The Circle of Life: Thoughts on Contemporary Native Life
Pan-indianism is a term and an ideology that has come out of the colonialist attitudes developed over five hundred years of conquest and oppression. Granted, history (and mainly western history at that) teaches us that a conquered people can, and usually are, categorized in such a way that they are reduced to the most convenient common denominator; hence the term Indian. We all know that Columbus, on that morning of October 12, 1492, named the Carib peoples of the place that we now call the Bahamas, Indios. Accordingly, we have come to believe that this term originated in the mythicized account of Columbus’ quest for a passage to India. We have also come to believe that the term Indian represents the whole of all the five hundred Nations, as if the Anishinabe, the Carib and the Inuit are one and the same peoples. And what of Columbus and his Indios?: simply, he used the Italian in dio, meaning ‘in God’, to describe the natural people he met. The irony is that Columbus, the Great Admiral of the Ocean Sea, was speaking the truth more than he could ever have known. In dio indeed.
The underlying truth for Native peoples is the inherent relationship, and belief in a relationship, with Mother Earth. Native peoples are spiritually bound in this relationship, and this relationship defines each person as child of this Mother. Consequently, we may be tempted to lump the whole of Native identity in this fact, leading us to assume that an Indian is an Indian is an Indian. Nevertheless, Indianess cannot, and should not, be used as some all encompassing criteria by which every person of pre-contact ancestry can be defined. By way of analogy, I can say that I am the son of my mother, but I cannot say that I am my mother; in the same manner a Native man or woman is the child of Mother Earth but is not the Mother as such.
Mother Earth, Eshkakimikwe, is the underlying constant. Eshkakimikwe unfolds beneath our feet as the ground on which we stand. Without the Mother there would be no life and no reason to live. This may seem mystical in context, but mystical or not it is the very truth by which we exist. It would seem that all life, humans included, have felt a tie to the Mother. The one fact that seem to distinguish Native peoples from their western cousins is that Native peoples understand that the umbilical cord was never cut. Like a fetus in its mother, we are constantly drawing nutrition from our Mother. We cannot go anywhere without her, and even in our most reaching voyages we are dependent on the nutrition our mother creates for us; ask any astronaut.
So what is it about the Earth Mother that permeates Native philosophies? In a word: circularity. We are witness to the circularity of the seasons, of life and death and life again, to the cycles that drive our very existence. We go about our daily lives saying things like “What comes around, goes around”. This is the primordial world view and it is the very essence of Indianess.
This paper charges itself with the exploration of the Circle of Life and the dispensation of those thoughts concerning contemporary Native life. As we begin this exploration, we must be reminded that like Life, this paper is also circular; that is, it ends at the beginning and begins at the end. As such we will endeavor to uncover, or determine (in the way of the French déterrer: un-earth) what is evident but hidden by a few centimeters of cultural dirt. As Heidegger once explained, the word Truth is from the Greek alethia, which means to uncover, and we intend to uncover, or at least to remove some of the sand that clouds our vision. We also define Truth as a lack or deficiency of lies, and it is with this that we intend to dig a little under the surface.
What is contemporary Native life? From what I can see it has something to do with T-shirts. I have one that says, “We survived the first 500 years, We will survive the next 500 years!”. I have also seen one in Alabama that said “My heroes have always killed cowboys!” Almost every day I see a Native person with a T-shirt from some Pow-wow or some Native Friendship centre. All in all, it would seem that these T-shirts are becoming the new Status Card, carried by Natives in plain view for all to see. To my eye this is significant since T-shirts have become billboards for advertising. Take Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ T-shirt, or a Labbatt’s Blue or Molson Canadian T-shirt; advertising in its clearest expression. So what of the Native T-shirt? Advertising of ones racial ancestry? Perhaps. But it would seem that we are witness to a new outward directedness of Native identity. Are we advertising some commodity like the ‘Homo-consumerus’ that media makes us out to be, or are we simply uncovering, determining our history? On one hand a rhetorical question to be sure, but on the other — possibly that which we will find if we dig a little deeper.
