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] moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
