1993 issue 8 - his story - gods providence, the indian as environmentalist - counsel of chalcedon

8/12/2019 1993 Issue 8 - His Story - Gods Providence, The Indian as Environmentalist - Counsel of Chalcedon

1/3

The

Indian as nvironmentalist

Indian was endowed with a great,

overriding reverence for the eanh and

its ecplogical well-being." Evidence

for this assenion s all too abundant.

AMn

M

josephy, jr., in his book The

Indian Heritage of America, ascribes

to the Indian a "sacred attachment to

the land and a reverence for nature

If.you are around forty (or older),

you can remember, no doubt, one of

the more famous anti-litter television

commercials of the mid-sixties. The

~ y p i c a l Arllerican family" is shown

tooling down the road

in

their Chevy

having a typically American good time,

when suddenly, they throw trash out that is incomprehensible to most

of the

cat

window. Thecam:eraslowly

whites.

john Coll er,

former

pans from the trash in the highway up Commissioner ofIndian Affairs, notes

to the roadside where a stately Indian . that the Indian (before the coming of

sits

on

horseback. Asthecameramoves the white man) lived

in

"perfect

in,

we see a big tear ron down his ecological balance with the forest, the

cheek. ' The lesson was

dear

and plain, the desen, the waters and the

powerful: "Wt wasn't for these low-life animal life."

palefaCe slobs, the country would be

;'

Theearth,sowearetold,wasloved

nat, clean, andbeatitiful" (I.e., like

if'

byihe

Indian as his ''mother.''

You

wa5when the Indians had the larid all , ask me to plow the ground Shallltake

to themselves) , Because of this , ad 'a knife and tear my mother's bosom? ,

campaign, nearly the entire "Tee-Vee" . ,

You

ask me

to

dig for stone Shall I

genel'lltion gJ:ew

up

ashamed of being dig under her skin for her bones?

of European descent.

You

ask me to cut grass and make hay

Okay,

$0

maybe that last statement and sell it, and be rich like white men

is a l itt le exaggerated. It is true, But how dare I cut off my mother's

however, that what was impliCit in hair," so (supposedly) spoke Smohalla,

that television image, has become a Columbian hasin leader.

explicit,in the thinking '


2/3

sturgeon." AnllthesewerenotsmaUfish

either.

Some

of

h

sturgeon in Governor

Dale's nets were twelve

feet

long.

Salmon were so abundant in the

Connecticut river that farm laborers

wo1,llg,

not

acc;ept

them as food more

than once a week. Off the coast of

Virginia, crabs ran to a foot

in

length.

A traveler reported regarding the

lobsters coming out

of

New York Bay,

"those a foot long are better for serving

at

table." He meant

in

comparison to

the

five

and six-footers that were being

caught.

The numbers of grey and black

squirrels provoked. the people of

Pennsylvania

to

place a bounty them

because they were eating so much of

the grain. Over600,000 were killed in

one year alone. Bison roamed the

prairies

in

herds estimated around 50

million Thus,

for

any tribe to exhaust

the land and resources of an area of a

country

like this is indication of

astonishing ecological insenSitivity.

Someone notify the Environmental

Protection Agency and

demand

reparations

Native

Americans

were not

indisposed to using fire to save time

and

energy in hunting. Cabeza de

Vaca, the Spanishexplorer who crossed

much

.of the Southeast during the

1530's, noted that the Ignaces Indians

ofTexas went about, "witha firebrand,

setting fire to the plains and timber so

as to drive off the mosqUitoes, and also

to get lizards and similar things which

they eat, to come out of the soil. In the

same manner they kill deer . . . "

The pollution

and

destruction

causedby this profligate use of

fire

was

substantial. Thousands of acres of

forests were l;mmed just to run the

game out of hem. Unlike our modem

paper companies, the Indians had no

ability (nor did they give any thought)

to replanting. In 1602, the Spanish

explorer Vizcaino reported that near

San Diego the Indians "made so many

_._ ._ -

columns of smoke on the mainland

that atnight it looked like a procession

and in the

daytime

thesky

was overcast.

The hunting practicesof he Indians

were often wasteful in the extreme.

The most common way of hunting

buffalo was by stampeding them over

cliffs. This procedure resulted in the

destruction

of

far more buffalo than

they could possibly use. Explorers

Louis and Clark wrote, "Today we

passed

. . .

the remains of a vast many

mangled carcasses of

Buffalo

which

had

been driven over a precipice of

120

feet

by the Indians

St

pelished;

..

. they created a most horrid stench

.

The Arapaho of eastern Colorado

stampeded buffalo to death by setting

uncontrolled grass

fires

on the prairies.

Only the best animals were butchered.

The rest were left for the vultures or

their tribal enemies. Father Louis

Hennepin noted as early as 1684, that

the Indians would often kill "forty or

fifty [buffalo], but took only the

Tongues, and some other of the best

Pieces . . I

Many point to the practice of the

Indians to seek a tree's forgiveness

before cutting it or to ask an animal's

pardon before killing it as proof

of

their "profound reverence for Mother

Nature" (not to be picky, but I have

never heard of any Indian asking the

pardon ofahumanbeingbefore killing

him -- this courtesy apparently

extended only to flora and fauna). The

explanation for this practice has

nothing whatever to do with "love for

Mother earth" however.

The Indians believed that the gods

who ruled over nature (and

in

it) were

jealous of their dominion and thus,

had to be appeased when taking food

or raw materials. To refuse to ask

forgiveness was to invite the wrath of

the spirit-world. It was the fear of

demons, nota concern for the balance of

nature that drove the Indian in this and

somanyotherpracticesthatsendmodern

new-agers into flights of ecstasy.