Native history, from the Native perspective is not that history usually taught within the context of western acquisition. Native autohistory (self-history) is an ethical approach and it is based on two premises. The first is that, in the way Europeans appropriated territory, the cultural values of the Native peoples of America influenced the formation of the character of the Euro-American, but that European values did not modify the cultural codes of the Native peoples, since they never left their natural milieu (Pirsig: 1991, 38-48). It may seem that many, if not all the ways of Native peoples were lost or destroyed in the ever increasing acquisition of land and home by Euro-Americans, and this is why I say ‘cultural codes’ when speaking of that thing that has remained after five hundred years of contact. I am well aware that this is a subtle point, but nevertheless it is evident once the layers of western influence are brushed away. Once this bit of house cleaning is accomplished we are left with the realization that Native peoples have overcome the never ending assailment of western ways. We may live in back-splits with a car in the driveway and a VCR in the living room, and some of us may never have lived on a reserve or spoken our ancestral language, but we are nevertheless Native. Perhaps the T-shirts that we wear are really nothing more that the advertising of this fact, but then again those T-shirts may be the way that we tell the world, and more importantly, ourselves that we are still here. It is with some curiosity that we find non-Natives also wearing these T-shirts, and this leads me to think that the contemporary situation affords a measure of certainty to my hypothesis: we are in fact in the middle of some Indian renaissance, in part driven by the consumerist fad of anything Indian is sellable, but also in part driven by the realization that there is pride and honour in admitting and acknowledging that we are still around.
The ‘cultural code’ that binds us, like the cultural umbilical cord that is our respective cultures, is the Circle of Life. We are aware of this truth, although some of our brothers and sisters need to brush away some of the anger and disassociation that buries this, and it is in this truth that we again are witness to the constant context of Native life.
The second premise in this ethical approach to Native autohistory is that history (that is western history) still has not understood that the study of the persistence of the essential values of the Native peoples, with the help of these people themselves, is more important, when dealing with the social character of historical science, than the analyses often made of cultural transformation, as interesting as this may be academically but of little importance socially. (Sioui: 1989, 30-31)
I admit straightaway that from the point of view of a Native person, the persistence of essential values or codes is more important than change, and that, from the point of view of a non-Native, the interest has always been in attempting to support the myth of the disappearance of Native peoples. But this is only a difference of perspective, and as such culturally sensitive. This cultural sensitivity is in part defined as the cultural codes that Native peoples follow and it goes without saying that this cultural code is constant. Of further interest there is also the cultural divide found in this over all conception of living. Joseph Couture explains that:
In the West, classical existentialism stresses the utter validity of subjectivity, i.e., of the feeling, reflective subject who has the freedom to make choices, and to determine thus his/her life. Therefore, what one does is of keystone importance. The doing that characterizes the Native Way is a doing that concerns itself with being and becoming an unique person, one fully responsible for one’s own life and actions within family and community. Finding one’s path and following it is a characteristic Native enterprise which leads to or makes for the attainment of inner and outer balance. This is a marked contrast with general Western doing which tends and strains towards having, objectifying, manipulating, ‘thingifying’ every one and every thing it touches. (Couture: ?, 207)
The Native code of family and community is one that has an unbroken connection to pre-contact. In the day to day reality of the past five hundred years it would seem that Native identity has lost this truth, but again it is only a question of digging a little to find its constant truth. The nuclear family has become the norm in this present social order, but the mention of a person’s clan removes all doubt that the family and community code has been lost.
Meanwhile, if we accept the two premises above, we can appreciate how much, on an historical and social level, it is essential to know who the Native person is and what s/he can continue to bring to the non-Native.
Rémi Savard, in his Destins D’Amerique (The Destiny of America) states that:
the genuine American dimension, to which present day Indigenous peoples urge us towards, is neither English, neither French, neither Indian, neither Inuit; it is found in the Indigenous notion of the Great Circle, in accordance with which the obsessive respect of the specificity of each link becomes the indispensable condition in maintaining the whole. We no longer have any choice; it is of this America that we must seriously reflect upon in order to finally disembark.
(Savard: 1979, 15 (lib. trans.))
What makes up the singular force of Native philosophy is the capacity of all Native nations to agree on the idea of the unity and dignity of all beings. The Native person, when he prays, addresses his salutations to the universe. This allows him to recognize his place in creation, that is to say, as explained by Oren Lyons, that “we should function together to survive. We are sitting (when we are assembled) with the Great Circle of universal life. We are all equal, life is all equal” (in Sioui: 1989, 33 (lib. trans.)). This is the end place which our intellectualized journey takes us, and it is from this point that we can now move towards the beginning.
The beginning for Native peoples is found in creation. No matter the cultural context; Lakota, Anishinabe, etc., there is the reality of coming from somewhere. This reality is not born of some random ordering of cosmic dust, but rather the expression of a Creator’s will. This is the underlying spiritual code that maintains and gives meaning to life and where we live.
The spiritual code that connects and unifies Native perspective concerning life and meaning is at the very centre of Native philosophy. Spirituality is the beginning of any attempt to understand the Native world-view, but it is also spirituality that is found when we finish digging for the truth. Spirituality is the underlying truth and without it the cultural codes would have been destroyed long ago.
