Tag Archives: Indigenous Science

Dreaming with the Ancestors (PDF)

Dreaming with the Ancestors

by Teresa MacColl, MA

International Association for the Study of Dreams

Psiber-Dreaming Conference

September 5, 2008

Dreaming with the Ancestors

by Teresa MacColl, MA

In Irish myth, the Salmon is the oldest and wisest of all the animals, and it was said that any person who ate the Salmon of Wisdom would gain the gift of prophecy… they would be able to see their future. By seeking and working with the Salmon of Wisdom, we can gain an understanding that is rooted deep in the collective awareness of all humanity. By remembering the dreams and stories of our ancestors, we can remember our ancestor’s future, and reclaim a more balanced, holistic, and ecologically sustainable world.

My name is Teresa Rae MacColl, and my tribes are Celtic from Ireland and Scotland, Teutonic, and Anglo-Saxon. I am a graduate of Dr. Apela Colorado’s Indigenous Mind (IM) Master’s Program at Naropa University, where I chose to research my Celtic Indigenous roots or rather my roots chose me that’s how the ancestors work.

When I first met Apela, she called me “Fish Girl” , and she said to me “I’ve waited years for a Fish Person to come along!” I had been working with white sturgeon in the fisheries department at UC Davis at the time, designing fish ladders for the sturgeon. Apela is from Wisconsin and her tribe, the Oneida, have a deep reverential connection to the sturgeon. So Apela too is a “Fish Person”.

After working in the sciences most of my adult life, where one is trained to not talk about or have feelings or emotions connected to the animals they work with, I had finally found a teacher and mentor who I knew loved and cared about fish and ecology in a very deep spiritual, ancestral, and traditional way, and I knew I was on the right path. So began my training as an indigenous scientist.

Indigenous science is a holistic discipline that considers nature to be alive and intelligent. Unlike western science, the data collected from indigenous science are not used to control the forces of nature. Instead, the data shows ways and means of accommodating nature.

Students conduct research using the critical distinctions that indigenous scientists rely upon (please see list below). This research offers a unique opportunity for students to encounter their ancestors and their whole self with the support of mind, body and spirit.

The indigenous scientist is an integral part of the research process and there is a defined process for insuring this integrity.

All of nature is considered to be intelligent and alive, thus and active research partner.

The purpose of indigenous science is to maintain balance

Compared to western time/space notions, indigenous science collapses time and space with the result that our fields of inquiry and participation extend into and overlap with past and present.

Indigenous science is concerned with relationships, we try to understand and complete our relationships with all living things.

Indigenous science is holistic, drawing on all the senses including the spiritual and psychic.

The end point of an indigenous scientific process is a known and recognized place. This point of balance, referred to by my own tribe as the Great Peace, is both peaceful and electrifyingly alive. In the joy of exact balance, creativity occurs, which is why we can think of our way of knowing as a life science.

When we reach the moment/place of balance we do not believe that we have transcended — we say that we are normal! Always we remain embodied in the natural world.

Humor is a critical ingredient of all truth seeking, even in the most powerful rituals. This is true because humor balances gravity.1

Indigenous Mind is a masters program where students study and research their own indigenous tribal ancestors earth-based spiritual traditions within a Western Academic framework.

1Colorado

Students individually and collectively go through a deep decolonization and ancestral remembrance process. This is especially important for those of us who are of European ancestry, who are more removed and disconnected from our indigenous roots, or even having awareness that we have indigenous ancestors. Students spend time with traditional native elders and learn what it means to remember who they are in an indigenous tradition, and make an ancestral journey to the land of their ancestors. The quest is to access earth-based spirituality, remember the traditional ways of ones own genealogical ancestors without appropriating from other cultures, healing both wounded masculine and feminine, maintaining balance, and promoting inter-tribal healing and understanding.

In 1855 Chief Seattle warned the white settlers of America that “when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men”, it would signal “the end of living and the beginning of survival.” Those American settlers had forgotten their own native tradition in favor of a religion that taught man he must “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish in the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Gen.I.26). This view of the natural environment denied there is any spirit in nature.

Most people of European ancestry believe their culture is rooted in Christianity, and are unaware of the tens of thousands of years of pre-Christian heritage and spirituality preceding the last two millennia of Christian experience. Christianity is relatively recent, and before it was the pre-dominant religion in Western Europe, most people practiced a spirituality that wasn’t expressed in sacred texts, but which arose out of the experience of being sensitive to the land and sky — to the changing seasons, to the power of the hills and rivers, to the mystery of the stars, and the movements of the sun and moon.2

To the ancient Celts, the realms of the Otherworld were in full view all the time, which included the ancestors, the deities, and the sidhe or faeries. In the Scottish Highlands, you find the “two sights” or an da shealladh in Gaelic, also known as the “second sight”, which denotes the capacity to see both the normal waking world (ordinary reality) and the world of spirit and energy that is intertwined and connected to this one. We find the two sights among certain individuals, who are the dream-seers and the vision-seers.3

When St. Patrick came to Ireland in AD 432, he spent nearly 30 years traveling throughout the countryside bringing Christianity to the local people and establishing churches and monastic foundations upon many Druidic sacred sites. He was not the first one to bring Christianity to Ireland, but he was the one to abolish the pagan rites of the Druids at Tara. Supposedly, first he got rid of the snakes, and then he got rid of the dragons. There were no snakes in Ireland. The Celts used the serpent imagery as a symbol of the universal life energy, a positive symbol of the goddess. So this legend of St. Patrick ridding the land of snakes and dragons was about the conversion of the pagan priests and the killing of the goddess, the feminine. St. Patrick also banned different forms of divination as “giving offerings to the demons”, which included the dream-seers and the vision seers.4

2 Carr-Gomm, 4-11.

3 MacEowen, 253

4 Concannon, 150-151.

“Your dreams are your doorways” —

Auntie Poepoe, Hawaiian elder

Much of our post-modern world does not have elders or intact cultures to link the modern and dissociative way of studying our dreams, with the ancient integrated ways of our ancestors. So in the IM program, we are attempting to reclaim what our indigenous ancestors did, and that is to use our dreams as guides, and to connect with our ancestors, and dream tribally.

Students learn how to understand and interpret dream messages from the ancestors and the spiritual world, and are taught by elders how dreams work on multiple levels to impart messages and understandings for today, and simultaneously reconstitute tribal ways. Tools for understanding dreams as guides in the waking world, particularly in their propensity for cross-cultural understanding and healing, are also provided. Dreams are one way the ancestors “speak” to us.

Our ancestors used to dream together as a tribal group, and they would share their collective dreams with the community. As we re-create a tribal dream community, we are able to gather up and perceive patterns and large writ ancestral communications that may come only to a group, and may be too much for a single person, or perhaps the dream is unifying people towards something that involves a group. We can perceive a collective Gestalt.5 In our IM tribal dream community, we collect and record our dreams together in a “dream database”, where we can look at our dreams collectively and track different patterns and themes in relation to the phases and signs of the moon. Working with dreams using indigenous protocol has enabled us to bring back the sacred art of tribal dreaming

5. A structure, configuration, or a pattern of physical, biological, or psychological phenomena so integrated as to constitute a functional unit with properties not derivable by summation of its parts (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gestalt).

“It’s time to make your dreams come true.”

-Mr. Hale Makua, Hawaiian elder

IM Dream Data:

Those of us that are the “Dreamers” started dreaming with and for each other or what I like to call “dream weaving”, and the collective dreams give a more informed story of what the dream messages were communicating to us. Ancestral information would come through the dreams of others as well our own individual dreams. Working with the community, one let’s go of their attachment to the dreams, because sometimes we are being “dreamed through”. The other message that comes through is that Mother Earth needs healing, and through our collective dream research we find that our ancestors used this dream information such as this to help maintain balance and harmony.

Below are some examples of storytelling through the dreams, and “dream weaving” with other students, connected to the ancestors and the land of the ancestors. The first dream I had is an example of one of many dreams I had that was connected to someone else, their ancestors, and the land of their ancestors. I was being “dreamed through”, and “seeing” ancestral information for someone else (this is how my Celtic ancestors dreamed, they had dreams of prophecy or the “second sight”) but also there was a message and work for me in the dream. What we are also finding is that we are becoming a global tribal dram community, and that ultimately the dreams and the “work” transcends space and time. For me personally, I know the dreams I have are connected to healing Mother Earth, which is not separate from healing and finding balance in the masculine and feminine within ourselves.

Study Notes on Social Welfare (PDF)

April 9, 87.

Study notes on Social Welfare. I.

Note I. On Sensuality of Human Relations.

Ref: Gil/Gil Toward Social and Economic Justice (Conference M. 23-25, ’84. Brandeis U.) Schenkman Pub.Co. 1985. HN65 T683.

R.H. Tawney Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, Hazell, Watson & Viney, 1926

Karl Polanyi The Great Transformation, Beacon, 1944.

Morris Bermann The Reenchantment of the World, Cornell U press, 1982.

Golo Mann The History of Germany Since 1789, Penguin, 1974 (1968)

That contradictions move the history

“The forced Choice: Making Change vs. Helping People” by Ann Withorn (in Gil/Gil p 3) talks of the history of social welfare in the U.S. The history is a series of struggles among “humanitarians”, “social reformers”, and “bureaucrats”. The struggle shaped what Social Welfare is. As such the “social welfare” is a bundle of contradictions. But one could ask what ever moved in the history without contradictions. Only the lifeless and immobile can be in a perfectly unified harmony and static equilibrium. Motion needs non-equilibrium, which is contradiction in a political language.

Social welfare, in the form we have today, started under Bismarck in the 1880’s (Golo Mann p 375) [The reason for Bismarck to initiate the “Social Insurance” is said to be an election gimick to appease workers and lure them out of the camp of the Social Democrat Party.] And the history of Germany is a bundle of contradictions, in which the history of Socialism is a part. Marx was there with Bismark. And the emergence of Nazi—National Socialist Party—under Hitler was not unrelated to the history of Social Welfare there.

Before that time, European peasants and workers had “communal” mutual-help networks. It was destroyed as a part of “the ancient regime” in the bourgeoise revolution. The term “Fraternity” in the three word slogan of French Revolution disappeared from the Declaration of Human Right 1792. The revolutionaries kept only “Liberty” and “Equality”, and only in individualistic senses.

The Socialism, of both “Utopian” and “Scientific” inclinations, was a response of the dying “community” to the Bourgeoise Modernization which breeded both “Socialization” and “Individualization”. And the modern “Nation-State” emerged with centralized ruling power, atop huge bureaucracy, military, industry, nationwide monetary system, and mass-education. If we count those huge organizations in the side of the “Socialization” process, then the “Individualization” is a retreat of people into small “fox holes” for each under the heavy bombardments by the Socialization Process. This is another contradiction that moved the modern history.

2. Social Welfare as a ruin of communal life

Social Welfare try to regain some aspects of the “commune” of the “ancient regime”. In the “good old days” of the “primitive commune life, people took care of neighbours in troubles. They looked after children in communal co-operation. Foods were shared in many occasions. Enjoyments in life were by and large in the form of communal celebration. Even disputes between man and wife were often “appealed” to the community and settled on street.

We do still use the public forum for marriage ceremony and funeral rite. But we lost the sense of “community” even in them. We think of them as “Private” matter, despite their public display. Whether or not we believe in humanism, liberalism, socialism, or capitalism in our intellectual life, our “feeling” is deeply “individualistic”. That is to say, we lost our roots to the “community”.

People, not too long ago, used to do things for each other on the basis of “human relationship”. Their relationship was “Sensual”. Today, we have replaced it by Money or Power. Although “Humanitarian” sentiments emerged with the Bourgeoise Revolution, with the “rationalism”, and “materialism”, — note that the “humanism” as we know is a new phenomenon in the Modern Age—, it stayed outside the “distance” considered to be “Sensual”. We literally lost “Human Touch”. Even the articles in Gil’s volume keep the cold bourgeoise “distance” from Human Sensuality. Except Pamela Colorado’s article, none of the authors collected in the volume come close enough to talk about the need of “Human touch” in Social Welfare. [see E.T. Hall The Hidden Dimension, for the “distance”]

Human beings are “sensual”. And the very basis of our relationships of any kind is sensuality of ours. Yet, in our social interactions, we do not consider it “rational”, nor “decent” to admit that, in other than “private” contexts. We use the Power of Command, or Exchange of Money for the social transactions.

