In chapter 6 Short explored the different types of space and how the environment has changed as the world has developed. Sacred space is a beautiful concept that Native Americans and indigenous people of other countries are well known for. They had a spiritual connection with the earth, that most of us do not have today. They believed that humans, animals, plants, and places were bound together in a web of connections. The indigenous people were strong in their beliefs and rituals. They believed that the Earth would take care of them if they took care of the Earth. The mindset of sacred space shifted as society began to develop further. Productive space became common as people learned to farm. Most indigenous people only knew how to hunt and gather food It was not until later on that agriculture became popular. In the past people were very concerned with their relationship with animals, but as their mindset shifted to productive space people became more concerned with the fertility of the land. Managed space focuses on industrialization. This mindset has little respect for the Earth. They look at the Earth to see what they can take from it that will be profitable. Managed space is the key to economic growth. If everyone still believed in only sacred space, …show more content…
Issues like deforestation, loss of biodiversity, pollution of water and soil, and loss of productive farmland are just a few problems that we are facing all over the world. There are organizations like the United States Environmental protection agency whose job it is to monitor the treatment of the Earth. They are a part of the government that helps to decide which laws and regulation need to be enforced in order to protect not just America, but the Earth as a whole. The EPA's job is basically to help bring back the respect for the Earth that people with the sacred space mindset
The Pueblo culture contended many fragments to their culture that varied from the Spaniards Culture. The Native Americans were nature reliant they received all their necessities from the earth. They not only used the land but also thanked the earth. They included over three hundred spirit or gods that the pueblos prayed to for various different reasons, they called them Kachinas. Some of the spirits were Sun god, the rain god, star gods, the wind god and many other divinities. The Natives adore the Kachinas with praise for good crops, good health, family, homes, protection and various other things every day. Customs for the pueblos included rituals to heal problems such as disease in people who are sick, women who are not infertile and many other issues in the tribe. They contained Kivas; kivas were an underground compartment custom for secretive ceremonial practices. The purposes for Kivas were for the Pueblos to get closer to the spirit world. They thought that everything living came from the inferior part of the land. Pu...
This communal living was sustainable and based upon the indigenous plants and animals, especially the bison herds which spread across the prairie like waves on an ocean. “Oglala Sioux spiritual leader Black Elk… recalled that his people ‘were happy in [their] own country, and were seldom hungry, for then the two-leggeds and the four-leggeds lived together like relatives, and there was plenty for them and for us.” (Spence 3) Native Americans saw a special sanctity in taking anything from the earth. The Hopi Indians, for example “express[ed] regret to the hunted animal that they must take its life to sustain their own with the substance of its flesh.” (Hurdy 19) Ruth Underhill writes that the Naskapi saw “Hunting [as] a holy occupation… [but] so was the gathering of plants, the cutting of trees, even the digging of clay.
Duane Champagne in Social Change and Cultural Continuity Among Native Nations explains that there has never been one definitive world view that comprises any one Native American culture, as there is no such thing as one “Native community” (2007:10). However, there are certain commonalities in the ways of seeing and experiencing the world that many Native communities and their religions seem to share.
For example, to some nations, certain geographical or topographical features have deep religious and ceremonial meaning. This concept is known as “sacred geography.” For example, in the Cherokee religion, it is believed that the evidence of past religious events (i.e. the creation of the Cherokee people) can still be seen on the physical landscape of what is now known as the Southeastern United States.
Many Native groups, because they were nomadic, didn't see land as belonging to one person. The idea that someone could come in, claim a piece of land and ban them f...
