in
The novel “Indian Horse” by Richard Wagamese demonstrates the many conflicts that indigenous people encounter on a daily basis. This includes things such as, the dangers they face and how they feel the need to flee to nature, where they feel the most safe. Another major issue they face is being stripped of their culture, and forcibly made to believe their culture is wrong and they are less of a human for being brought up that way, it makes them feel unworthy. Finally, when one is being criticised for a hobby they enjoy due to their indigenous upbringing, they make himself lose interest and stop the hobby as it makes them different and provokes torment. People who are trying
The wild is a place to push yourself to the limit and take a look at who you truly are inside. “Wilderness areas have value as symbols of unselfishness” (Nash). Roderick Nash’s philosophy states that the wilderness gives people an opportunity to learn humility but they fight this because they do not have a true desire to be humble. Human-kind wants to give out the illusion that they are nature lovers when in reality, they are far from it. “When we go to designated wilderness we are, as the 1964 act says, "visitors" in someone else's home” (Nash). People do not like what they cannot control and nature is uncontrollable. Ecocentrism, the belief that nature is the most important element of life, is not widely accepted. The novel Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer depicts a young boy who goes on an exploration to teach himself the true concept of humility. Chris McCandless, the protagonist, does not place confidence in the universal ideology that human beings are the most significant species on the planet, anthropocentrism.
The Native American’s way of living was different from the Europeans. They believed that man is ruled by respect and reverence for nature and that nature is an ancestor or relative. The Native American’s strongly belie...
...that actually experienced it. The author gives a good background of the relationship white settlement and Indian cultures had, which supported by the life experience. An author depicts all the emotions of struggle and happiness at the times when it is hard to imagine it. And it actually not the author who is persuasive, but the Black Elk himself, because he is the one that actually can convey the exact feeling and images to the reader.
“It is my absolute belief that Indians have unlimited talent. I have no doubt about our capabilities.” --Narendra Modi. Native Americans love life and nature, they often celebrate it. In the stories “The Coyote”, “The Buffalo and the Corn”, and “The First False Face” each of these stories has many similarities, all include nature, and have many differences.
Native Americans have always been interpreted as “savage beast”. We are told the stories of the Europeans coming to America and their encounter with the Native by teachers, movies, and history books. When looking at the art of people “interpreting” the Native American the idea is still quite similar. Horatio Greenough work, Rescue, shows the common idea seen by most.
Bearcroft, BW. The Last Fighting Indians of the American West. 1 ed. Harlow: aaaaaLongman Group Ltd, 1976.
In the early 1830s, “nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Florida” . These were areas of land that the American Indian people and their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. However, to many White Americ...
The Native American Indians are a vital piece of the society of the United States. While their kin have existed on this land for many years, today their numbers are reducing. Once, the Native Americans lived on this continent with little discourse and disturbance. They were overall nourished, content, and established. Truth be told, the men and women generally were set in regular parts. The men were seekers, warriors, and defenders, while the women watched out for the youngsters, their homes, and cultivated. It relied on upon the tribe when it came to craftsmanship. In a few tribes, the men would really weave baskets and blankets. Common nourishments were expended and chased. Deer, wild ox, fish, and different feathered birds were the wildlife of decision. Corn, beans, squash, berries, nuts, and melons were the leafy foods that were expended. Berries were additionally frequently utilized as a characteristic color for fabrics. While the late 1800’s into the 1900’s and past started to bring battle to the Native American Indians, they battled an intense...
While the Indians were at peace with nature, the white man was destroying it, cutting down its forests and exploiting its natural recourses. The Indians had no concept of time other than that of the sum and of the seasons, while eh whites had business deadlines and busy schedules. Because of this vast difference in values, peaceful coexistence was not easy to achieve.
A reader of Sherman Alexie’s novel Reservation Blues enters the text with similar assumptions of Native American life, unless of course, he or she is of that particular community. If he or she is not, however, there is the likelihood that the ‘typical’ reader has images of Native Americans based upon long-held social stereotypes of the Lone Ranger’s Tonto and Kevin Costner’s “Dances With Wolves,” possibly chastened with some positive, homey images of the First Thanksgiving as well. However, Alexie’s prose forces one to apprehend Native American life anew, and to see Native Americans as fully-fledged individual characters, with wants and needs and desires, not as those who are simply stoic and ‘other.’
In Drew Hayden Taylor’s essays, he creates and manipulates various tones that each appeal to a different reader, which allows for his writings to be accepted and related to by various people. Through his use of shifting tones in “What’s an Indian worth These Days” and “Why did the Indian Block the Road”, from humorous to informative to sarcasm, Drew Hayden Taylor challenges stereotypes about First Nations people.