Even the essay from Feminist point of view (Feminist Thought Structure; by Ruth A. Brandwein) does not touch the “Sensuality” of humans. Nor the article titled “Humans, Nations, and Nature” (by Elise Boulding) touches on what is it that makes “Human Relations”; i.e. Sensuality. Of course, in an academic conference in North America today it is hardly expected any way. [I do sense that Elise Boulding would gladly discuss Sensuality in informal small group discussion. She could even be passionate about it. But in formal academic conferences, it is not “respectable” nor “intellectual” enough to talk about Sensuality.]

But, the existence of a taboo does tell us about the “cultural” context in which thinking and practices in Social Welfare are carried.

3. Sensuality as Hypothesis.

I imagine that good academics would challenge me to demonstrate that the Sensuality is fundamental to human relations. I shall have to attempt that elsewhere. In the meantimes, I mention Reich’s theory of Sensuality (metaphysics of “Orgon”) explained by Morris Bermann in The Reenchantment of the World. [Cornell U. Press 1982] Bermann’s exposition is highly recommended for its reference to the historical dynamics in which “return to sensuality” has become significant and urgent. Also, there are literatures on this subject from Freudian Psychoanalysis — Freud, Fromm, Marcuse, Foucault, et al.

But, once recognized as a “hypothesis” (metaphysics) or even as a “suspicion”, the consideration of Sensuality would have changed the “perspective” and hence the course of the whole discussion. Both issues of “Making Change” (of socio-political-economic-cultural structure) and “Helping People” can be seen as problems of how much Sensuality our society is able to handle and in what forms (ritual formats). We are asked of our competence to handle our need of Sensual touches, in what extent, in what contexts.

Abstract notions like “Social and Economic Justice” are not only more obscure than sensuality but also a means to “rationalization”, i.e. concealment of, the fundamental issue/problem.

Also, I equated “forms” and “ritual formats”. That is, for itself, a deviation from the “rationalistic” rhetoric of the article by Withorn and others. I imagine that many of Social Welfare Experts, Professionals and Researchers are familiar with Social Psychology, Psychoanalysis etc., if not theoreticians in those fields. Many of them read Freud, Marcuse, Foucault, et al., or they themselves have written texts on Sex, Sexuality, Sensuality, etc. Yet, there is no sign in Withorn’s lecture that their knowledge on Human Sensuality is their “working knowledge”.

To be sure, display of knowledge is not the purpose of the conference. Rather, they were discussing serious problems in the field of Social Welfare Works (Ideology, Philosophy, Theory, Strategies, etc.). Hence, the question is; What help considerations of Sensuality would have brought in the discussions?

I shall have to answer that question.

That means no less than a total reconstruction of social theories on the basis of Sensuality—describing political-economical systems and their dynamics in references to Sensuality—. It would be re-animation or reenchantment of political economy. It also has to touch upon phenomena such as Alienation and to articulate on what “Culture” is. [For I am insinuating that “Cultures” are ways of accommodating and controlling Sensuality.]

[An immediate suggestion following from consideration of Sensuality is a strategy of shifting the “agency centered-ness” to “community centered-ness”. That implies a shift to “cultural approach”, from the German style political, economic approach. This require discussions.]

That is my “home work”. In what follows below, I shall give a sketch of a study program.

4. Economy viewed from the need of sensual relations.

Sensuality manifests in various forms. And many of its “symptoms” are disguised and distorted. We also see “pathological” cases, due to lack thereof.

But let us start with a common sense meaning. In our street language, we say “Human Touch” etc., referring to the Sensuality.

In shopping markets, people expect a “smile” from the sales person to whom they come in contact with. They come to a close distance to the sales person. They may exchange a few words incidental to the business transaction. The “human touch” is not considered to be a “necessary” requirement for the transaction, but it is there. And in terms of the business, manipulation of such an “irrational” factor is, in fact very important for the commercial success. The “smile” may well be “professional” and a deception, but nonetheless employed for the effect (affect).

Psychotherapists noted that people in stress or under depression go to shopping as a self-therapy. People seek “human touch”, though their motive may be concealed and the form (ritual) is a disguise. Some of us go to bars and pay for a drink, but the business transaction in fact buy the context in which we can talk with bartender or the other customers there. The drink is rather incidental to our main purpose.

[Question: What significance Sensuality has in Alcoholism? Any Therapeutic significance?]

5. Ambivalence in Sensuality.

That people seek Sensual Relations and at the same time hide the need of Sensual Relation is an important aspect of the Sensuality for itself.

What E.T. Hall talked about in terms of “Space that people keep around them” [in The Hidden Dimension] is one example of “Sensuality Management”. Hall did not explicitly mention Sensuality, but the “Touch” implied in interpersonal space is a neutral way of describing Sensuality allowed within the “ethical standard” in our science-scholarship as a sub-culture.

There is something that make people “Fear”, “Anxious”, while they are drawn to it. They would give all sorts of excuses to disguise their need of Sensual Relations, particularly between and among “macho” men. One can suspect that physical fights and even combats in wars are “disguises” and excuses for them to “touch” each other.

[In this respect, the modern warfares, particularly Nuclear War, are unsatisfactory. They can be fought in “rationalized abstraction”. “Intellectualizations” which represses “physical” aspects of human life leads to such an atrocity. This is an important issue to discuss.]

6. The Capitalism and Sensuality.

The Capitalist system, on one hand, inhibit our Sensual Relations—the “alienated work” is not sensual—. On the other hand, it exploits our need of Sensual Relations in the market. [see Freud. If we read Polany, Tawney, et al, with awareness of Sensuality, we can see that they have touched upon the problems. Max Weber (The Rise of Capitalism and the Spirit of Protestant Ethics) avoided Sensuality. Weber was, perhaps, privately aware of Sensual nature of religions, but refrained saying anything about it. Talk on Sensuality was a taboo.]

The Capitalists may not buy and sell commodities for their Sensual Needs. [As to the Sensual meaning of their sense of “Power”, we shall come to discuss later.] But, outside goods for our physiological survival, we as consumers, buy things for our “psychological” needs, by and large. Of course, the distinction between what are “physical” and what are “psychological” is not clear to us—for we like to disguise, and the commercial interests like us to be as unclear as possible. But, asides academic arguments, such as “psychology” is nothing other than “physiology”, the distinction can be made practical enough for our considerations.

From that, in the sense of Gedanken Experiment, we can imagine to be natives standing at a shore buying beads and trinkets from the European traders. We do not really need the beads and trinkets. We came there by our “curiosity” more than anything else. And the “curiosity” is one of manifestation of our Sensuality. We might make analogy of it to “a girl looking at a boy” and vice versa. The “Trade” is an act of intimacy disguised. We have started “Trade” as “Exchanges of Gifts” which are expressions of affections.

Here, I point out a political ideology of the Classical Economics which talks of “Trade” in terms of “Scarcity”. That is patently false. Trade start with “Surplus”, not from “Scarcity”. In this, even Marx was in the Classical Economics. The ghost of Scarcity came in there because the intellectualization required the “logic of necessity” to go with the “logical necessity” of their stories (theory). In the Age of Rationality, or more precisely in a desire to emulate Newtonian Mechanics, the scholars-scientists-intellectuals, wanted Determinism. And the Determinism was a mirror image of their desire to make “Compelling arguments”. Marx could not escape from this.

[Here comes an entanglement of Sensuality and Power sensation. But I shall have to discuss this later.]

Today, we are not trading like the natives on the shore did. We have introduced a technology called “Money”. Money insulate our Sensuality and brings us to the side of Power relations. Otherwise, we would have difficulties in trading with total strangers, and sometimes even those whom we consider enemies. [Americans can sell wheat to Russians, because of the technology of Money. But on the other hand, the trade may very well be an expression of a repressed “affinity” between two group of people. At least it keep one channel of communication open amidst the intense hostility.]

7. Why cannot admit our Sensuality? Question of Power.

If our “economy” is mainly for Sensual Relations, then why we are having troubles like “unemployment”, “poverty” which required Social Welfare?

Why cannot we just “share” things for the satisfaction of our Sensual needs?

The point is that we do not admit that we are seeking for Sensual Relations. If we did, our Economic System would collapse. We are dependent on the system—welfare profession and welfare researchers would be unemployed, if the system that creates the problems is desolved—. I would not have had an intellectual satisfaction in writing this, if the problem does not exist. [If I wish to be “immortal” in making a theory of Sensual Economy, the problem have to last forever!]

This brings us to the problem of Power.

Power is a substitute for Sensual satisfaction. And it is “safer” in that Power is one-way”, whereas Sensual Relation is “two-way” (mutual) or worse “loss of control”. Relations brings “entanglements”, which we “individualists” do not wish to have. Business transactions are simpler and we feel confident in them to keep a sense of control. But even in businesses, we cannot shut our sensuality off completely, and hence we go into Power channel (“Power Trip”).

So if we wish satisfaction our own without others, we choose Power. Henry Kissinger once remarked that Power is the best Aphrodisiac. And , the Power structures allow us to be “affectionate” with each other without “shame”. We call it “Loyalty”, “Togetherness”, “Team Work”, “Patriotism”, “Fellowship”, “Class Consciousness”, etc.

The way the US marines stick together and care for each other is far more close and emotionally “intense” than that between homosexual men. But, US marines would be very much offended if someone suggest them the “Sensuality” of their relations. Our loyalty to “Profession” is also one example of those. We have internal “Love-Hate”relationship among us, but looked from outsiders we are very “close” in covering for each other. It is well known that people have a great difficulty obtaining a medical doctor to take a stand against another doctor, and it is the same about lawyers, policemen, etc.

If there is not for the Power Structure—which function as “exclusive clubs” for limited membership for each—we would have troubles satisfying our Sensual needs. To be sure, the Power Structures come with Rituals which limit and control the forms and the extent of Sensualness allowed. Orgy parties like wars are allowed in disguises to deny Sensuality. As the white collar workers themselves allude often, business offices of corporations are like “Harems” consisting of intellectual “Prostitutes” . Expressions like “kissing ass” are in part expressions of revulsion, but they are in part accurate descriptions of the Sensuality. The power provides for the excuses and disguises. And in turn, the Power positions satisfy their perverted Sensuality.

8. Sensual Utopia, The “Primitive Commune”.

Let us try another gedanken experiment. Suppose we devised some way of accommodating the human need for Sensual Relations without the disguises. Then, we would not need much of Economic Inequality. We would not need too much concentration of Political Power. Social Welfare would lose much of its case loads, though human relations are complex enough to leave enough problems.

We can concentrate on the tasks of constructing and maintaining “communes”. We would have networks of “soul mates” to replace institutions like churches, universities, professional associations, etc.

Of course, this is an Utopia. Marx would ask us how in a hell we get there without Power Struggles. Sensuality is good and dandy—Marx did not deny it, but being merely contemptious of it—but how anyone can “manage” it? How is it “controlled” and “distributed? It does not involve “money”, but just the same, it does take time and place, energy expenditure, physcial facilities and above all some “mental” engagements.

Or one might worry, if an open acknowledgement of our Sensuality might break the flood gate checking homosexual orgy in social scales. The result might be worse than wars—save all-out Nuclear war. What are we going to do about AIDS? Who is going to do “production works” Material needs may be less and consequently environmental damage may be less, but what would limit the “hedonistic orgy”? Can human body take all that “pleasures”,  without going into insanity?

etc, etc.

I do not know answers to those questions. Except for the “primitive” small communities that anthropologists wrote about, I do not know of practices of “Sensual Society”. In Freudian sense “Society” and “Sensuality” are polar opposites, and cannot be put in the same quotation marks.

H. Marcuse (Eros and Civilization), E. Fromm (The Art of Loving), M. Foucault (The History of Sexuality), Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex) et al. have been talking about these problems.

9. Religions as Controllers of Sensuality

[home work. Jesus and Mary Magdalenas (p.). Kazanzakis Last Temptation of Jesus Christ.]

10. Sensuality in Physical Sciences.

It is, perhaps, a common notion that Physical Sciences are “cut and dry”, having no trace of human feelings, except “pride” and “righteousness”. In such images, “science” is the furthest, among all human engagements, from Sensuality.

people may have read about in newspapers that there are fights among scientists about a plan of constructing a big atom smasher which costs some 6 billion dollars. Some scientists argue that the money can better be spent on other areas of science which does not cost one tenth as much, etc. Then they would have seen that the issue is essentially “political” one, concerning choice among “value feelings” of various group of scientists engaged in different areas.

