YOU MAY NOTICE IN THIS PAGE I DEAL MORE WITH AMERICAN INDIAN LORE AND CULTURE, THAN IN MY PREVIOUS PAGE, WHICH DEALT MAINLY WITH OUR MOTHER EARTH.
TO THE WISE ONES.
the elders who hold and keep bright the light
of one true tradition, no matter the color of
their skin, or the name of their religion,
I HONOR YOU
And also to the generations who follow, that you
may remember, and honor those who have gone before you
When the Indian has forgotten the music of his
forefathers, when the sound of the tomtom is no more,
when noisy jazz has drowned the melody of the flute,
he will be a dead Indian. When from him has been
taken all that is his, all that he has visioned in
nature, all that has come to him from infinite sources
he then, truly, will be a dead Indian. His spirit will
be gone, and though he walks crowded streets, he will
in truth, be---dead!
STANDING BEAR
To many American Indian peoples, the earth itself was thought to be an animal---a giant turtle floating in a vast, endless sea. Some still refer to North America as "Turtle Island".
Other animals have loomed large as well in the conceptions of the cosmos. The Pawnee people of the Plains, for example, said that the Great Spirit had propped up the heavens by placing a huge buffalo bull in the northwestern corner of the sky---the direction from which great herds of migrating buffalo appeared in the fall. According to the legend, each year one hair would fall from the giant bull. When all the hairs fell out, the world would come to an end
The Algonquin people of the eastern woodlands believed that the same spirit that animated the great white hare, sometimes entered the sun as it raced toward the horizon. Among the Dakota Indians, an owl known as Hin-Han was thought to guard the entrance to the Milky Way, which the souls of the dead had to cross in order to reach the land of the spirits. Any soul that displeased the owl would be tossed into a bottomless abyss.
As old as the Earth itself, animals not only helped to create the human race in a number of Indian tales but also served as mentors who taught people the mysteries of the natural world. Over time, it was said, people grew proud and forgot many of those secrets, but their descendants retained the power to salvage the lost wisdom by acknowledging their debt the the animals and heeding their ancient lessons. This communication remains possible because the barrier between humans and animals is very slight.
Both groups have souls, the legends attest, and animals have been known to transform themselves into human form at will. To the Haida people of British Columbia, the ability of bears to walk upright and use their forepaws as hands signifies their ancient kinship to humans---an affinity that once made it possible for bears to talk and take human mates.
