Volume 4 Number 3
May 1965

Theodore B. Hetzel

Originally published in Friends Journal, January 15, 1963.

A COMMON practice of many American Indians was the quest of a vision. As a prerequisite to status and power, a young man would fast and pray for several days to achieve a mystical experience that would put him in touch with sources of spiritual power. The nature of the vision that filled the needs of a young warrior of the past would not satisfy either us or a young Indian of today, but the intention and the exercise of seeking to atune our lives to harmony with the universe could have value for us. Indians did live in a remarkably harmonious relationship with nature, so it may be worth our while to consider what they may be able to teach us. We may help them to a higher standard of living and to a longer life expectancy, while they may help us to "learn at last to shape a civilization in harmony with the earth."

In The Ecology of Man, Fraser Darling says, "The Christian religion as it has developed seems to hold quite firmly the view that man and the rest of creation are in different relations to God. I believe that this dualism has been disastrous in its effects on the planet through the medium of human behavior. How strange it is that, of all the races on the earth, only one tiny culture, the Hopi Indians of Arizona, should not only have behaved in such a manner as to have achieved conservation of habitat (for a few other cultures have also done that) but have raised this behavior to a vigorous intellectual and socio-religious principle."

Joseph Wood Krutch, who gave up teaching at Columbia University in order to listen to the voice of the desert which has been teaching Indians for thousands of years, writes that civilized man, "By trying to establish . . . exclusive possession of a soul, . . . actually succeeded in depriving himself of it. What we refuse to share with others we ultimately deny to ourselves. . . . Even if we should learn just in the nick of time not to destroy what is necessary for our own preservation, the mere determination to survive is not sufficient to save very much of the variety and beauty of the natural world." We need to learn the lesson of conservation, but even in conservation "The thing which is missing is love, some feeling for, as well as an understanding of, the inclusive community of rocks and soils, plants and animals, of which we are a part."

Let us heed the Tah Doh Dah Ho, the Onondaga chief, Keeper of the Council Fire of the Iroquois, who once said to me, quoting Deganawidah, founder of the Iroquois Confederacy, "Think not forever of yourselves, O chiefs, nor of your own generation. Think of the continuing generations of our families, think of grandchildren and of those yet unborn, whose faces are coming from beneath the ground." Only an Indian could have said that. Land is their mother, land is holy. It is not a merchantable commodity to exploit and discard. The land does not belong to them. They belong to it.

In The Man Who Killed the Deer, Frank Waters says, "Perhaps there would still be time to learn from these people, before they pass from this earth which was theirs and is now all men’s, the one truth that is theirs and shall be all men’s—the simple and monstrous truth of mankind’s solidarity with all that breathes and does not breathe, all that has lived and shall live again upon the unfathomed breast of the earth we trod so lightly, beneath the stars that glimmer less brightly but more enduringly than our own brief lives."

When it was said, some twenty centuries ago, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind" it apparently was not obvious what "all" was implicit in that commandment. We should now realize that we cannot love God and desecrate the earth. Soil erosion and watertable depletion due to get-rich-quick methods of land exploitation, the extermination of so-called predator animals, wasteful consumption of petroleum and other nonrenewable resources, nuclear explosions with radioactive debris, are all absolutely incompatible with love of God. We belong to the earth, not the earth to us. We must learn at last to shape a civilization in harmony with the earth.

In the political realm, also, we are indebted to Indians. The idea of the "noble savage" introduced to Europe the concept of government the consent of the governed, which returned to our shores to undergird our revolution. The government of the Six Nations Confederacy of the Iroquois inspired Benjamin Franklin to believe in the feasibility of a federation of American states. An editorial in the Harvard Law Review states, "The distinctive political ideals of young America owed much to a rich Indian democratic tradition, a debt often recognized by statements of our leading colonists. The pattern of a state within a state that we call federalism, the habit of treating chiefs as servants of the people instead of masters, the insistence that the community must respect the diversity of men and their dreams—all these were part of the American way of life before 1492."

Indians typically had no privileged groups. Responsibility and authority were thrust on the most able individuals. It would have been shameful to seek leadership or eminence. Old people were revered; "no matter your age may be, you will always continue to do whatever you are able to do." Children were treated with great gentleness and permissiveness. Perhaps it is this love and acceptance of each other that is the reason for the low incidence of mental illness among Indians. It may also be the reason for the therapeutic effectiveness of "sings" by medicine men. The sick person is made to feel important and much beloved by all his family and neighbors.

In our desire to help Indians and in our services to them we need to learn patience, cooperation, respect. Some other peoples, more powerful and outspoken, have taught us that if we wish to intervene in their affairs we may do so only on their terms. And this is what we do in Point Four and Peace Corps projects. There is room for improvement in this regard in our domestic operations. For instance, Indian parents are rarely given any responsibility or power to establish policy or curriculum in the schools their children attend. Many self-appointed representatives of Christianity, with conflicting interpretations and claims to unique truth, have done more to harm than to help Indian individuals and communities.

One of the most prominent American Indians, Ben Reifel, a Harvard Doctor of Public Administration who is now a member of Congress, has long been lecturing Indians on the values of time, saving, and work. These concepts have been alien to Indians, but they are essential for advancement in the white man’s world. The Sioux do not even have words for time, late, wait. Indians are conscious of time in matters that are of importance to them, such as their religious ceremonies, but they consider present reality to be more important than future possibility. We ourselves are willing to forego present benefits for future greater ones. But after awhile that future becomes this present. Do we save only to hoard? What fiends torment us that we study, work, and save, leaving too little time for our own true selves, for our fellow man, for the marvelous world around us?

Are you earning more money and enjoying it less? Then you should reduce your requirements, simplify your lives, find joy in the present, live in harmony with your surroundings, and respect the other man’s vision—like an Indian.

There are many things we should do to help Indians, and one of them is to say thanks for benefits conferred, for inspirations that may give balance to our lives in troubled times, and for insights that may increase the chance of survival of our culture that seems determined to bum itself out. As D. H. Lawrence has said, even though the Indian will never again possess America, "his ghost will."