Today, “science” as such is impossible without a huge money. So the fight is a matter of Life and Death for the scientists involved. And the basis of the fight is their “Subjective Feeling”—firstly about their job security and secondly about the worth of what they are specialized in.

But, perhaps, that is not the public image of “Science”. The majority today might think of Einstein in association with the word “science”. Since the case of Einstein has been well advertised, its popularity is not surprising. However, the worshipers of Einstein may not realize that Einstein is “special”. Not too many scientists are like Einstein, though they might like to pretend so.

Ninety-nine percent of some half million scientists in the world earn their living, just like factory workers, by carrying on routines. Some do computational routines. Some do teaching routines. There are very little opportunity for them to be creative and original like Einstein. In fact, his school record shows that Einstein was a failure in carrying on “scientific routines”.

Nonetheless, Einstein does represent an “Ideal” of what science “should be”. I do not underestimate the importance of Ideals in social psyche. Even if they may be illusions, they do affect the way a society collectively thinks and behaves. The “affect” may be like “betrayal” and worse than if they were not there—say in the case of Jesus, or Marx. They are “Powerful”, good or bad.

Do let me talk about the ideals of “science”, disregarding the majority practices which are quite different, if not shams. And one of well praised characteristics of the Ideal Science is the “Curiosity”.

Of course, pure curiosity like that of boys about female anatomy does not qualify to be “scientific”. We do have certain prejudices, taboos, value sensations, and artificial discriminations about this. But, let us be charitable and say that “The Pure Curiosity” is the well spring of the genuine science.

Now, what about this curiosity? Is it not a part of “Emotion”? Is it not a part of our Irrationality? Why should anyone be curious about the existence of the Fifth Dimension, any more (or any less) than “If God Exist?”, or “What makes Dick ticks?” And what those seekers are doing?

If the seeker is indeed free of our ordinary greed and power thirst, then we might describe the seeker to be “trying to communicate” with the Nature, Universe, etc. And if they description is apt, the motive of the seeker is Sensual Relations with the Mother Nature, Universe, etc. The curiosity that we praise in our ideal is an attempt to have an Intimate Relation with the Nature. It is a form of Sensuality.


Of course, the alienated scientists in the profession do not attempt such a thing. They lost curiosity, if they have not “burned out” already and hardly interested in “science” other than as the means to their incomes. Anyone who examine science texts in schools and universities, would find them to be nothing more than texts for “obedience training”, not fostering “curiosity”. Teachers who encourage children to be curious know that they are handling a delicate matter with Sensuality which requires an acute sensitivity and warm understanding. There is nothing short of “Love of it” does the job. Only because they are aware of the Taboo against saying it “Sensual”, they skirt around saying so. And the regulations, rules, etc. imposed by the “Education System” restricts what they can do in the contexts of “school works”. The likelihood is that the Potential Einsteins are exterminated in the system.

[To be sure, there are practical considerations as to How Many Einstein (or Jesus) our society could possibly stand for. Probably one in a century is already more than it can take. For the case of Jesus, one per two thousand years is already too much. The question is the same as How Much Sensual Relations one can take, without blowing oneself up. One can also say this perhaps for “Spirituality”, “Truth” etc. Just because one was good, the more may not be better. We ought to think about this.]

Draft 10/01/87/.

April 11, 87. p. 12.

Study notes on Social Welfare II.

Note II. Culture Based Networking.

11. Does the awareness of Sensuality make any difference in practices?

We have not done theoretical articulation on Human Sensuality. But, if there would not be practical differences, there is no point in articulating the theory.

Most anybody knows the importance of “Human Touch” and if that is all in the “Sensuality Paradigm”, we are back to where we started. Namely, we started discussion on Social Welfare, because we are unable to provide Human Touch in sufficient scale, due to structural constraints, economic reality, prevalent political ideology, etc. Perceiving humans to be sensual does not help, unless there are practical consequences from the perception. Does the perception suggest any new strategy?

We have one suggestion for a practical strategy stated (made by Colorado) in the section 3. above [p.4]. That was “Cultural Approach”. We shall do a follow-up consideration here to test our idea. Also by discussing practical strategy, we hope to shape a “theory”. This is our way of articulating a theory (idea)—the method of thinking experiment.

In a sense, “Social welfare” was a response to an emergency situation created by the Modernization of “community to society”. The major paradigm of the Modernization was “progress” concerning with technological advances which are collectively called “Civilization”. “Culture” was a forgotten entity, misidentified with and subsumed under “Civilization”. And worse, European prejudice made it “Uniformitarian Ideology”. Modern minds could not see Cultures in other peoples than the one perceived through European Civilization/Technology.

And even if the “modern mind” sensed something “cultural” in a romantic fancy, it was thought of something extra like jewels, perfumes, silk dresses and top hats, pomps and ceremony—that which royalties, aristocrats had and did. “Culture” is perceived as a “luxury”, not essential to practical daily life. It was not a part of the “necessity”. Hence, the “modern mind” could not see peasants, workers having a “culture”, let alone the “primitive natives” in colonies. It used to be said that those poor people were “Deprived of Culture”. Until very recently, the “modern mind” could not recognize “cultures” of various peoples. We today talk even of “sub-cultures”— “drug culture”, “bourgeoise culture”, “peasant culture”. And some of us belatedly became enlightened enough to acknowledge “Native Cultures”, which is a recent phenomenon since 1980.

If “Culture” is not in the working vocabulary of Social Welfare officers and scholars, perhaps it is forgiven. Social Welfare is for “deprived people”, not for “people with culture” which implies luxury.

And for that matter, “Human Touch” etc. were also considered to be luxury. Even philanthropists could not imagine that those “poor wretched people” in deprived life could afford to have “feelings”. Feelings and Emotions were for privileged well-to-do people, such as the Queen in story books who says “We are not amused”. Suppose the “poor wretched” have said “We are not having fun in being poor”, what would have been the reaction of the philanthropists? I would imagine neither Social Welfare workers out there are having fun. We are not amused with the situation. But the feeling of displeasure of the Queen counts. Whereas the feeling of the Poor does not count.

The recipients of the Social Benefits are, by the “definition”, must be in such a deprived state that they cannot possibly have any feeling let alone “Culture”. This is an Axiom.

Besides, in our Money Transaction Ritual, we have a peculiar Myth that those who receive money shall shame themselves to be without human dignity. The ritual of Money Transaction is the evidence for “Prostitution”. During the paid hours, workers are Slaves—ones who sold their souls to the Devil. Giving Money degrades, hence, it is not a Gift but an Insult. Yet, we live by the ritual of Money Transaction. This brings further complications to our situation. Giving Money does not solve the problem.

The “Culture Based Networking” attempts to reinstate human touch in the social dynamics. That have to start by declaring “Humans are Sensual” for a “shock value”. We have to wake up our minds by the shock to see it. And, once recognized, it has to become a declaration of a Human Right. To say “Humans are Sensual” is a declaration the “Every Human being has unalienable Right to be Sensual”. And a “Culture” is the way of accommodating sensual needs of the people in a community. [I acknowledge the above sounds like “Social Engineering for sensual needs”, and hence inadequate. But hopefully the discussions following will correct some of its deficiency.]

Now, how we do the Culture Based Networking?

We cannot dictate what people “ought to feel”. We cannot “design” sensuality of people, as if we design a car or computer. To begin with “being sensual” means not only be aware of one’s own needs, but it means “to feel other’s needs”. One cannot be “sensual” without recognizing other “sensual beings”. It is essential that we go beyond the “being nice to” (charitable) sense of Human touch to the recognition of Sensual Beings, who are capable of their own thinking-feelings. It is a dignified right of their to have their sensual needs. And for that reason, we respect them as worthy companions of Sensual Relationships. By this we transcend the level of “charity”—the level that one might have in “loving pets”.

However, even the children caring for pets, they are sensual to the degree they entertain a feeling that the pets have the very same sort of feelings as they do. This is the Principle of Sensuality; that it is a mutual relationship between “sovereign beings” equally capable of the dignity comparable to the one which can say “we are amused, or not amused” and it has to matter and it does matter. If one deny this respect, the sensuality is killed. We then have a relation with “Objects”.

Another useful example for us is the way poets “feel” (perceive) the Universe. Sensuality is essential in poetry. Call it “metaphor”, “emotional projection”, etc. But without the unity shared in deep feelings, or hurts stem from injuries to that, poetry cannot exist.

[There apparently are some linguistic philosophers who deny the possible existence of “Other Minds”. I suppose from Cartesian Metaphysics, nobody but “I” has the “Mind” and others are moving “Objects”. We shall have to discuss this later.]

And Pam Colorado means a lot deeper root than what I so far discussed in terms of the Dignity and Respect. She talks of Cultures in which people find a natural right of dignity. And she even goes to the Spiritual Realm where all humans may be “soul brother and spiritual sisters”. It came from the Origin of Life in the Universe. I am not capable of addressing to such a depth, I shall have to wait for her to speak.

[She might object this term “sensual”, and insist “Spiritual”. That is too heavy for me to touch from my science background, though I can sense that the Spirituality is at the the base of what I called “sensual”.

My “scientific” objection to her “Spirituality” is that if human race has reached a level of being in which the Spirituality can meaningfully be talked about, there is no need to discuss about mundane things like Social Welfare.

In a sense , we are in a Hell, that is why we talk of sensuality.]

At any rate, Sensual Relations cannot be forced, commanded, nor demanded. It can only be Respected and admired.

Thus, dictatorship is out. We have to “let it happen”.

However, we can take two actions.

Remove obstacles.

Provide better Environment.

We shall have to discuss these actions in the situation and condition we have now and here.

(11/04/87)

[ED: These notes have been transcribed from two original documents and edited for clarity.]

Haines Respiritualization Meeting, May 17, 18, 19, 1985 (PDF)

Original Transcription

Haines Respiritualization Meeting

May 17, 18, 19, 1985

Persons attending: Donald Peter, Anchorage; Dr. Pam Colorado-Morrison, Juneau; Eber Hampton, Boston; Bella and Simon Francis, Ft. Yukon; Jonathan Solomon, Ft. Yukon; Howard Luke, Fairbanks; Paul Olin, Galena; Blake Jones, Hydaburg; Matilda Lewis, Haines; Austin Hammond, Haines; Helen Andon, Anchorage

Guests: Doug Patterson, Juneau; Tommie Jimmie Jr., Haines; Mr. and Mrs. Peter Charles Johnson Sr., Haines; Dr. James Matthews, Fairbanks

May 17, 1985

Meeting begins with prayer by Austin Hammond

Our Father we are looking up to you this morning as we gather here as a family. We need your help, what we will say and what we need, we are asking you to give it to us. The word we use for each other that we could learn from each other, so we are here together. So pour thy blessing upon us and be with us. That I ask in Jesus name. Amen.

Pam: This is our third meeting, and final meeting of the task force. We have some nice things planned for this meeting. Austin is going to see to it that we can get out to the Chilkoot camp site while we are here. It is a really nice day, so it would be good if we could try to get out there this afternoon. Blake Jones is here from Massett, B.C. and he has brought a really good tape with him. He has helped set up and run the ReDiscovery program down there. It is a survival camp and it has been going since 1978. He is here to offer his help in any way that he can for those of us who are trying to get camps going and also to share his tape with us. It is really well made. I think we have (Ha-sha-goon) here too. It is Austin Hammond’s tape. It gives us the background on what happened before this camp got set up. We probably want to spend some time talking about where everybody is with their camps, how far along we are, and what the plans are for the future. We are supposed to have a guest drop in today, Dr. Matthews who is with the University of Alaska, Cooperative Extension. He is the director of the whole thing. He has been hearing a lot about these task force meetings and a lot about the spirit camps. So he should be by sometime today. The final thing before we break up, Don and I would like to talk with everyone here about a meeting we are getting ready to go to next week regarding the future of these camps, and maybe some funding and support. That’s about it, what I have taht needs to be discussed. Do you have anything else, Don?

