|
People ask, “What is it that is the same as the European God?” “Do we have many gods?” some people ask and there is no simple answer to this.
In Mohawk they call it Sonkwaiatison which literally translated means, “He made us”. Most Indian elder people refer to the Creator as a male and that the Creator comes from the direction of the Upper World or Sky (for lack of better words) and that because he is a male, or at least as though he was a male, they say that the earth is like his wife and the interactions between the male and the female are what makes the reproduction of all life.
Some elder people used to say that you are never supposed to complain if it rains a lot; you are not supposed to complain if it is hot out and not supposed to complain if it is really cold out, nor are you supposed to complain if it is a sunny day either. All of these things are sent by Creator and Mother Earth and so the real Indian people anywhere in North America, or the real original people anywhere in the world, never complain about it being too hot or too cold or too rainy or too snowy or too windy. The elder people who are lost spiritually are the ones who complain because they are never satisfied. They complain if there is too much rain; they complain if there is too much cold; they complain if there is too much wind or whatever, but you never hear real people complain except to give their gratitude for what is.
This has been said by some elders, one of them being my Grandmother, one day when I was complaining about it being foggy out because I was young and I needed to take a long trip. I remarked that maybe I should wait until tomorrow because of the fog. That is when she said, “You are not meant to complain because that is when Creator and Mother Earth are having an affair and they are creating the fog which is perfect for this moment”. To complain about the fog interferes with universal element of truth. There would be none of the elements to make life go on if those things do not happen.
One time when I was young, a university professor asked my Great Grandfather, “What is God?” I was the interpreter for him, that is why I remember what he said. When I asked my Great Grandfather what the man from the university wanted to know, “What is God,” he said to tell the man from the university that he must try to find an adding machine that is bigger than the biggest barn in this area if he wants to understand what God is. Supposing he finds an adding machine as big as the barn then he needs to count every fish in the lakes and the rivers and the seas and not miss one and then he needs to pull the lever to record that. Then he has to count every tree and every bush and not forget one in all of the world and pull the lever to record it. Then he has to count all the people of every nation and every child, even the baby just born minutes ago, and pull the lever again to record it. Then he must count all the birds and all the animals of the world, even every fly which is in the world and also every star that is in the world. He must count everything that lives. When he has done that, which would take several lifetimes, then he will push the lever and get the total of all those lives. “That is what I call God the Creator”.
Whoever made the Bible did not include everything that the world is supposed to know, because from what I hear just by listening to gossip and rumors on the radio shows on Sunday, they quote the Bible as saying that humans were made in the image of God. I think that most native elder people from the old time would agree with that but only on the condition that everyone understands it wasn’t only humans who were made in the image of God but the birds and eagles, the fish, the trees and everything that lives. This is the way native traditional people seem to understand it before and now.
So with everything that lives, Creator is in there and so is Mother Earth, because if there is no Mother Earth there would be no food for birds and animals to live, and if there is no water they would die of thirst, and if there is no sun the food would not grow, and the food on table would not exist and so this is what the traditional native people before and now tend to believe and understand. And so the definition for what God or Creator is that God the Creator is such a complex source of power or energy there is no way it can just be Man who is created in the image. So that is what I am saying about the Creator God because most people tend to think of it as Mickey Mouse when they think of Indians but it has nothing to do with Mickey Mouse: It has to do with the truth of the universe.
|
