[MD] Teachings of the American Earth (Part IV- Final)

[Arlo Bensinger]

This is Part IV of the Introduction to "Teachings of the American 
Earth, Indian Religion and Philosophy" by Dennis and Barbara Tedlock.

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But it is not enough to share the visions of others [all this talk 
about Quality isn't Quality? -Arlo]. Over much of North America, 
young Indians are encouraged and even expected to seek their own 
visionary encounters with the other world. Indeed, the seeking is a 
prerequisite for adulthood itself. In some tribes, the first attempt 
may be made as early as age five, and in most it has to be made 
before adolescence. Among the Beaver, in the Mackenzie Basin, boys 
and girls go out alone to seek direct contact with the other world 
through the medium of animals. Ojibwa boys go into the woods to learn 
"seeing and hearing," to "fill their emptiness."  Among the Winnebago 
of Wisconsin, in a series of quests, both boys and girls went out to 
seek the blessings of a multiplicity of beings, "the spirits ... of 
the earth, those who are pinned through the earth, and those 
underneath the earth; and . . . all those in the waters, and all 
those on the sides of the earth." On the Plains, both men and women 
fasted for visions repeatedly throughout their lives, and sImilar 
fasts took place in some of the Pueblos .Among the Kwakiutl of the 
Northwest Coast, relationships with the beings of the other world 
were inherited, but even so the inheritor had to go on a fast to 
establish a personal acquaintance with them. Wherever there were 
secret societies, the initiate had to have visions of his own in 
order to rise to the highest ranks.

The American Indian's insistence on direct, personal religious 
experience remains preserved when he comes into contact with 
Christianity: he finds it difficult to accept experiences of the 
other world which are said to have happened two millennia ago and 
which are attested to only by a book. The Peyotist takes this problem 
into his own hands; as a Comanche once put it, "The White Man talks 
about Jesus; we talk to Jesus." Hearing this, J. S. Slotkin concluded 
that the Indian, epistemologically speaking, "is an individualist and 
empiricist; he believes only what he himself has experienced."

An empirical attitude toward the other world is a difficult one to 
put into action. It requires an emptying of the body and the mind, a 
humbling of the self before all other beings, "even the smallest 
ant." It is not as though the Indian were "close to nature" and 
therefore found such an experience easier to come by than ourselves; 
he speaks of the journey as carrying him to "the edge of the Deep 
Canyon," and he feels it as nothing less than death itself. While he 
is there he sees a universe where everything is not only animate, but 
a person, and not only a person but a kinsman. On his return from the 
journey he is reborn; he is no longer the same person he was before. 
Having seen for himself the reality of the other world, he now has 
what William Blake called "the double vision," as opposed to "the 
single vision" of Newton. Alfonso Ortiz describes this double vision 
in the teachings of his Tewa elders, who "saw the whole of life as 
consisting of the dual quest for wisdom and for divinity." It is not 
that the Indian has an older, simpler view of the world, to which we 
as Newtonian thinkers have added another dimension, but that he has a 
comprehensive, double view of the world, while we have lost sight of 
one whole dimension.

The difference between the Indian view and our own is illustrated by 
an exchange which took place not long ago between an old man and a 
schoolboy in Montezuma Canyon on the Navajo Reservation. The boy 
asked where snow came from, and the old man told a long story about 
an ancestor who found a mysterious burning object and looked after it 
until some spirits came to claim it. They would not allow him to keep 
even a part of it, but instead put him to a series of tests. When he 
was successful at these tests, they promised they would throw all the 
ashes from their fireplace into Montezuma Canyon each year. 
"Sometimes they fail to keep their word, and sometimes they throw 
down too much; but in all, they turn their attention toward us 
regularly, here in Montezuma Canyon." With the story over, the boy 
had a retort: "It snows at Blanding, too. Why is that?" The old man 
quickly replied, "I don't know. You'll have to make up your own story 
for that." To the anthropologist who had witnessed this exchange the 
old man later commented that "it was too bad the boy did not 
understand stories," and he explained that this was not really a 
story about the historical origin of snow in Montezuma Canyon or in 
any other place, but a story about the properly reciprocal 
relationship between man and other beings. He attributed the boy's 
failure to grasp the story to the influences of white schooling.