Don: I appreciate you all coming down here. Some of you came a long ways. I’m kinda excited, and not excited about going to Paris next week, but I think we need to set down some facts about how to deal with those people. Maybe we can do that this afternoon like Pam said. Dr. Matthews, who sits on my policy board for my office, is coming down this afternoon. We are saying this will be our last and final task force meeting, but I doubt it. I see us getting together 2-3 times a year. I think this group gives us a lot of strength and setting down our objectives and goals for the respiritualization project. I keep telling Pam that we keep getting calls all the time from people who are interested in this project. I feel that something will come out of it. I look at 1991 as a last chance for Alaska Native people. I think we need to work with our own people to set their minds on who they are so they can deal with these different issues that are coming up, to determine their destination. In 1991, we will be the same as anybody in the State, hopefully. The resolution that AFN is taking to Washington D.C. to get some amendments on the land claims act, that will open the land claim act up to everybody. Anybody that wants something to do with Alaska, the different societies, organizations, they all want to put their two cents in there. It is possible, if they open up the land claim act that it might go on for another 10-20 years, but we don’t know that. I guess you don’t know at the AFN special convention, Ft. Yukon was probably the only one that voted against all the amendments. The people had a meeting up there and they said they want to take their chances and leave it like that. They are trying to get some education to deal with those 1991 issues. To deal with the issues, we need education. A lot of our people are getting that, becoming attorneys, and entering different fields where we need them at. We also need something from down here to work on these different issues and I think that is what we are getting at with these spirit camps. A lot of things are falling into place, like Pam said. There are probably some monies available from BIA and we have some monies available too. This is a start. It will be interesting to see what happens in Paris next week when we meet with UNESCO. Maybe they will have their checkbooks open, I don’t know. Also, I was talking to Gary King, from the Kellogg Foundation. They have been pretty good to us. They have been supporting our project for the past 2-3 years, with 2-3 million dollars. He told me that if we go to Paris and it really doesn’t work out, he actually said they have an open checkbook for us. They give out about 450 million dollars a year in grants and funds to especially to projects like this. I think the last thing, like Pam said, the weather is pretty nice so maybe we can go to the Chilkoot camp. We have a couple of hours to get some of our feeling across and talk about what we need to talk about.

Matilda: At our last meeting in Ft. Yukon, we talked about a helping hand, and the times we have mentioned that you might be able to help us. I think right now our main concern is our building. Next month our cultural program starts and we still haven’t move our building. We just never seemed to get the money from somewhere to help us move it. It will be the quarters for the young people.

Don: Well, Pam and I have been talking about that and we think we will be able to come up with some things. We will work on it.

Pam: Woody was saying today he was going (we wrote a proposal for subsistence and one of the items was to cover that for sure) to add two additions to Raven———-, with luck we should know about that in a couple days. If not, then Don will see what he can do, but it has to be done fast.

Don: That was Dr. Matthews who just drove up. His wife is with him, he will bring her in and introduce her and then she is going out shopping. But he wants to sit in and see what is going on. He makes a lot of the monetary decisions for my office so he is pretty vital.

You know, the Cooperative Extension Service, for the last couple years has spent more in the State of Alaska than they have ever done in their existence. I give credit to few organizations for doing that. They work with everything in the villages from gardening to tanning to developing educational curriculum. The legislature is looking at them as a vital entity in the State and it is developing the whole State. That’s why Dr. Matthews is here, he is interested, he is not a nosy white man.

Introduction of Dr. Matthews and Barbara Matthews, and the task force members.

Don: Dr. Matthews is interested in things like this with Alaska Natives and that is the reason I asked him to come down.

Pam: I wanted this morning to look at Blake’s tape.

Blake: The equipment is still coming down. Tome went to get it. The paper I have here is about the program in B.C. on the ReDiscovery project, so we will have a copy for each of you take back with you. After we see the video, you can read up on this. It is good to have this paper, if you are going to get a copy of the video. It tells what our camp is all about.

We started this camp in 78, in Massett because we found that we were having a lot of trouble with juvenile delinquents in the court house. We started off with, every two weeks we would have six kids out with three guides. Now our camp has expanded and we have six guides, two cooks, and maybe 3 or 4 volunteers every two weeks and we have 14 kids out there. Plus we have about 3 or 4 elders fly out to our camp and spend 4 or 5 days with the kids. They talk about the old villages around where our camp is set up. They teach them basket weaving and some of the old guys would talk about the carvings and old petroglyphs that we have around the old village sites. Since we started this program, like I said, our court rate, 40% of the list was juveniles. But since we started our program our court rate went from 40% to 18%. So we dropped it to half for juvenile delinquents in our village. Besides having this summer program, we have a follow-up program in the winter in the youth center. That includes all the elders of the village teaching them button blanket making, carving, there are some wood carvers and some of the guys carve in argillite, and basketweaving. We also use the elder’s homes when we get fish and stuff, we show them how to preserve the food. The way that works is, what our kids do in the village is, half of what we can up or preserve for winter, half will stay with the ReDiscovery program and the other half will be distributed in the village to the elders that can’t go out and get the stuff themselves. We have a big list in the office of the elders and we will distribute it out. It is hard to describe the program until after we see the tape, but out at the camp it is a wilderness survival camp and cultural heritage. What we are trying to do is bring back the heritage that the elders used to have. We are getting it back slowly into our village now. We teach kids how to survive. We tell them when the tides out, your table is set. When we first talk about it, they don’t understand but after 3-4 days with us they finally get to see what we mean the tides out, your table is set, because there is so much food out there. Plus in the forest there is so much stuff that they can pick and use for food, and build shelter out of driftwood on the beach. A couple of you read this article yesterday. The camp we have has a few simple basic rules that we use. We tell the kids what you kill, you have to eat. At our camp, we tell them that if you need any building materials, don’t cut any live trees down. Go down the beach and take the driftwood up and start building your campsite out of that. Instead of cutting live trees, even cutting the branches down, we don’t cut anything up. We try to keep our camp as natural as possible. On this program, we have a 35-mile hike down the west coast. The funny thing about this hike is that, our Armed Forces people did this hike one way, 17 miles for them. They were carrying a small day pack, a canteen of water and trail mix. It took them 3 days to do that hike. When they got back into Massett they wrote up a report for the government and they said this hike is not recommended for amateurs. Since we started doing that hike, we have 4 hikes down the coast every year, on the whole thing we have never had an accident on the hike. In our camp the only thing we had was a twisted knee in the 7 years we have been operating out there. The Attorney General and Social Service agency has given us a number one rating for summer camp and for helping out with the younger people. The social services use us in the summer. If they are going to put someone in a foster home and they don’t have a home right away, they refer the to our program and the kid will come with us for two weeks. It give the social service time to find a new home for them. If they can’t find a home, they ask us if we can keep them for another session, and we say —Sure, no problem, we will keep them for another session. It is for both Native and non-Native, this camp we have. Since the Armed Forces moved in we have a lot of their kids come out. When the Armed Forces first moved to Massett, we had a lot of trouble trying to adjust to them and them trying to adjust to us. We could feel the prejudice between the Armed Forces and the Natives in the community. But now that we have this program, we go up to the Armed Forces when they get new people into the village and we talk to them about our summer camp and about the people in the village, orientate them to living in a small town, how to act around us. If we say “Hi” to them, to stop and talk or something. Before we started doing that, when we used to say “Hi” to them they would just walk away with their nose up in the air. We finally started getting mad at them and told them—We’re here, and we have been here longer than you so don’t try to pull that high and mighty stuff on us. For awhile there were a lot of fights between the Armed Forces and the Natives. But now that we started orientating them, some of the people have been coming to our camp as volunteers.

Don: I think one good point that Blake was talking about is that the spirit camps have to include everybody. You know we have to work with groups here in Alaska, it doesn’t matter if they are white, blue, green or yellow. When 1991 gets here, they will work with us. We even have a couple Outside Indians here to work with!!, or Dr. Matthews!

Paul: Ever since I went to the meeting in Ft. Yukon, I have been thinking about how can we start one over there in Galena or Ruby. Yesterday when I was getting on the plane, I heard one of my friends tried to shoot himself, and he shot his arm off. Two weeks before that I had another friend who shot himself. It is a problem, to me it is a problem. To the elderly people, it just tears the hell our of them, the suicide. I am very much interested in Blake’s tape. There has to be a way to help these troubled individuals.

Don: It is good to hear about different aspects of camps around the state and around the country. The good thing about it is we can use it for our own camps. We have to realize when 1991 comes, those kids will be 21-25 years old, leaders.

Blake: What we found in our program is that for the staff and participant ratio is 2 participants for 1 staff member. You find with that ratio that you have more personal contact with the kids. We divide them up in groups, there will be a junior guide and a senior guide with four kids. When we do it that way, by the end of the two week session, there is such an attachment between the youth and yourself as a guide. They will come to you and talk about problems they have in town. You have been out in camp, but you also know what has been going on in town. You can take them aside and talk to them. There is one part in our program. We call it the Wanagun Spot, what we do is, every morning after breakfast, we give the kids pen and paper and tell them to go out there and find a nice quiet spot and stay there for 15-20 minutes by yourself. Write down your thoughts or even make a drawing of the spot you picked. We make them do that every day and then we look at it and get some of their stuff written down and use it in newspaper articles and magazine articles. On the last day we make them do it, we give them a pen and paper and an envelope. We say—Write down your thoughts or make a drawing, seal it in the envelope and put your name and address on there, figure out where you will be two years from now. In two years we will mail you what you wrote. What we try to do is not have too many kids come back every summer. There are so many different youths on the islands, we try to get them to go one year and take one or two years off and then come back. We found that it seems to work real good. We get new kids every summer. I have seen some of our staff, senior guides, that big macho ones in camp who are looking after them all, but when it is time to leave, I have seen those big macho senior guides with tears in their eyes because the kids are leaving. They grow so attached to each other in the camp. After that, when you get back into Massett, we’re out all summer, an d the mail is stacked in the office from kids who have been in the program.

Austin: Since I came from Ft. Yukon, I have been going to that elders meetings that we have in Juneau. The time when I came back I went to the Governor’s Mansion. I think you all know that they gave me the honor for what I am doing. We had it the Governor’s Mansion and then the ANB Hall, same thing. All this what we try to do for the children, I tried to explain, not only for this camp I am working for. I work in Juneau at the school with Julie Folta. She is teaching the small children. This is what I was talking about. Something we have to think about for the children. They need to learn what we know. The paper on the wall, my grandfather’s name on it: Jim David and Joe Whiskers. They are the ones who told me stories. They talk to me about the time coming, when they call on me. Grandson, sit by me. The story we been telling you since you were 9 years  old, I want you to pass it on to your children and your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren, they have to know it. If you don’t tell that story with the children, when you die, everything is going to die, what we are telling you. So pass it on, so they could learn it. This is what I am doing in Juneau, when I am talking to the teachers over there in a meeting. I told them, I need your help, you are teaching my grandchildren. What I have to say. I told them how the Tlingit work together. When I was sitting there, like what Don has here (tape recorder) put it down. And I don’t have nothing. I am just talking. How they train me through my grandfathers when they teach me what to do. That’s when they tell me about the little baby, you are going to have children. You have to talk to them. I got all girls. So what they tell me, I talk to them. When you talking to the newborn baby, just leave it in your arm and talk to them, before you drink water, before you wash your mouth, just talk—You are going to be a girl, you will become a woman, a married woman, you will have children. You have to listen to whoever is talking to you. This is what they tell me, even the boys side—You will be a man when you grow up. You will learn how to work for your children. All this, what they tell me, it is inside of our heads, it is stuck like glue. When that little baby listen, it stays there, everything what we say. Anytime when you start talking, everything is going to come out in front of you, like the tape when it starts talking. That’s the way it is. That is the reason why we have to talk to our baby, newborn baby, so it will stay inside the brain, what we try to teach. So this is what they do with me. I didn’t write it down. I didn’t go to school. I am just learning from what we are doing with each other. I never used to talk English. When I am working, I am learning. It stays with me, what they tell me. This is what I am doing with the children. The way I put it out in front of the teacher. These trees we see all around us, the roots are together. Spruce, hemlock, pine tree, birch, everything. What is growing under, some berries, salmonberries, raspberries, everything that is growing has roots. All the roots stays together. Then the grass grows and the flower grows. Right now you see the trees that are coming out now, just like a newborn baby they start growing and coming out. Our grandchildren now, they are just like a flower growing under the trees. Anyplace where you look there are different colors. When I opened the camp here, they asked me—What are you going to do, just the Tlingit, you are going to teach them? I told the—No, that is for everybody. From Hoonah, they told me I am crazy. I told them maybe I am crazy. We used to be crazy ourselves. We used to fight with our white brothers. Now we adopt them, different colors. My son was married with white girl. My daughter was married with a white. Some of them are married with the Filipinos. They are all different colors. This is what the flower is. All different colors, what is growing. This is the children, they are growing as the grass and the flower. They are newborn babies, they have to learn.

