Jun 20 2008
Dowsing with Cottonwood
My wife and I lived in New Mexico for 4 years. We loved it in so many ways. Jobs and families enticed us back to the east coast.
My guess is an arroyo runs near the distant cottonwood trees in the photo. I’m not even 1/100th Native American and I was able to deduce that thanks to my many wanderings in the parched land.
A couple days ago I was listening to a podcast in which a supposed science-loving filmmaker kept repeating some nonsense about how we need to live according to “the Native American philosophy.” And what philosophy would that be? Wear moccasins and cook over an open fire? Should we, on our next trip to the supermarket, buy an organic, free-range chicken and use all of it, even the kidneys and skin?
The most ridiculous part of the statement is the choice of the article preceding the adjective & noun. “The” Native American philosophy. As if all Native Americans have identical values and beliefs: Navajo, Chippewa, Blackfoot, Apache, etc., etc., etc. “A Native American philosophy” . . . maybe
Sure, argue that we need to use less, pollute less, and appreciate the wild more. And I tend to agree. But to make that point do we need to lump a whole number of differing people and their cultures into one glittery, catch-all cliché?
With a little education, and the skillful avoidance of the intellectual quicksand of political correctness, a person can see that a number of Native American cultures were brutal in warfare, even violently ethnocentric. They definitely weren’t one big, happy family. And as for living in “harmony with Mother Earth,” seeing they lacked the coal, steel and technology that would have provided “option B,” how much credit do they deserve for their non-choice of a lifestyle?
Certainly, there are many, many admirable qualities of Native Americans past and present. But when we paint any group of people with such a broad brush, the manifold, crucial details of their lives get obliterated. And so we perpetuate simple fairy tales vs. the more complex, magnificent reality.