The one unending and unchanging reality of Native philosophy is the place and importance of myth and legend. As a mainly oral culture (with some exceptions), Native philosophy has placed all its merit on the truth found in myth. James Dumont stresses that, “If we try to understand and sensibly appreciate Native myth and legend we must be willing, first of all, to accept that there is involved here a very special way of ‘seeing the world’. Secondly, and a necessary further step, we must make an attempt to ‘participate’ in this way of seeing” (Miller et al.: 1992, 75). Consequently, as we have seen before, we must understand the “comprehensive, total viewing of the world and [how it] is essential for a harmony and balance amongst all of creation” (Miller et al.: 1992, 75). Dumont sums up this point, in what I believe is the one most important piece of knowledge presented in how to understand Native reality when he explains that:
There seems to be a vital link, then, for the Ojibwa, between mythical times and the present. In fact, it might be said that mythical times become present when we approach the realm of the sacred through the dream of the vision quest. Perhaps this can be expressed as simultaneous realities. What we have called mythical time is eternally present, and it occurs simultaneously with our present.
(Miller et al.: 1992, 78)
If this is the case, than any interpretation of Native myths and legends must include a comprehensive understanding of the people themselves. Myths not only influenced personality, society, action and ethics, they also sets out the proper context for a person to live in. Myths give life meaning. Thus the creation myth, from the creation of Waynaboozhoo, his going about the world and naming all that is, his life with Nokomis, and the origin of the first family, to the story of the great flood and the creation of the New World, holds a prescription for a person’s daily life. Without these myths and legends how would a person know how to be a good person? As such, Native (and other) myths and legends are oral reference libraries that account for stories, legends, prophesies, ceremonies, songs, dance, language and the custom of people. Moreover, the Elder, responsible for this oral library, is as much the librarian as the library of this knowledge. The myth is as alive as the person hearing it or telling it. It exists in a dynamic form, changing as life changes. Its is for this reason that myth is important, and it is for the same reason that we must listen to its voice.
Native philosophy is centered around Creation and the Sacred Circle. All things are inter-connected, and as such, our place in Creation brings balance and belonging in the world. By losing ourselves in the contemplation of the infinite greatness of the universe, of Creation, by meditating on the thousands of years that are past and are to come, by seeing the innumerable worlds that the heavens at night actually bring before our eyes and thus have the immensity of Creation thrust upon our consciousness, we feel ourselves dwindle to nothingness. As individuals, as living bodies, we feel ourselves pass away and vanish into nothing like a drop in the ocean. We are one with Creation, in it and of it. We are not oppressed, but exalted by its infinity.
For the Anishinabe, the Sweat Lodge is the pivotal ceremony. To enter the Lodge is to enter the Mother. Once inside we abandon the subjectivity and objectivity of our lives; we abandon the relationship of us and them, subject and object.
In everyday life, our will and desire separate us from the inter-connectivity of the Sacred Circle. As we try to balance the reality of spirituality and our back-splits and VCR’s there are times that we forget (at times conveniently) that we are not separate and remote in this existence. We are forever linked to others in the world, and in the end to the world itself. The great Indic sage, Mahatma Gandhi, when asked how the world could be made a better place replied that all change had to begin with the individual. The individual must give up all individuality so that s/he could live a live free of greed and desire. By living such a life, this person would, not by design but by example, encourage others to live a more moral and spiritual life. As others came to see and understand the peaceful nature of that person, great change would begin to take place; first in that person’s family, their friends, acquaintances, village, community and ultimately the whole world. Gandhi called his philosophy Ahimsa, which roughly translates as Mother’s Love. In other words, we must love one another as a mother loves her child: unconditionally. Maybe John Lennon were right after all, maybe all you need is love.
The Sweat Lodge represents knowledge and understanding free of will and desire. It allows us to uncover the truth that everything is where it belongs. Once we rise above will and desire we rise above ourselves as pure subjects. Once Creation is no longer seen as some kind of differentiated substantiality but as unity, we are filled with the sense of the sublime; we are in a state of spiritual balance.
Native philosophy stresses the inter-connectivity of Creation rather than the connectivity of a physical and spiritual world. For the Native person, the Creator/Creation equation transcends a simple concept like synthesis since it stresses the great Circle of Life. We know that this is true due to the creation story where Creator sends its (I use it here so as not to put an anthropomorphic face on Creator) mind out through the universe looking to find something else. Its ideas are retrieved after a time, and today we see stars where they ended their journey. This shows us that Creator not only did not know what lay outside of itself, but that it was and is on a path of discovery like our own in life. The Creation story also tells us that Creator, in the creation of earth, had to try more than once before it got the formula right for life. Any philosophy that posits a non-omniscient and non-omnipotent Creator must have a focus radically different than any philosophy found in the West.