When I was talking there, the teachers were listening. This is what I want my grandchildren to learn, everyone of them. Like what I mention, all these different trees; we are all in the family. The trees have a life like we are, anything that is growing has a life, even the grass. My grandfather used to tell me—This grass growing, it is nothing to you, but to us, there is something in there that will help us. Any sickness that we get we will pick it out what will help us. So you have to respect it, just like you respect the one sitting next to you. All the flowers, the trees, you have to respect. Before you drop, you have to talk to that tree. Where you are going to drop it, you have to put something there, so it won’t break. Then you talk to the tree—I have a bed for you now, to lay down on it. Just to help us out, lay down on it. We need you. When it drops, it don’t break. Some people don’t do it, they just drop it. If they drop it on a rock, it will break. They have a spirit just like we do. This is what I am teaching at the school. All the salmon, all the seal, all the animal on the mountains, they are like us. So I told them—God create us in this world. Different place where we stay, we have to work to take care of it. If we go someplace, like I went to Arizona, they have the flat country. They have all different kinds of animals to take care of. This is the reason why I really started this place, I have to tell my grandchildren all what we have on the mountain.

There is a story about mountain goats. He (a man) got stuck on the mountain. He was chasing the mountain goat. Where it went there was a little trail. He followed it. There were a thousand feet to fall and that man got stuck. He just start shaking. He said the mountain goat has to go back. The mountain goat is eating it and he picked it out and give it to that man who was stuck there. So he start eating it. The man was stuck there. To him where he got stuck, it just flattened out for him. He has to stand up and the mountain goat has to go back with him until they get in a safe place. The mountain goat walked, and he didn’t kill it. So this is the story we have to learn together with our white brothers, whoever they are. We have to respect everything, like that tree when you are going to drop it. After you kill the bear, you can’t just take the knife out and skin it there where the sand is or the mud. The spirit is always watching you. This is what they are telling me. Stand behind you from that bear. If you fix it, put the branches and roll it and put another on the other place. When you are cutting the meat, you have to put something there again. When the spirit goes back, like us sitting here if somebody comes through the door—How did they treat you. Well, they treat me nice, the way I was laying down. They put some bed under me. The way they put everything there. Then they tell it, now you hear that, you go to that man. But if we don’t take care of it, if he tells we don’t take care of it right, then they will tell it—don’t go there. This is the reason why we got lots of killing from hunting, if we don’t take care of it. So this is what I have been teaching to the children, even our village. Tell the story about where you are born, what you know about the village, let them know it. I hear brothers talking about 1991, what they are going to do. Now the ones growing, if we don’t tell the story, like what I am saying now, if the time comes, if they need it, what they going to bring it up if we don’t tell the story about our land. I got a box there, there is a Chilkoot blanket in there. It is not writing like this. The Raven show us how to put it on. That is our history that I have there. We learn it from the Raven. This is what we have to teach the children. Our land, now that blanket I was talking about. That is a Chilkoot story on it. If I bring it out, if you see it. I don’t know if you can tell me the story on it. But we know it. Because we don’t tell you the story  you can’t learn it until I tell the story with you, then you know it. I got quite a few of them in there.

So it is good to talk about the camp, about where he is teaching. Now this mountain I was talking about, the mountain goat. Some man is going to come up to teach the kids how to go up on the mountain. This is what we need in Alaska. You can see how high the mountains are, with the snow. This is what I was talking about, the mountain goat. Mountain goat they call them, but they don’t stay in the mountain in the winter time. They have to come down to the shelter, under the tree. I went hunting over there. That is when I see a place where the mountain goat gets together like we are. There is a lake there. They could see the sign of the mountain goat, the way they have been sitting around the lake. They get together, they are learning what we are learning.

tape 1, side 2

Austin: Brown bear, big ears. They could hear when we are talking about them. If I say something bad about the brown bear, I am not going to go very far. They will get after me. All these things what I try to tell. They know it. They are learning more. Even the fish. A long time ago, we used to use linen driftnet. Now we use nylon, all different colors. Now if I put linen in there, I wouldn’t catch any fish. They already know it. Our people used to live with the fish for one year under water. How many white people live with fish for one year? This young man, when he came back to his hometown, he became a Shaman. He is the one who told us how the salmon live. We know all the animals, all the fish, how they live. So this is what I was telling the white people when I go to the meetings. So they listen to me. We were talking about our subsistence. Right now, today, I was supposed to be with the Governor, but for this meeting, I have to come over. But I told Woody Morrison about it, my feeling, and he will be there. What we need to learn together, like what I said, there are all different kinds of flowers growing. Our people, our children, grandchildren, they are going to grow together. They have to know the feeling with each other when they are growing together. My grandfather used to tell me that story, I know it. They call me all in Juneau—Grandpa, even here in town. A little girl came to me, a white girl—Grandpa, you have to sit by me. This is what I am doing. I don’t want to push anybody out. I want them to be in, to work together. So we are here, and we have to learn from each other. That is what I want to talk about. Thank you.

Simon: I never been to school. I was raised out in the woods. At that time there was no school. But today I have a carpentry job, a good job. I like to learn at this meeting. I like to help people from other villages. We need help, a lot of people need help. A lot of teachers need help. We do things that look hard, it’s hard for us, because we don’ t know, but not hard because we find a lot of good things. From this meeting, a lot of things are going on stronger. We need peace. Maybe, someday someone will come in and thank you for helping. That way we learn. Since the Ft. Yukon meeting, I think about it. I like to help my people. My wife feels the same way too. When I was raised out in the woods, a lot of times my father went fishing and hunting every day. What my father catch we eat everyday, fish or meat or rabbit. We never see that kind of life nowadays. It is so easy. A lot of kids just don’t know, they need help today. I am glad I came on this trip. I feel good this morning. The weather is so nice. I hope God be with us. Thank you.

Howard: It is like Austin was saying. It is a good thing. That is what I am doing too. There is a story behind everything. Like the birds. Just like the dance, you know the twist. Everybody figure the twist came from the white people, but it didn’t. That is what I tell people. I work in the schools in Fairbanks. I don’t care who they are, I am willing to teach them. Some of the kids ask if I get paid for this. Some I do get paid, some I don’t. They are honest about it too. I tell them right from the bottom, I don’t leave nothing out. I go right straight through, how I learn and what I learn from people. I learn quite a bit from you people, how you are talking. I was here last summer and I learned quite a bit. Everywhere I go, someone has my work. Everywhere I work, I leave my work. Like these things here, the fishwheel and snowshoes. I leave my work. This way they remember, and they say—Where did that come from and they say—Oh, Howard Luke made that for me. Therefore they can follow it, they can see how it is made. Now that I am trying to do now, I have one kid to teach this summer. I am going to take him all over with me and I am going to teach him how to cut birch and how to bend it. I am going to tell him stories and tape it. He is from here, he is Tlingit, but he is going to talk mine. That is what I want. He wants to learn. A lot of people want to learn, but they just don’t know how to go right. It’s just like the drinking problem. I had my problem. I go around too, and tell people and talk to them about how it was done. I go over to the University once in awhile and talk to people about how it was done. What I say, I say—Nobody can help you, it is just on your own. You got to take it on your own. that is what I did. I just went out on my own. I was losing my friends. The only time I had friends was when I had money. My mother told me—Now is the time you better step forward. I won’t be living with you all the time. What I taught you, you got to pass it on. Pass it on to your nephew, to everybody. So that is what I would like to do. I work mostly around Fairbanks, but next winter, I will be travelling around to most of the schools. Whoever wants me to work in the schools, I will work there. That is what I will be doing. I would like to take that kid with me, but he has to go to school. In 1991 these kids, the younger generation, some of them won’t be able to speak for themselves. So I want to try to tell them to teach the young generation. Where I work, they listen. Last year there was a Spirit Days in Anchorage. I talked, I made everybody make speech. Nobody said nothing. I talk everywhere I go. So I said—Everywhere I go, I always talk to young people. People said—Oh, the young generation, they don’t listen. It’s not what I’m saying—they are listening. After I got through talking a young girl got up and said we are listening. We will use what you are telling us. It is a good thing too. These things you got to carry on. I tell a lot of my people that too. In Minto and Nenana, that is practically my hometown. I try to tell them that. I told one old man down there. He said—I try to, but they don’t listen to me. I tell him they are listening, but they aren’t going to tell you right away. He said—I learned the hard way so they have to learn the way I learned. I said, It’s not the way to look at it. I was brought up poor. My mother was the one that taught me all this stuff. How to cut birch, and all of that. I hunt for old people and they teach me how to do these things—when the moose is going to lay down. I tell the young kids that too. It is a good thing, so these things will carry on just like the dances and stuff like that. Some of them up there, it seems like they don’t want to carry it on. This year is the first year I am going to miss that meeting in Holy Cross. I wanted to go down there, but I don’t think I can make it. That is what I bring up at the meetings. I talk about these things. Some of them say they are going to start one down in Minto, last spring. They have a school everynight, but they don’t have a survival camp or nothing. If I start my camp around there, I don’t know where I am going to get, I guess most of the kids will come from Fairbanks, but I want to get them from all over. That way they will learn. I want to get a kid who knows how to do these things, so they could carry on. This kid that I am going to teach, that is what he will be doing too. Seems like he is going to catch on right away, the way he act. I know it will be good for them. That’s about all I got to say.

Dr. Matthews: I have listened and read the report of your earlier meetings and talked to a lot of people over the years and you have a very eloquent statement of concerns and trying to figure out how best to do something about it and striking on some way that makes a lot of sense such as the camp ideas where people can learn things and pass on traditions. It is a way of doing it that makes a lot of sense. It is one way and there needs to be, I think, lots of other ways like Austin was saying, getting more into the schools so that different settings for the stories so that young people could be exposed to different ways to do things. Not only in the schools, but university settings too so that there will be a broad understanding of some of the concerns. I think trying to figure out how best to put an educational setting together, I think the way you are doing it here is a good start. How to bring it about and extend into other structures is a real challenge. I’m interested in seeing how that will all come together. I think the next step is to bring people from those kind of structures into the sessions. I know, Don, we have talked about that. It is very, very important to move slowly and steadily I guess. I like the idea you had for camp, the results you have with young people by giving them positive experiences.

Break.

Don: The information we can talk about, what we need for our trip.

Pam: This afternoon, or tonight, I want to talk to you folks and get your ideas. When we go to Paris, one of the things they want to discuss with us is how do we know that what we are doing is working, how can we tell other people, in other parts of the globe, who are indigenous people trying to face the same situation with forced rapid change and problems with alcohol and drug abuse. They want to know what we are doing, and how we know what we are doing is working. I have spent a lot of time thinking about it. I have some ideas, but I would really like to have a discussion about it. That is the main thing on my mind for this evening as far as getting us ready to go overseas. Two years ago, two women from Ketchikan went over the United Nations office. They were from the Health Systems Agency in Ketchikan I had worked with them on other projects. It sort of threw them the way I got to know Don and how we came to form this support team and task force. Well, the women went to Paris and met with people at UNESCO and started talking about the idea of a cultural spirit camp. At that time, there were two officers within UNESCO who were really interested in this idea. They said they would like us to submit a proposal last fall. Of course, we weren’t even a task at that time, it was too soon for us. Now we are a task force, we are pulled together, but in the meantime something happened. The President of the United States pulled the United States out of UNESCO. So the meeting that we are having in Paris is called a informal meeting because that is political protocol. In reality we are meeting with a fairly high-level person there. They moved us up one level from last year in who we are talking with. Instead of calling it a formal meeting it is called an informal meeting. Maybe we just break even on that, I don’t really understand.

I think it will be good after we see this tape, we can get an idea of how after seven years a camp operation looks. tomorrow, we need to hit hard on what people are doing and what the status of all the camps are.

Dr. Matthews: One of the things I was thinking about while you were talking, and also listening to Howard is that camp is a real learning setting for Indian people, traditionally. In another perspective a camp is more of a recreation activity. How can we best describe camp as a very high potential learning kind of a situation so it means what we are trying to do with it. What I have heard from listening to Don talk about it, it seemed like a very interesting idea, but I didn’t really appreciate the significance of it.

