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

[Ron Kulp]

Arlo and anyone who is interested,
There is a school in new jersey dedicated to the teachings of the old
ways in a way for modern folks to participate in
Without pestering your local Indian tribe ..
It teaches everything from survival to philosophy..
I've read Tom Browns books since I was a boy.
Check it out @  www.trackerschool.com

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Arlo Bensinger
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 9:37 AM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: [MD] Teachings of the American Earth (Part IV- Final)

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

=========================

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]

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