It is recognized that all cultures present their own version of some philosophical duality, whether it is a split between the sensible material world and the intellectual idealist world or the Anishinabeg teaching of the eagle feather[1]. This teaching presents us with the fact that a feather must have two sides for the eagle to fly. The eagle does not attempt to hold that there is a feather’s right side and left side philosophy, but rather it just flies. The feather is divided into two part, with Mind/Body/Spirit on one side and Institution/Process/Ceremony on the other, but the unifying element is Behaviour. Behaviour is Creation in that it defines balance. It is not a synthesis between Mind/Body/Spirit on one side and Institution/Process/Ceremony on the other but the underlying unity represented as a duality. The eagle feather teaching is telling, in that it relies on a natural element to explain ones life.
The mental, physical and spiritual elements are each represented in two ways. The mind finds its partner in institution. By institution I mean any form of education, whether in university or on a trap line were the development of reasoning and memory, to name only two, is exercised and developed. The body finds its partner in process. This is the physical aspect of life. It is through physical training that one is able to find health and a sense of self-worth. Finally spirit is coupled with ceremony. The spiritual reality that ceremony explores and explains cannot be found in the average everydayness of ones life; spiritual health and well being is something that must be sought out. Through ceremonies like the Sweat Lodge, the Midewiwin and/or the Sun Dance (to name a few) a person is afforded the chance to learn how to remove some or all of the objective veils that hide the spiritual world. It is in the Sweat Lodge that I am able to be with my Mother, my Grandfathers and Grandmothers. It is in the Sweat Lodge that I am able to speak with an open heart and seek the help that I am sometimes to proud to ask for. It is there that I find my purest expression of behaviour; completely unselfish in nature.
It is important here to understand fully the meaning of unity. Creation is not a movement towards unity, but rather is unity in movement. The dualistic nature of the feather may be united in behaviour, but the duality is preserved. To think that Creation can only be grasped by the senses, or conversely, that it can only be grasped by the intellect, is to give one duality more weight than the other. Creation is harmony in duality, it is the unity of Being rather that the intellectual or sensible. Any attempt to call Creation the synthesis of this duality is an attempt to do away with them. Ultimately Creation can not be thought of as global or Creator oriented, as in a synthesis, since it is the harmony of all duality. Creation is the harmony that is found in both the total collection of all that is, and the individual things themselves. By this, I mean to say that each individual is as much a representation of Creation as the whole of Creation.
Creation is, and as such all that is, is Creation. For the Anishinabe this is the highest goal of life. When a person comes out of the Sweat Lodge, they are united in Creation, swallowed up by the infinity. Only then can a person truly say that they are alive.
We live in a world made up of static constancy. This static nature allows for gravity and other laws of nature, but even gravity has to give up its grip from time to time. The truth of life is that it is constantly fighting the static reality that we put so much faith in. Gravity may be a constant in the universe, but life looks at this static constant and replies to this challenge with a bird. Look in the sky; everyday we can find a bird flying, showing us the way to fight static reality. The bird is dynamic in its reality, and the best part is that that bird up there is not doing it on purpose: birds fly! (at least those that can). One of the great human tragedies is that we are constantly allowing ourselves to believe that there is nothing that we can do about the seemingly static, unchanging world around us; ‘Things are just the way they are, why worry about it’ kind of philosophy. Dynamic reality; constantly changing, unity in movement, is the truth that we have sought out. Once all the cultural dirt of our times has been cleaned away, we find it — and to think … all we had to do was look up and watch birds fly.
The Native experience, its declaration of the Circle of Life, its new found voice (even on a T-shirt) is the absolute truth. Our aim was simply to see if the Circle of Life could or should have any baring on contemporary life, and in the end contemporary life came out as the static reality of our times and the Circle of Life as the dynamic reality of our world. So we do owe something to Columbus after all. In dio. In God. That just about sums it up in two words.
Copyright © 2000-2003 by D'Arcy Rheault. All rights reserved
References
BENTON-BENAI, Edward, The Mishomis Book, The Voice of the Ojibway , Red House School: U.S.A., 1988.
COUTURE, Joseph, “The Role of Native Elders: Emergent Issues”, unknown source, unknown publication, pp. 201-217
DUMONT, James, “Journey To Daylight-Land Through Ojibwa Eyes”, in David Miller, et al. (eds.), The First Ones: Readings in Indian/Native Studies , Sask.: Sask. Indian Federated College Press, 1992, pp. 75-80.
PIRSIG, Robert, Lila, An Inquiry into Morals , New York: Bantam Books, 1991.
SAVARD, Rémi, Destin d’Amerique. Les Autochtones et nous , Montréal: Édition de l’Hexagone, 1979.
SIOUI, Georges, Pour une Autohistoire Amérindienne , Laval: La Presses de l’Université, 1989.
July 25, 1995