Jonathan: Nobody does. You are learning by just being there. It doesn’t have to be an organized camp. Even if you go on the Yukon River and go to any fish camp it becomes a spiritual camp when three people speak their own language. Of course, when three people speak their own language, the Indian spirit is there.

Pam: It occurred to me last night that when we have been talking about camp, we have talked as though they all have to look the same way. Originally, when we were discussing this, we never imagined that every place that had a spirit camp would all be the same. Howard, when we were in Ft. Yukon, you talked about taking 2 or 3 young people as apprentices. That i a kind of a camp too. And what Jonathan was saying about dropping people off at fish camp, they don’t have to be formal, organized camps. It seems that the conversations we have been having are carrying us this way. I don’t want to close the door to other ideas especially since each community will have to come up with what will work best. That is the only thing I was thinking we have to cover in the next day and a half. Do you have anything that you would like to see added into our discussion?

Don: I would like Eber to speak about some of the the things we heard this morning from Austin and Howard and Simon and Blake.

Eber: I was telling Don when I was listening to people talk this morning it seemed like I heard different strengths and different approaches in different places that are all necessary and valuable. When I was listening to Austin, I heard that the stories are strong teaching stories. They teach values, identity, the basics of teaching a person how to live. Because our ethics or our values or the choices we make—whether to sell the land or not to sell the land, or to fish in one way or to fish in a different way—those things are not just in our minds, but also with our feelings. How we feel about the animal stories, or the land. So I heard that coming through on the stories and then when I was listening to Blake, I heard a different way of teaching. He was talking about the experiences, and the students writing a letter to themselves to read two years late. It seems like there was a different kind of survival skills that he was talking about. They were survival skills not just for wilderness, but survival skills for living in non-native society as well. When Howard was talking, I heard the Native technology, Native skills, Native arts and crafts—how we actually do these things. It seemed like for a cultural camp that all of those three were a necessary part of that for the learning. That is what I was thinking about when various people were talking. I was also remembering something about how do you get the camp manager. Or how do you find the right manager for the camp, how do you get the teachers, and the right staff. That seems very important. What Dr. Matthews was saying—how do you teach the teachers, or how do you get into the school. There needs to be some way of, maybe in the places where there is a camp going now and it is working well, maybe to bring in a few people to be teacher trainees or camp manager trainees. They could have the experience of actually seeing how it is done in a way that works.

Matilda: I think it is like what I said in Ft. Yukon. We had the same questions—where do we find all these people to teach the children. In looking at our own people we found that we didn’t have to look far. We found out our own people had a talent that they could offer. We found a survival skills consultant, a silver carver, a wood carver, a drum maker, a storyteller. We got a Raven and a Eagle storyteller on a volunteer basis. All the teachers we needed we found among our own people. So we have the ability to teach the young people ourselves. After all, the idea is to pass on to them what our parents taught us. I was just trying to imagine in my mind the kind of camp that Massett, ReDiscovery camp has. I still can’t untangle it in my mind yet, but in my mind I can see a camp. It is hard for me to visualize. I would almost have to go there and spend two weeks. I am camp manager here and I am still learning. That is the only way our people can be teachers now as far as taking it upon themselves to help the young people. Everyone here has an ability that some of us don’t have. I think it has been good for us to use our own people because in turn, it helps them too because they are helping Indian people. At lot of times, most of out teachers were senior citizens. When you get that old, and they feel they have nothing to do, they are put on a shelf. Well, that is not so because their mind is so full of ideas and things that they can pass on to the young people. I sure would like to go to the ReDiscovery camp. I learn more by seeing.

Jonathan: I agree with her. You can go to any village in interior Alaska and the resources you need for a camp is walking down the street. If an Athabascan woman can’t run a camp with 12 children, she is not an Athabascan woman!

Viewing of ReDiscovery Video Tape

Austin: Story about the dream.

Come out by the table there. We will find out why you are here. He doesn’t have anything in his hand. So he let me sit on the corner like this. In the middle he put his hand. He is talking in his own words. I don’t understand what he is saying. Then he turned around. there is nothing against you, what you are doing to help the people. So there is nothing that you are doing wrong. I woke up and I told my wife. When I fall asleep again, he came to me again, that man, a second time. He told me—Now this time you go up on that big table there. For sure we will find out. So I got up there, same thing he was doing. Everything was on that big table. It was full, there were a lot of people sitting around it. He was putting his hand on it. He came to me again. For sure there is nothing against you. All that is on this table belongs to you, whatever you want to do. So I have to stand up and pass it around. This is the reason I am not afraid of doing all this here. When I woke up I told my wife again about the dreams. When I got through, the last one, when I fall asleep, the same man came to me. This time he told me to go on the platform up there. We will give you something that you could go with it. So he came with a big box, square and high. You take this and look for the manager and the coach and give it to him. So I went and I keep asking—Do you know where the manager and the coach is? He is way over there. I keep walking. All the people are around. When I keep asking, they told me—Well, they are standing there. So I bring that box to them. They told me, they sent me with this box, to give it to you. I don’t know what’s in it. I give it to them, they opened it. There was a little piece of paper in there and they read it to me. Then they turn it over to me. When they opened the box and took that out, it is a catcher’s glove. It is all gold and shiny. The man who put it on told me, anyplace we are we are going through the whole States. Your name is going to be all over the world. What you give it to us. That is what they told me. This is the reason why I am not afraid to fix this one (video tape). I talked to my dancers and song leader about what we have to do. So this is what we got on the tape. That is why I send it all around. Some people buy it. So the children could see what we are doing here. So they will show you what I am talking about. That is the Chilkoot. That is what we fix about it, we talk about the subsistence, our landmarks. When we go up there, I will show you the other one since the flood. What lies there. It is there, up on top the mountain. I could show you that one.

Viewing of Austin Hammond’s Tape

Don: Films like this is really helpful for us to understand people from around the state, how they live and what they are asking for. I appreciate something like this. It gives us a better insight while we are down here and when we go out to Chilkoot camp. It helps us to understand things like this. It’s the same way people in Elutna are doing, and people losing their land in the North Slope due to oil. I wish we could do something like this for all the different areas around the State. I know that Dr. Matthews appreciates this. Being a non-native and a outsider!

Remembrance: An Intercultural Mental Health Process (PDF)

Remembrance, An Intercultural Mental Health Process

by Pam Colorado

Mental Health is a European, western derived construct which, in the context of colonialism, has been imposed upon Native peoples. thus one could question the health of “mental Helth”. I propose that it is possible and timely to create processes and models of mental health which are intercultural and have, as their first order of business, the healing of mental health practitioners…myself included!

Issues of mental health and culture are central to my life. I am a traditional Oneida woman, married to a Hawaiian, Kuhuna Kalai Wa’a and Kii, that is, a man who has the Huna or secret knowledge of how to carve traditional ocean going canoes and images. We live on the island of Maui where I commute to California to teach in the Traditional Knowledge Program—a doctoral program for tribal people worldwide. I am also of French ancestry and travelled to France during my early twenties to make peace with the conflict I felt as a mixed blood person.

In twenty years of activism my model of mental health practice evolved from a largely clinical social work/community organizing focus (with a few cultural touches) to an almost completely cultural, spiritual practice that drew on western psychology when necessary. Although reluctant to draw on extra cultural approaches,I found psychology and its terminology to be helpful in dealing with deadly colonial wounds, notably alcoholism. Counselling methods also became a bridge to the western and professional world and to assimilated parts of my personality. In fact, western counselling helped me to decolonize and to embrace my true cultural identity.

But joining Native and western approaches to mental health has always made me uncomfortable. First of all, there are no guidelines or mutually established ethics to govern the linking. Second, the concept of mental health is inextricably bound up in relationships of domination and power. Prior to the invasion of North America there wasn’t even a concept of mental health! Native cultures sought and were an expression of grounded lives lived in balance and intimate communication with all living beings. third, western practitioners’ denial of the power dynamics between Natives and westerners emotionally charge the counselling process. Fourth, whether we like it or not, there is no part of Native life that has not been violated or desecrated. As a result, we carry enormous and undifferentiated anxieties and pain; often we swing back and forth between western and Native behavior without conscious choice. Finally, as my genetics suggest, there is no escaping the obvious fact that American Indians and Euramericans (with their mental health practices) share a land and a reality. We must address the intercultural mental health conundrum and transform it into something good.

Recently, I worked with a French American person whose wife had suffered with terminal cancer for ore than two years. I began the work in my usual way, as a cultural person who used western concepts to communicate and engage. Four months later, when the work was complete, I had been taught a way of doing Native mental health in the western world; moreover, a westerner had entered my Native paradigm and healed aspects of my life. I refer to the process as remembrance and share some of it with you now.

A stormy twilight sky holds the ocean in an indigo embrace. Moving smoothly through the cold spring ocean, I hesitate for a moment, questioning the wisdom of a swim so late in the day. Hawaiian elders warn against this. As I realise I am alone in the water, a sense of vulnerability rises; I do not recall how I got here. I want to return to shore but am powerless to move. The growing density of the night time sky is matched by a sense of growing danger in the water. Suddenly, I am aware of an enormous and awesome presence—Mano! The shark1

My reaction is instantaneous. Rolling over on my back I lie suspended in the water and I wait. Mano is one of the most powerful animal spirits in Hawaiian cosmology. The shark empowers priests, healers and intellectuals; it is an Aumakua, the head of a major clan system and it is Mano that accompanied and protected the first Polynesian voyagers to settle the Hawaiian islands. Lying motionless is the only act of reverence available to me. I can feel him approaching from my right; swift and smooth. He transverses the length of my body, as if appraising me. Death may be imminent. I am afraid. I am hopeful. The shark turns and heads directly towards me. Bright blue lines of electricity stream from either side of his head. Reaching my still body, he races beneath me, around me, wrapping me in blue lines of vivifying intelligence and power. Then he is gone.

I awake, shaking and weeping with joy. Gathering up my medicine bag, I pull on some clothes and head to Launiopoko Beach to make an offering of thanks. Pulling Indian tobacco from its pouch, I call to Mano. Laying a gift of tobacco in the water, I wait. Was it a true dream? A few moments pass, doubt begins to enter my mind. Just then a movement about fifty feet off to the left catches my eye. It is a shark fin, standing nearly one foot out of the water. This must be a great animal. As quickly as it moves towards me, it turns and disappears from sight.

As I drive home, I wonder at the beauty and power of Native ways. The feelings that went through me when I saw the shark acknowledge the offering! I wonder what the meaning of this experience is and what is expected of me. A few days later, a stranger stops by our house to look at Hawaiian art work. It is Mr. Robert Requin (Mr. R), an elderly gentleman of enormous wealth and great political repute.

It is not usual to greet someone of Mr. R’s standing, so I paid attention to what happened. As he entered our house, he went almost directly to the scale model canoe, “Lele O Ke Kolea”, the canoe that brought the first Hawaiians here. As I approached Mr. R to welcome him a spiritual presence, nearly palpable, filled the room. My traditional training enabled me to see it my western mind interpreted it as a crucial bonding. I was shocked because I had never had such a moment with a non Native person.

Any traditional Native person will tell you that ordinary reality is not real at all. This world is spiritual and beings of great power, like Mano, move through the veil of our conscious minds. Like Creator, Mano touches us. It is only an instant but in that moment we experience something timeless and real—our own truth. Truth, according to Native thought is meant to be lived. When a dream comes, work of transformative nature is sure to follow. Because the work is spiritual and difficult, it is important to interpret the direction of the dream accurately.

In the weeks that followed, I struggled for understanding and direction. I spoke to another traditional person who responded, “A strange thought just came to me—your visitor is Mano!” The truth of the message was so strong, it took my breath.

Identifying the Mano as the spiritual protector and power of my visitor, gave me a beginning point for determining how we were related. For a few days, I struggled trying to remember anything I heard or knew of the relationship between Mano and the Thunderers—my clan. The answer came in the middle of the night when I awoke thinking of a petroglyph from the Northwest Coast (where I learned the process of deciphering the ancient language).

On a large rock, located in the tideline, is a carving of the Shark and Thunderbird, held together by a huge lizard—the protector of water and change of consciousness. This 15,000-year-old carving is predictive of transformative learning—of movement into a higher integration of knowledge which will be sensory or predictive. The Lizard also implies genealogy or ancestral communication. In a western sense we might say I had determined an archetypal relationship. I understood that this was a powerful connection but I lacked a course, or even a next step of action.

