Winona LaDuke, a contemporary leader from White Earth Anishinabe land, tells us that: You are always on her, and your father is above.
It is just like a sucking baby on a mother.Īlways remember, your grandmother is underneath your feet always. Whatever grows in the earth is your mother. In between the earth and the heavens, that is your father. Up in the heavens, the Mysterious One, that is your grandfather. Slow Buffalo, a teacher, is remembered to have said about a thousand years ago: Perhaps this is related to the overwhelmingly positive attitude Native Americans have had toward the Creator and the world of “nature,” or what I call the “Wemi Tali,” the “All Where” in the Delaware-Lenápe language. For myself, I never take a drink of water from a spring, without being mindful of his goodness.” 7Īlthough it is certainly true that Native Americans ask for help from spiritual beings, it is my personal observation that giving thanks, or, in some cases, giving payment for gifts received, is a salient characteristic of most public ceremonies. “We thank the Great Spirit for all the benefits he has conferred upon us. She was fed by two hunters, and in return she gave them, after one year, maize, beans, and tobacco. This gift arrived when a beautiful woman appeared from the sky. Many years ago, the Great Spirit gave the Shawnee, Sauk, Fox, and other peoples maize or corn. That’s the first thing when we wake up in the morning, is to be thankful to the Great Sprit for the Mother Earth: how we live, what it produces, what keeps everything alive.” 6 We’re thankful that we’re on this Mother Earth. You always love me no matter how old I get.” 5Or as Joshua Wetsit, an Assiniboine elder born in 1886, put it: “But our Indian religion is all one religion, the Great Spirit. As a Cahuilla elder, Ruby Modesto, has stated: “Thank you mother earth, for holding me on your breast. An overriding characteristic of Native North American religion is that of gratitude, a feeling of overwhelming love and thankfulness for the gifts of the Creator and the earth/universe. But more than that, indigenous Americans tend to see this living world as a fantastic and beautiful creation engendering extremely powerful feelings of gratitude and indebtedness, obliging us to behave as if we are related to one another. 4Įuropean writers long ago referred to indigenous Americans’ ways as “animism,” a term that means “life-ism.” And it is true that most or perhaps all Native Americans see the entire universe as being alive-that is, as having movement and an ability to act. also know that, being a living part of the earth, we cannot harm any part of her without hurting ourselves. This can be done only if all of us, Indians and non-Indians alike, can again see ourselves as part of the earth, not as an enemy from the outside who tries to impose its will on it. We must try to use the pipe for mankind, which is on the road to self-destruction. This lovely being, which is alive to its last recesses and understands every feeling.” 3 For a warrior there can be no greater love. but the earth knows that Genaro loves it and it bestows on him its care. Juan Matus told Carlos Castaneda that Genaro, a Mazateco, “was just now embracing this enormous earth. Thus the Mother Earth is a living being, as are the waters and the Sun. We shall lay to rest in the ground with the earth mother’sĬoming out standing into the daylight of their Sun father, to When our earth mother is replete with living waters, Thus the Creators are our family, our Grandparents or Parents, and all of their creations are children who, of necessity, are also our relations.Īn ancient Ashiwi (Zuñi) prayer-song states: Perhaps the most important aspect of indigenous cosmic visions is the conception of creation as a living process, resulting in a living universe in which a kinship exists between all things.
The Great Spirit is no old man with a beard.” 1 The concept perhaps resembles the elohim of the Jewish Genesis, the plural form of eloi, usually mistranslated as “God,” as though it were singular. The Lakota medicine man Lame Deer says that the Great Spirit “is not like a human being. Third, the agents of creation are seldom pictured as human, but are depicted instead as “wakan” (holy), or animal-like (coyote, raven, great white hare, etc.), or as forces of nature (such as wind/breath). Second, it is common to have a source of creation that is plural, either because several entities participate in creation or because the process as it unfolds includes many sacred actors stemming from a First Principle (Father/Mother or Grandfather/Grandmother). First, it is common to envision the creative process of the universe as a form of thought or mental process.
Still, several characteristics stand out. Each nation and community has its own unique traditions. The cosmic visions of indigenous peoples are significantly diverse.
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