The truth is, as typical pagans, the

Indians

had

no aesthetic appreciation

for the wonders of nature at all. We

who have grown up

in

the Christian

West, who view the Creation as the

work of

an

all-wise, all-holy God, are

used to "standing in

awe" of His

handiwork. We forget however, that

the pagan, evolutionary world-view

has no basis for any appreciation for

the world. You

don t

admire the

handiwork of an accident.

Ake Hultkrantz,

in

his book Belief

andWorship in Native NorthAmerica,

has noted,

An

educated Senecan

Indianwell initiated into the traditions

and values 0 f his people once told me

of the widely divergent reactions of

Indians and whites

when

they move to

new regions. The white man,

he

said,

is impressed

by

the appearance

of

the

landscape and meditates over its

beauty, whereas the Indian first of all

asks, where are

my

medicines?" The

Indian did

not

wax eloquent over the

turning of the seasons, the beauties of

a sunset, or anything else around him.

I twas all viewed

in

a purely utilitarian

fashion. There is

no

foundation for the

appreciation of creation (nor is there

any basis for caring for it) i you

do

not

believe in a beneficent, sovereign

Creator.

If

the Indian had such a careless

attitude,

how

can

men

get away with

their claims for Indian ecological

sensitivity? Make

no

mistake - these

men are no fools. They Imow that

modem

Americans know little about

the past. They also know that most

moderns will do nothing to find out

the truth. Thus these "experts" can

makelarge, unsupportedclaims, often

inventing them out of whole cloth,

and do so without the least fear of

contradiction.

One grand illustration of this came

atthe

1992 celebration of"Earth Day."

The organizers encouraged religious

and political leaders to read a letter

Chief Seattle had supposedly written

October, 1993 l THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon

l

;n


3/3

in 1854 to U.S. President Franklin

Pierce.

In

this letter the chief declares.

the earth to be "our mother" and

complains about he trashing of the

environment by the white man

("I

have seelia thousand rotting buffaloes

on the prairies left by the white man

who shot them from a passing train").

,

Prom

the perSpective of the radical

eco,freaks,

it

is a heart,warming

indictment

of

Western [read,

"Christian") Culture.

The only problem

is

that Chief

Seattle never wrote these words (as

aliyone'with the simplest knowledge

of Indian

attitudes

towatd the

environment 'would suspect). The

words were composed by a Texas

.scriptwriter named Ted Perry, who,

ironically ' enough,

was

writing the

script fora 1971 film prOduced by the

Southern Baptist Radio and Television

Commission. Chief .Seattle (who

actuallywas a baptizedRoman Catholic

and.a

slave

owner)never s.aid anything

along these lines.

as far

as we know.

Did

this

stop Earth Day officials

from

using this fraudulent letter? Not on

the

life

of your recyclable carry,bag it

is still quoted, preferably with tears,

by the Sensitive

everywhere.

This same "letter" was the basis for

thebest selling children'sbQOkBrother

Eagle, Sister Sky. The bOokis pure

eco'propaganda on a child's ' level.'

When questioned about the

authenticity of the letter,

the

book's

illustrator replied, Basically,

I

don't

. know what he [Chief Seattle] said

but I

do

know that

the

Native American

peoplelived thisphilosophy, and that's

what's important.

He

never bothered

revealingwhat preclsely :onvinced him

.that

Native

American people lived

this philosophy. Thlslsallillustrative

of our great problem.

i .

We are being over,run by foppish

Humpty,Dttmprys who believe that

truth

Is

what they say It

Is.

ThIs, in

itself,

is

nothing new.

We

have

always

]w.d SUCQ characters iI: ourmtion and

they are justas ridiculoustoday as they

have

everbeen The difference between

today and yesterday Is that they used

to be

recognized as ridiculous .Now

they are heard reverently, as infallible

oracles. Their counsels of death are

received with inexpressible joy and

made into honored public policies. It

is

ll ,-:ery

sad., But

so

Ita,lways

Is

in

nations that

e l i e v ~

themselves

to

be

wis r

thanGod.n

First 35 Years

ForoverlOoyearsAmericanshavebeensubjectedtohistoricalmisin,

f o t m a t i o ~ We have been given

lies

for

truth

and myths for facts.

MOdem, unbel1eving historians have hidden the truth of our nation's

his1pryfrorli us.

Americtl:TheFirst35

Years ,not only

oorrects

the

lies,

but

also points

01.lt things

overlooked by modeqt historians.

It

interprets American history

from

a Ouistian perspectiveso hatyou

hearnotonlywhathappened,bywhyithappened-andwhatitmeans

to tis :today .32 lectures on 16-90 minute

cassettes,

200 page note,

book; i6page study guide, lecture outlines, index ; bibliography.

special rate for

Counsel of

Chalcedon

readers-

_

--

AMERICA: The First

350 '(

ears-$64.95 x _

Louisiana residents

add

7 sales tax (. 'JJy.):

SHIPPING AND HANDLING; Add 10%

(15%

UPS) -

(Check or MoneyOrder) Total Enclosed

.(name)

(Street Address or

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PLEASE ALLOW WEEKSFORDEUVERY

Send self'addressed stamped envelope

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l

' THE COlJNSEL of ChaIcedon

'

October,

1993

1993 issue 8 - his story - gods providence, the indian as environmentalist - counsel of chalcedon

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