One day, during a phone conversation with Mr. R, we discussed our French family histories. Realising that our ancestors had arrived in the New World about the same time, I decided to check my family tree, a lengthy document. Turning to a random page, I glanced down and discovered that a man from my family and a woman from his had married in 1560; furthermore, this couple moved to the New World and became the progenitors of both his family line and mine! This confused me. If I had found a mutual Indian ancestor, I would know what to do or who to contact. I was in for a surprise.

Mr. R had purchased a number of traditional Hawaiian art pieces of my husband’s and had asked me to bless them. I readily agreed, until I turned to do it and discovered the purchases included Lei o Mano—weapons of war constructed of sharks teeth and a wood that women do not touch! How do I, as a woman, pray over weapons of death? Is this proper? Do I have the authority? These questions took several days and the pieces were to be delivered the next day. Finally, I understood the next step.

Moving the weapons into the sunshine, I made my prayer but something didn’t feel complete. So, I meditated some more and realized that I needed to do a night ceremony as well.

That night on the lanai, the spirits spoke in unmistakable messages. Mr. R’s wife had survived because two, vainglorious physicians, eager to win the respect and approval of her wealthy husband, had used extraordinary means to keep the woman alive. She had been tortured. I knew it because for a brief moment the spirits made me feel what she had suffered; it was agony. I was told that her end would come soon and I was given several other pieces of information for Mr. R.

When I came in from my prayers, I was shaking with fear. I knew I had to tell Mr. R but I doubted myself. What if I was wrong? What if I had misinterpreted something? And I questioned my right to even tell someone such news. Nevertheless, the following morning while burning sage, I called Mr. R and shared, as gently as I could, all of what had transpired. To my amazement, he nearly wept with relief. In the next few weeks, everything happened just as I had been told. I was stunned at my self doubts and with the power of these old ways.

I was also pleased that ancient Native ways could help Mr. R—in fact, even seeming to complement his devout Catholicism. But two weeks after his wife’s death I learned that my sister was alcoholic and suicidal. Thee generations of family addiction came crashing down on me. All my work in healing did not seem to stop the destruction and death in my own family. I was terrified.

Another dream came to me. This dream revealed the origins of the family addiction problem. It rested in an event that happened in France nearly 700 years ago—an event that Mr. R’s family shared. I awoke from the dream, it was near midnight. Heading directly for the closet, I rummaged around until I found my baptism candle (although raised traditionally, I had also been baptised Catholic, perhaps to cover all the bases!) I took the candle out to my rock altar and then stopped. I didn’t know where to put it. How could I respect these two ways and still bring them together? Desperate for my sisters life, I finally placed it on the lower right hand corner. Then I began my prayer, in my Indian way, explaining what I was trying to do and why. I asked permission to proceed. It seemed okay, so I picked up the candle, stuck it in the damp tropical earth, and lit it. I wasn’t sure how to pray. I tried all the Latin prayers I could remember but nothing felt genuine. Then I tried it the Indian way, by calling to the ancestors. Suddenly, the sultry, leeward night was hit with a cold wind from the North. It came down on me so hard and fast, I had to cup the flame to keep it from going out. I was scared. I knew I had pinpointed the cause and I knew I needed help.

The next morning, I called Mr. R and asked him to help in the tradition of his French Catholic religion. He agreed and for the next three days he prayed for us.

About a week later, Mr. R and I spoke. I thanked him and told him the astonishing news. My huge French-Indian family had finally acknowledged the problem of addiction in our family and was preparing for a family intervention for my sister. He was not surprised because he had felt a peace come over him the first night of his prayers. We both wept and laughed on the phone. Who would ever have guessed the combined power of a Pagan and a Catholic!

I used to think that darkness was evil but an Elder once told me, that darkness is safety, security, like the womb. In the darkness we are all one; separations cannot be seen. Perhaps this is the Huna, or inner secret Hawaiians know. For Mr. R and I to heal required great risks and trust. We both stepped into our shadow many times but we were not alone. At night, in a dream, the shark spirit came to give me the power to do the healing work. Although I doubted myself, I still went to the beach and made a thanksgiving offer. A real shark came proving the truth of the dream as well as the value of facing self doubt.

Mr. R knew of the terrible things his culture has done and continues to do to Native people, but he stepped through that history when he asked for my help.

I entered the shadow again when I turned to my French genealogy; used my candle and asked Mr. R for his help. It was difficult to do. Yet, the evil visited on my family—the multigenerational alcoholism derived from and depended upon the continuing hatred and divisiveness of Catholic and tribal people.

Most likely I will never see Mr. R again, but in the dark moment we shared, a beautiful healing emanated. Two people—from vastly different political, socioeconomic backgrounds, one traditional Indian, the other Catholic—joined using western psychological language and simple loving prayers particular to our own cultures. We healed. Nothing happened, yet everything changed.

First Reading, Vol. 13, No. 3, Sept 95 ESPC

Indian Association of Alberta Child Welfare Needs: Assessment and Recommendations (PDF)

Indian Association of Alberta Child Welfare Needs: Assessment and Recommendations

Introduction

The extension of child welfare services to Indian people following World War II has had serious effects upon Indian children, families and communities. In the past decade, several theories have been extended in an attempt to explain the causal factors of the high proportion of Native children in care; however, these theories generally propose solutions based on the assimilation of Indian people into “mainstream society”. Assimilation of a people has often been described in the context of a colonial model. It is within the scope of this paper to examine the principles and practices of child welfare from a colonial perspective. Using the colonial model as a theoretical orientation is useful for two reasons. This model not only offers an historical description of Euro-Indian relations, but it also offers solutions which promote the cultural preservation of Indian nations.

Present Day Orientation

The Native Community’s concern for their childrens’ welfare was brought to critical point by the tragic, untimely death of a 17 year old Native child by his own hand. Once the facts surrounding this tragedy were revealed an awareness was created from which White and Native communities can now act; for Indian Child Welfare is now on the agendas of the respective Native and White governments.

Among the Native Child Welfare issues brought to light resulted from data indicating that Native children in Alberta represent a disproportionately high percentage of children in the Child Welfare programs. In fact, Alberta government statistics indicate that Native children are more likely to come into contact with child protection services at a frequency six and one-half times greater than do other children of the Province.

In response, the Indian Association of Alberta initiated this project; designed to provide a basic structure with principles from which First Nations can begin negotiations for the control of Child Welfare programs. It is our intent to establish a picture of the issues concerning Native Child Welfare. The assessment will then determine the severity of the issues; identify gaps and strengths of the present system and describe alternative models and approaches.

Present statistics indicate the inadequacies associated with services to Native families and communities. The questions that need asking are: Why has the Native community allowed this to go on? What is happening for the child and the family as children are removed from their communities? Whose needs are being met? Native people have argued that, historically, the services provided to them contain little recognition of Native culture and provide only meagre support for the socio-economic conditions plaguing their communities.

In addition to these inadequacies, the other factors precipitating this study are; Alberta Social Services recently implemented campaign for the privatization of Child Welfare programs, and the enactment of a new Child Welfare services to the First Nations. However, the pivotal force of these concerns is Native peoples’ feelings of powerlessness over the control of their own lives, symptomatic in the lives of their children. As a result, in Part 1 the research begins a dialogue in its examination of these issues and the dynamics of the relationships among Indians and between Indians and Whites. Then, it examines the dynamics of the types of relationships which gave rise to the tragedy of Richard Cardinal’s life and death.

Although statistics is an important western scientific research tool, inherent in it are many feelings of inadequacy. Ideally, the best one can hope for when attempting to use quantitative means to determine the depth and degree of human social dysfunctions, is an indication of dysfunction.

Part 2 will discuss problems with, not only analyzing data, but also the question of how to gather, and insure the accuracy of the information gathered. A large part of the problem has to do with previous research concerning Native behaviour, those studies assume some standard of behaviour for the Non-Native community then applies that standard to research involving Natives. Further, Part 2 discusses the need for knowledge of human history.

Part 3 looks at accepted western scientific paradigms, research models and attendant research methodologies, and discusses their limitations and failings in terms of the study of Native behaviour. The discussion then presents a new paradigm, research model and methodologies, explaining the advantage to these approaches.

Part 4 presents “Indian Science”, the process through which Native peoples come to knowledge. This part also includes a discussion of “Western Science” from a Native point of view and, the discussion includes the concerns of its own practitioners. Western Science is both ethnocentric and imperialistic; it recognizes no other science save its own, then uses that same science as the justification for the denial as the existence of any other science. However, many western scientists are searching for a new paradigm, fro they have come to realize what Albert Einstein stated fifty years ago. “The system of Newtonian thought does not work.”

Part 5 is a presentation of analysis and findings which will be presented differently from “standard” research. Rather than presenting statistics, this section presents a profile of four generations; Greatgrandparents, Grandparents, Parents, and Children. The findings and recommendations come from the people themselves.

Part 6 is a presentation of specific recommendations on management principles which go beyond programatic concern; will deal with specific tasks which can begin immediately and some fundamental principles for approaches and development.

The objective of the assessment is to identify a basic structure with principles from which First Nations can approach the issue of Child Welfare programs.

Shamanic Initiations and Their Loss–Decolonization as Initiation and Healing (PDF)

 

Shamanic Initiations and Their Loss —

Decolonization as Initiation and Healing

 

Jürgen W. Kremer

 

3383 Princeton

Santa Rosa

CA 95405, USA

jkremer@sonic.net

 

© 2000 by Jürgen W. Kremer

 

Published in:

Ethnopsychologische Mitteilungen, Band 9, Heft 1/2, 109 – 148

[Page numbers inserted below as P109 etc.]

 

 

Dedicated

to the students who

have shared this path with me –

in gratitude for the gifts

of learning they offered

 

 

[P109] I am a white man. White is short for “socialized into a Eurocentered frame of mind.” White is the name of forgetting. Forgetting so much of how we came to be where we are. I am a white man. Boxed into a box that likes to forget its name. I do not walk alone. Like other white men something walks with me. With me walks a shadow. Before me I project the shadow of forgetting where I came from. Behind me trails the shadow of the tears of native peoples. Below me I march on the shadow of the lands my peoples have raped. Above me looms the shadow of the spirits which I am blind to. All around me walks the shadow of domination, witchhunts, genocides, holocausts, sexism, racism. I do not walk alone.

 

When I walk into healing – how can I heal when these shadows walk with me? How can I heal when they obscure what lies beyond them? I hope to heal by remembering and seeing the shadows that walk with me so that I can become complete. So that I am not made of illusions. I hope to heal by purifying the shadow. So that I am not boxed in a box without names. So that I walk with the multitude, richness, and plurality that is me. Til árs ok til friðar – so that there may be fertility and peace. So that there may be friðr and heill before me – peace, wholeness, and health… may there be friðr and heill behind me… may there be friðr and heill below me… may there be friðr and heill above me… may there be friðr and heill all around me. So that, maybe, I can go on in beauty, friðr and heill. And so that, maybe, even we all can go on in beauty, friðr and heill. So that, maybe, I can walk with all my relations. So that, maybe, I get healed.

 

 

Who is the self that is getting healed?

So often people of the Eurocentered frame of mind are puzzled why indigenous people are upset when they see their healing approaches used in a context different from or alien to their traditional ways. Aboriginal people may then speak not only of abuse, misunderstanding, or appropriation, but also of the grave spiritual dangers ensuing as a consequence of healing done outside of what is defined as the proper practice according to indigenous beingknowing. This contribution attempts to address and clarify the significant [P110] differences in understanding the process of healing in the context of native (or indigenous) thinking vs. Eurocentered thinking.

 

Interest in Native American and other indigenous healing practices (and ceremonies in general) has increased quite dramatically in recent years. This surge in curiosity is fueled by the experience that the conventional western healing; paradigm frequently reaches its own limit and that the spiritual connections within one’s self, with community and with nature, have desiccated. While this yearning for holistic healing by way of indigenous healing practices stems from a valid desire and need, it raises not only ethical and political issues, but also epistemological questions: Is the Eurocentered way of knowing indigenous healing compatible with the native understanding and use of these practices?

