Friday, December 01, 2006

Living in a tipi and Enlightenment

I wrote the following on my Xanga blog on October 29 of last year. I thought that, since I now have a blog dedicated to Indigenous Nations, it would be a good post.

+++++++++++++++++++++

We have mice in our house. I can hear them chewing on something and it's really annoying me. I thought I saw a mousetrap around somewhere, but when I looked again, it was gone. I think THEY moved it. This house isn't perfect. There's more that needs to be worked on than doesn't. Thus it seems that this meditation on Indian living spaces is worth citing.

Western white man expects to live in a sterile environment with as little interaction with other non-human (or even other humans!) creatures as possible. That's why we have exterminators, fences, hedges, and the like. That's why we get creeped out by bugs and don't have relationships with our neighbors.

If we lived in tipis, our lives would be much different. I daresay tipi living would work to counteract the general malaise that sets in for modern home or apartment dwellers. For one, you're always with your neighbors. Repairs are easy and inexpensive. If critters bother you, you can move away from them, rather than arranging for them to move away from you, which is harder.

"Chief Flying Hawk, a Sioux Indian of the Oglala clan, was a nephew of Sitting Bull; his full brother was Kicking Bear, who had been a leader of the ghost dances. Flying Hawk was born 'about full moon of March 1852,' a few miles south of Rapid City. As a youth he took part in tribal wars with the Crows and the Piegans and at the age of 24 had fought alongside the great Chief Crazy Horse when Custer's command was wiped out on the Little Bighorn in 1876. He bacame a chief at the age of 32. Later Flying Hawk joined Buffalo Bill's Show, Colonel Miller's 101 Ranch Show and the Sells-Floto Circus, and travelled throughout the country with each of them. He died at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, in 1931. In his old age, he said:

"The tipi is much better to live in; always clean, warm in winter, cool in summer; easy to move. The white man builds big house, cost much money, like big cage, shut out sun, can never move; always sick. Indians and animals know better how to live than white man; nobody can be in good health if he does not have all the time fresh air, sunshine and good water. If the Great Spirit wanted men to stay in one place He would make the world stand still; but He make it to always change, so birds and animals can move and always have green grass and ripe berries, sunlight to work and play, and night to sleep; summer for flowers to bloom, and winter for them to sleep; always changing; everything for good; nothing for nothing.

"The white man does not obey the Great Spirit; that is why the Indians never could agree with him."


--from "Touch the Earth: A Self-Portrait of Indian Experience," by T. C. McLuhan

+++++++++++++++++++++

Of course, Chief Flying Hawk speaks of much more than just living arangements. He is challenging the whole worldview of the white man, even the so-called "Christian" white man.

One of the big problems I have with referring to Christian mission work as "enlightenment" is that real mission work should be a two-way street. Missionary work is not teaching, but mutual edification. And if the missionary receives more than the "heathen," there's no problem. Every pre-Christian culture has knowledge of God. Some know quite a lot and have preserved this knowledge well. In our post-Christian era, however, we've already forgotten what we've learned from the Gospel. The message many so-called "Christians" proclaim is warped and poisoned by false doctrines and human passions and sins. This is one reason, I think, that many modern people have found the truths of pre-Christian spirituality appealing.

Now our task is to put together these "Old Testament" revelations of God together with the New, so that people can have the whole message of revealed truth. This is a very difficult task, it seems. Anyone have any ideas?

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home