It would not have been the Indian way for the old man to have given 
the schoolboy a lecture about the true meaning of the story then and 
there, although he clearly could have. The proper exegesis of the 
story, if it comes, can only come from the boy's own experience in 
life. As Larry Bird, a young Keres, explains, "You don't ask 
questions when you grow up. You watch and listen and wait, and the 
answer will come to you. It's yours then, not like learning in 
school." What we learn in school is never ours; lectures by the 
experts can never produce in us the light which comes when suddenly 
and all alone, we know [Zen? -Arlo]. In our growing reliance on 
formal education, Beeman Logan tells us, we have come to 
underestimate our own potential as human beings:

You don't respect yourselves.
You don't believe anything unless you can read it in a book.
You have to learn to use your eyes.
You have to learn to see with your eyes shut.

When we reflect about the way Indian religion has been studied, we 
can see the single vision in action. We have studied it solely with 
the eyes open and kept it outside. Our museums place once-sacred 
objects on display, so schoolchildren can examine their outward 
forms. Groups of hobbyists perform exact replicas of Indian 
ceremonies, with everything there but the meaning [canned corn? :-) 
Arlo]. Many anthropologists can only tell us that meaning lies in 
historical contexts, or is revealed by logical or mathematical 
transformations of the outward forms. All of this amounts to a 
hermetic seal between the Indian and ourselves [S/O v. Oneness? 
-Arlo]. When an Indian voice penetrates this seal, whether indirectly 
through Joseph Epes Brown's The Sacred Pipe, or directly through 
Hyemeyohsts Storm's Seven Arrows, the experts do no better than 
quarrel about the "accuracy" of details. Vine Deloria, who has a 
clearer vision, comments on Seven Arrows as follows: "Storm in great 
measure succeeded in stepping outside of a time-dominated 
interpretation of Indian tribal religion and created a series of 
parabolic teachings concerning the nature of religion. Few people 
have understood him-or forgiven him." The teachings of American 
Indian religion have always been parabolic; their meaning is 
discovered by reflection, not through historical exactness. As a Zuni 
once said to an anthropologist who was carefully transcribing each 
word of a traditional story, "When I tell these stories, do you see 
it, or do you just write it down?" [Great question! -Arlo]

Our road, if we now wish to hear the Indian and learn to think, to 
see like him, is not an easy one. Even if we succeed in abandoning a 
purely historical approach, there is a further pitfall. In attempting 
a straight intellectual experiment with Indian thought, we might 
assume, for the sake of argument, that "everything is alive." If we 
were to do that, we might get a response like the one an old Ojibwa 
gave the anthropologist who asked, "Are all the stones we see about 
us here alive?" The answer was, "No! But some are." [Does a dog have 
a Buddha nature? -Arlo]

This old man had the double vision. He did not live solely in the 
other world, where indeed all stones are alive, but he had the 
capacity to recognize that world in the appearances of this one. The 
way to his understanding is not found with the road maps of the 
measurable world. One begins by finding the four roads that run side 
by side and choosing the middle one. The Road, once found, is cut by 
an impassable ravine that extends to the ends of the world. One must 
go right through. Then there is an impenetrable thicket. Go right 
through. Then there are birds making a terrible noise. Just listen. 
Then there is a place where phlegm rains down. Don't brush it off. 
Then there is a place where the earth is burning. Pass right through. 
Then a great cliff face rises up, without a single foothold. Walk 
straight through.

If you travel as far as this and someone threatens you with death, 
say, "I have already died." [Mirros "Kill all intellectual patterns"? -Arlo]