These Indigenous people realized that the only way to heal the poverty, dysfunction, addiction, and violence that has plagued them since the ‘assimilation’ efforts was to turn back to their traditional spiritual practices and teach them to the young people (Robbins). Often, the return to Native traditions has meant taking on environmental concerns, opposing development activities, and becoming politically active to protect the nature that is so closely tied to indigenous spiritual practices. This is what makes indigenous spirituality different and hard to define and protect, it is closely tied to the land and environment, which is very different from religion (Fisher). The United Nations defines the situation perfectly in “The State of the World’s Indigenous People: Chapter 2”: “…spirituality defines the relationships of indigenous peoples with their environment as custodians of the land; it helps construct social relationships, gives meaning, purpose and hope to life.” (Kipuri,
In 1989, seventy five percent of Americans identified themselves as environmentalists, and the number has continued to grow since then (Walls 1). Environmentalism is now the most popular social movement in the United States, with over five million American families donating regularly to environmental organizations (Walls 1). Environmentalists today focus on what kind of world they hope to see in the future, and largely deal with limiting pollution and changing consumption rates (Kent 1 and 9). Modern environmentalists also have much different issues than those Carson’s America faced. With climate change becoming more threatening each year, protection of the natural world is needed more than ever. Pollution has caused the warmest decade in history, the deterioration of the ozone layer, and species extinction in extreme numbers (Hunter 2). It not only threatens nature, but also human populations, who already suffer from lack of clean water and poisoning from toxic chemicals (Hunter 16). Unlike environmental actions in the 1960’s, which were mostly focused on protection, a massive increase in pollution has caused efforts to be focused on environmental restoration (Hunter 16). Like in the time of Silent Spring, environmentalists are not only concerned with one country. Protecting the environment remains a global issue, and every nation is threatened by the
The environment has proven over time that it has the power to cause change in its inhabitants. Native Americans were not an exception to this common occurrence, as they had to adapt to the changes in the environment that surrounded them. The Europeans came to the “new world” and disrupted the original culture of the land. Native Americans were compelled to assimilate their own traditions and culture to one more fitting of their new surroundings. Their religion was a component that changed drastically into a decline that left it without any of the original rituals, beliefs, and traditions. Some of factors that contributed to this shift in religion are disease, the fur trade, the European tourists, the economy, the Christian missionaries, and
In the 1880’s, it was thought that common stewardship of land was one of the biggest obstacles to cultural assimilation for the Native Americans. This sentiment lead to the creation
Native Americans chose to live off the land such as animals and the trees for houses from the time of early civilization in the Americas to when Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic. In Thomas Morton’s writing he said “they gather poles in the woods and put eh great end of them in the ground, placing them in form of a circle.”
To the Native Americans, the misuse of natural resources caused a disruption in the natural order of the environment. They lived in harmony
Space is something everyone experiences. However Eliade points out that different people have different reactions to the spatial aspect of the world. A profane man may experience space/spaces homogenously, “ no break qualitatively differentiates the various parts of its mass.” (pg. 22). For an example a profane man might classify a mall and church in the same way because he sees no religious value within them, but he then could regard a hospital sacred because that may be the place of his birth (in page 24 Eliade such sacredness is worthless). A religious man, on the other hand, could look at that same space, a mall and a church, and differentiate the sacred space, also known as the cosmos, from the profane space, also known as the chaos. In this case the religious man would classify the church as sacred place because it has some holy value and the mall as the profane space because it has no holy value at all. In clearer terms the the profane space is h...
Our planet is suffering from severe pollution, which ranges from contaminated air, water and soil as well. Humans are doing nothing to reduce the amount of pollution that is harming our earth. To understand how pollution works first you must understand that there are different types of pollution. The most common types of pollution and the ones that I will be focusing on which are the ones doing the most harm to our planet are air pollution, water pollution, soil contamination and littering. In order to help out and reduce pollution in our planet people need to be more aware of what these problems are and about the severe damages that they are causing our planet. Before industrialization really jumped into place and had an effect on large cities, nature had its own way of cleaning up its own air and itself. Wind scattered gases, rain washed many substances and the rest dissolved into the ground; while plants absorbed carbon dioxide and made it into oxygen. With big cities growing more every time and with more towns that were becoming more industrialized a lot of more waste began to be released into the environment and the atmosphere and soon this was more than enough for nature to handle. In order to stop and reduce pollution people need to understand the damage that it is causing our environment and our planet as well. People need to be more aware of how they can help out and do their part in reducing these problems that are causing our planet to die slowly with people not even noticing it.
The environment today is not in a good condition, Climate change is evident, and oceans are getting polluted. Rainforrest's are decreasing in size due to deforestation and illegal logging. Animals are getting extinct due to the destruction of their habitats. Natural resources are being consumed at very large amounts, and get wasted. There are different ways these problems can be addressed, one option is environmental management. Environmental management focuses on conservation of natural resources, protection of habitats, and impact of humans on the environment. Conservation of natural resources is the smart use of the world's resources by humans, through this waste production is limited, and there will be less garbage in the world. By conserving
Efforts to improve the standard of living for humans--through the control of nature and the development of new products--have also resulted in the pollution, or contamination, of the environment. Much of the world's air, water, and land is now partially poisoned by chemical wastes. Some places have become uninhabitable. This pollution exposes people all around the globe to new risks from disease. Many species of plants and animals have become endangered or are now extinct. As a result of these developments, governments have passed laws to limit or reverse the threat of environmental pollution.