Throughout the
last 500 plus years many Native Americans have lost themselves as cultural and
social beings in the midst of the capitalist infusion. Indian people have
suffered a loss of their cultural identities and suffered a dispossession of
many things which carried significant meaning resulting in a crisis involving
meaning. Assimilation tactics such as the boarding school legislation have
seriously defamed the cultural and spiritual practices for a multitude of
Indian people. Before their spiritual practices were outlawed, the missionaries
achieved a conversion from their form of spirituality to Christianity by tricks
such as converting married and prominent men, giving prospective converts
gifts, feigning honor and selling guns only to baptized Indians.
The
European invaders held onto the beliefs they brought with them such as an organized
economy which in turn has earned economic security for many Europeans. They
presumed the Indian peoples’ emphasis on maintaining balance, their oral
traditions, their redistribution and reciprocity beliefs and other convictions
represented chaos and may lead to stagnation. The Euro-peans introduced a sense
of duality, a separation from nature and culture with culture taking the lead
which differed greatly from the traditional beliefs of the tribal
inhabitants.
Traditional
Indian systems relied upon basic con-cepts consisting of cooperation, harmony,
balance, kinship, and respect based on reciprocity. Their sacred world was well
articulated and their spiritual practices were validated in a variety of
communal situations which in turn rein-forced its own stability in a continuous
social process. Their spirituality was involved in every aspect of their lives.
Their form of spiritual beliefs was comprised of cultural meanings including
the past and future, and inte-grated into a logical cultural biography
(Fletcher, 2006). To explain further about traditional spiritual practices,
these practices involved speaking the native languages.
Language
is a descriptive mode of communication for various cultures. One word can have
multiple meanings. For example, the word bakade meaning black or blackened in
the Ojibwe language can have a deeper meaning. The Ojibwe blackened their faces
before they entered the woods on a vision quest. Knowledge of the language is
paramount to understanding the meaning of stories, prayers, and songs. Language and culture are intertwined. Speaking their
native tongue was not permitted in the boarding schools. Children were severely
punished if they were caught doing so.
Essential
as food, water and air concerning the nur-turing of our physical bodies,
relationships and feelings of connectedness nourish the heart, mind and spirit.
Crucial for human development, the deep yearning and movement toward connection
is seen as a central force in a healthy life, while a traumatic disconnection
is understood as one of the reasons behind most human suffering. The children
at the boarding schools lost a vital connection to their biological families
when they were not permitted to speak their native language. Many Native
American parents including my grandfather did not teach their children the
native languages to protect their children.
Spiritual
disconnection was also achieved by teaching children who attended the boarding
schools to adopt a new religion or suffer God’s wrath. To further the process
of assimilation and acculturation, Indian children were also taught to embrace
shame concerning their families and their families’ spiritual practices which
existed for hundreds and possibly thousands of years. To sever any association
to their cultures, they were taught falsehoods about the history, character and
spirituality of their people.
Culture
can be explained as the learned, socially acquired traditions of thoughts and
behaviors found in human societies. Anthropologists define culture as the
complete, socially acquired lifestyle of a group of people, consisting of a
group’s patterned, recurring ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. Culture is
a complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, spirituality, laws,
customs, and any other capabilities and habits of various ethnic groups. Each
society has an overall culture and every society has groups of people who do
not conform to the general expectations of the whole.
A
society is defined as an organized group of people who share a specific area of
land and depend on each other for their survival and well-being. Think of these
groups as a computer and culture as the software. How are people wired to
perform in various roles as dictated by a specific society’s expectations? A
universal pattern does exist which includes prototypes of behavior and thoughts
relating to making a living; raising children; the exchange of goods and labor;
living in domestic situations and communities; expressing creative, spiritual, fun,
moral, and intellectual aspects of life. Without shared cultural beliefs and
practices, there are no interdependent societies, only groups of individuals
who are culturally destitute and unable to create a shared and cohesive future.
People who suffer from cultural deprivation are reduced to doing simple every
day routines and carrying out a life filled with little meaning. Because of
European involvement, many Native Americans lost a sense of communal belonging,
communal solidarity and loyalty (Block, 2009).
The
history of colonization is a heartbreaking story in which the main protagonists
are in power and inflict dualism, domination, misrepresentation, and categorization.
The Native Americans’ conquered world was organized into convenient groups of
what the Europeans referred to as we and they, both materially and conceptually.
It was easier for them to control, command, supervise and order when their foes
were placed in categories. Where the environment was concerned, it was only
revered for its utility by the Euro-Americans. This was unlike the tribal principles
of relatedness and a bond between the environment and their social system.
Traditional creation theology established a bond of a shared life force between
humans and non-human species and other forms of nature such as trees and water.
Another
vast difference in beliefs was portrayed by the Europeans and Indian people,
which involved the way women were revered and respected. Indian women tra-ditionally
shared with men a common spiritual heritage based on their relationship with
nature. Both Indian wo-men and men were
associated with the same founding ancestors without discrimination. Social
benefits and social responsibilities were the same for both sexes. Many of these tribal societies held women as
responsible for the social well-being of the entire village and there was an
equal distribution of goods along with strong efforts in-stalled to protect the
welfare of children and elders.
Conversely,
Europeans did not permit women to be placed in charge of religious practices. It
was considered by a multitude of Europeans that children were to be con-trolled
and punished instead of treated as gifts granted to them by divinity. European
males owned the property when they first came to this country and women were to
be subservient to men. For the longest time in European history and the history
of this country after the arrival of the Europeans, men were permitted to treat
women as they saw fit. Women were considered property of the men.
Indian
people did not fight over religion, and their form of spirituality was of a
personal nature with the Great Mystery.
During the last 50 years instability has been on the rise within a lot
of institutions including religious do-mains. The hidden agendas of these
institutions are being exposed. The accuracy and authenticity of the massive
amount of data made available today is in question. Chris-tian dogma falls into
this same category, which continues to be fully entrenched within many
religious denominations.
A
multitude of Native American people are at a loss and do not know where to turn
for solace and hope because of the major cultural and spiritual disruptions
they were forced to endure throughout history. Native American traditional
spiritual practices were outlawed in this country from the late 1800s until
1978. Before this cultural and spiritual disruption occurred, the spiritual
heritage of the traditional Indian people defined their culture, their way of
life, their basic rights, their religious and cultural cere-monies, their
patterns of survival, and their identity.
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