 

Cosmologies are inevitably implicated in any healing activity, but our attempts to be aware of such cosmologies, and, even more so, our attempts to participate in them in an indigenous sense are a matter of choice, commitment, and presence. Two significant things follow from this: 1) If people engage with an indigenous paradigm in a non-indigenous fashion then they continue to act out the imperialistic nature of Eurocentered knowledge acquisition. 2) Healing endeavors offer a choice of the quality of conversation one wants to create for the future (indigenous vs. Eurocentered). This is true regardless whether one’s indigenous roots are present, recent, or have to be sought in the distant past amidst a crisscrossing entanglements of cultural, genetic, and other heritages.

 

A significant part of the unease and discomfort indigenous people have around the decontextualized use of native healing practices is the shadow material looming not just in the background of such endeavors, but becoming part of them. Using native healing approaches outside of an indigenous way of being means carrying the disease of the colonizing paradigm, in fact, perpetrating colonization. Removing the presence of these shadows means decolonizing for all of us ensconced in the Eurocentered paradigm (whatever the cultural roots). It means healing the diss-association from communal roots. It means recognizing the losses of our own cultures. It means recognizing the history of colonization, racism, and sexism. Only then arises the possibility of a knowledge exchange about indigenous healing practices that can be called equitable, instead of acquisitive, reifying, or appropriative. It may lead to the renewal of a more complete, holistic, and associative nurturing conversation.

 

My general framework is a discursive conversational stance of communal con-course, which resists the reification and ossification of what is usually described as “the other” (e.g., the Indian, the Sámi, the Aboriginal). It is an attempt to recover the traditional plurality of tribal or indigenous stories not only in the perception of other cultures, but particularly and foremost in the perception of one’s own roots. This means overcoming the denial of and separation from “the other” within one’s own self constructed in the [P111] Eurocentered fashion; it means discontinuing and healing the projective identification with indigenous peoples (the romantic colonization and containment of native life and history through Eurocentered sciences). The construction of indigenous peoples as “the other” is only possible as long as Eurocentered folk choose to forget their own indigenous roots, since out of this denial arises the legitimation of Eurocentered scientific dominance, progress thinking, and colonization. This approach is based on the recognition that the discontinuance of colonizing action is not just to cease outward acts of hostility, violence, and dominance, but just as much the internal abolition of the colonizer or the colonizing mind (the latter being a concept synonymous with the construction of the Eurocentered mind or consciousness).

 

I would like to be as clear as possible about the vantage point from which I am writing: The framework is a) decolonization and b) the healing of the masculinization of the phenomena of perceived reality. Any consideration regarding indigenous roots for people who are removed from them by more than a couple of generations needs to include such dimensions as politics, economics, law, cultural practices, ceremony, initiation, science, psychology. Healing the Eurocentered thought process from its dissociation or split from an embedded, nurturing, or holistic participation in the phenomena cannot be merely an individualistic process – it has to be a cultural, communal, and social process. I am writing as a man of Nordic-Germanic ancestry struggling with the depths of the scars of modern pathologies as they show themselves in individuals physically as such illnesses as cancer, addictions, chronic fatigue syndrome, and in social anomies (in Durckheim’s sense), ecological crises, continuing physical and cultural genocide of indigenous peoples, the crises of knowing, the persistence of sexism, institutionalized violence and racism, etc.

 

I am using the terms indigenous roots, indigenous consciousness, and the like not out of any presumption that this is something I have achieved for myself, or that I have reached closure to my personal process of decolonization (I do not believe that individual closure is possible without the healing of the communal, cultural contexts). These terms have been suggested directly and indirectly by Native American thinkers, Apela Colorado in particular (1994, 47):

The goal of the recovery of indigenous mind [is] to reunite people with their tribal minds. Each of the races of humankind was given a sacred circle or original instruction to live by. If our species is to survive, Euro-Americans must be supported in their effort to regain the Earth-based knowledge of their ancestors. Native Americans will help.

Churchill (1996, 386/7) spoke similarly when addressing an audience of Germans:

You must set yourselves to reclaiming your own indigenous past. You must come to know it in its own terms – the terms of its internal values and understandings, and the way these [P112]  were appplied to living in this world – not the terms imposed upon it by the order which set out to destroy it. You must learn to put your knowledge of this heritage to use as a lense through which you can clarify your present circumstance … You must begin with the decolonization of your own minds, with a restoration of your understanding of who you are, where you come from, what it is that has been done to you to take you to the place in which you now find yourselves.

Within the framework of his own indigenist approach he urges the expression of “German indigenism” (389). Mohawk (n.d., 17) speaks to the same issue when stating “I do not want people to adopt Indian rituals, because I want them to own their own rituals. I want them to come to ownership of experiences that are real for them. Then I’ll come and celebrate with them.”

 

According to all the native and indigenous people (shamans, medicine people and intellectuals) I have spoken to, the crucial point here is that indigenous roots are always recoverable. Indeed, indigenous leaders see such task as a historic necessity in our times. This is where their hope for the resolution of the current crises, particularly the ecological crisis, rests. For example, Bob Hazous, Chiricahua Apache, has stated: “Don’t come to Indian people and look for feathers and sweats and medicine men and stuff like that. Go back to your own history and find out who you are so that you can look at yourselves and see how beautiful you are” (1994). Implicit here is an assumption about “original instruction – words about purpose, words rooted in our creation, words that allow the human being an identity beyond the illusion of civilization,” as Native American writer Gabriel Horn puts it (1996, 49). Reconstructing indigenous consciousness is about the remembrance of these original instructions and the indigenous conversation with all beings they guide in a particular place at a particular time. While consciousness is a psychological term that has arisen from the individualism facilitated by the Eurocentered paradigm, it assumes quite a different meaning in an indigenous context: instead of being merely psychological it refers to a fluid and embedded awareness of and connection with all our relations – humans, ancestors, animals, plants, earth, stars, sun, and all others. And all this in the storied, imaginative, communal reflections of lived participation.

 

Even though the words “recovery of indigenous mind” have been suggested by Native American thinkers I have to admit to a certain degree of anxiety whenever I use words like these. So many concepts and terms have become superficial labels as they have entered mainstream or popular thinking that I am afraid a similar thing might happen with a romantic, nostalgic, or opportunistic appropriation of and identification with the word indigenous. This would be terrible and an outrageous misunderstanding of the process I am calling for. The remaining indigenous peoples continue to struggle for survival and recognition. Indigenous is a term with important political meaning. Any person of Eurocentered mind needs to assume (take it on!) this political meaning (together with all [P113] the other meanings the word indigenous connotes). Assuming it means a personal and social struggle for decolonization, it means fighting genocide, racism, sexism, and ecocide. Outside of that context the use of the word indigenous is abuse and devaluation of the struggle of aboriginal peoples and supports those who keep destroying indigenous cultures in conscious and unconscious ways.

 

The differences in healing paradigm between indigenous traditions and Eurocentered traditions can be understood as the result of different constructions of self (importantly, any self construction arises within a complex web of mutual causality; consequently, the perspective offered here should not be misread in a monocausal vein). There are multiple ways of identifying such differences; for the purposes of this contribution on healing I am using shamanic initiations as a marker to identify differences in self construction. This leads, in a sense, to the most fundamental questions:

 

Who are we healing? Which self are we healing when we attempt to relieve human suffering?

 

Are we attempting to heal the modern, Eurocentered, colonizing, or dissociated self? Or are we attempting to heal the indigenous self, the self embedded in community, land, and ancestry?

 

Are we attempting to heal the Eurocentered self, and make it more functional within the modern world of progress and dissociation? Or are we attempting to bring balance to the indigenous self by healing it from the source of creation as it is understood in the plurality of stories of traditions within which we are working?

 

The most succcinct way to describe my stance would be as follows: The exposure to Native American and other indigenous healing practices needs to be an occasion for people of Eurocentered mind to develop and remember their own indigenous healing practices. This process would include the integration of the western medical and psychological achievements from European indigenous perspectives – from the indigenous roots Eurocentered folk have recovered for a concursive construction of indigeneity for today and the future (not a folkloristic or retroromantic reènactment of things past).

 

In my attempt to clarify the issues I have just introduced I:

— describe and discuss what is usually seen as the classical shamanic initiation in Eurasia, the prequisite for the highest levels of healing in her indigenous traditions;

— discuss my understanding of indigenous healing;

— describe the historical loss of rites of passage and initiations leading to the construction of what can probably most accurately be called the Eurocentered self;

[P114] — contrast the modern paradigm of healing that arises from this self construction with indigenous understandings of healing;

— describe the process of decolonization as a rite of passage and initiation.

— I conclude with I poem and overview table “summarizing” the issues discussed in this article.

 

Shamanic Initiation

Most indigenous cultures seem to have a variety of specialists engaged in healing endeavors. Their native labels express their work succinctly, distinguishing between e.g., herbalists, bone setters, shamans, seers, diagnosticians. Given my background, my focus is on the Eurasian cultural areas which, amidst their rich diversity, have certain connecting strands. Here the jajan, saman, noaidi, völva, or seiðkarl embody the highest or deepest forms of seeing and healing; they are holders of the deep knowledge of their cultures and keep it alive through their ceremonial practices; they have been initiated by spirits into the lived knowledge of their cultures.

 

My Nordic-Germanic roots connect me with the vast Eurasian cultural complex that has certain common strands (Pentikäinen 1989). Within this rich area I begin my discussion with descriptions from cultures that are less impacted by Christian influences, and move subsequently to the Old Norse material that is much more fragmentary and influenced by Christian thought.

 

A feature on Tuvan shamanism filmed by Belgian Public Television (Dumon 1993) contains a brief moment where the interviewer asks the shaman whether he had to go through the shamanic illness in order to become a shaman. “Were you also sick?” The question leads us to expect a long explanation of such a significant event, however, the old man only answers matter of factly: “Of course, I was sick.” The brevity of the answer indicates how obvious, necessary, and inevitable the so-called shamanic illness or albystar (in Tuvinian). It is what makes and defines a shaman, whether woman or man or hermaphrodite. All other shamans shown in this movie have undergone similar trials as they were called to shamanize.[1][1]

 

The common language for the call to shamanize and the initiation is ‘initiatory illness’ or ‘shamanic illness.’ The following are excerpts from descriptions among the Evenki (Tungus) of Central Asia:

…He became tormented and timorous, especially at night when his head was filled with dream visions. On the day when he had to act as shaman, the visions stopped, he fell into a [P115] trance and stared for hours at an object. The pale and worried man, with his piercing look, made a peculiar impression. After his dream, the chosen man became uneasy and timid, began to meditate, did not answer when he was addressed and frquently heard ‘words whispered into his ears’ which he had to sing, žarižačan (literally: ‘to repeat’). That was the moment when, in shamanistic terminology, ‘the spirits entered his ears and brain’, telling him the words of the song. … [The Evenki] believed that the choice itself and the transfer of the assistant spirits to the novice were directed by the master spirit of the upper world. The first words heard by the chosen person were instructions, such as: … ‘do not commit evil things, only cure the sick. … I shall be above you, and take care of you, and give you strength.’ In his dream, the young shaman could see the shaman ancestors who also gave him instructions. Then other spirits came ‘whispering into his ears’. (Vasilevič 1968, 345)

The last sentence of this quote speaks most clearly to the difference between a psychologizing Eurocentered perspective and indigenous perspectives: the ancestors and other spirits speak to the initiand, self construction is fluid and open enough to have intercourse with such realities; this is different from an internalizing self construction comprehending and apprehending ancestors as various aspects of the monadic self (whatever psychological theory we might use). The process leads from the initial visitation by spirits to the acquisition of the necessary shamanic accoutrements, as described in the following statement from the Tuva (Soyot) of Central Asia:

A shaman is recognized by typical attacks of a special ‘disease’ called albystar. The person in question ‘goes off his head’, utters inarticulate sounds, breaks dishes, leaves the house and roams about the taiga, twitches in hysterical convulsions, is seized with nausea and rends his garments, etc. The ‘invalid’ repeats that the soul of a shaman ištig irgäk has moved into his body, that the spirit urges him to take a horse (by which the drum düŋür is meant) and clothes (ala xujaq) and to become a shaman. (Vajnštejn, 1968, 331)

 

Even in the Old Norse traditions, where shamanism fell prey to Christianity more than one thousand years ago, we find remnants in the records describing an indigenous self construction of the practitioners. For example, at the beginning of the Eddic poem reaching most deeply into the older layer of the culture we read how the seeress was raised by ancestral spirits:

Ek man iötna / ár um borna, / þá er forðum mik / fædda höfðu. / Níu man ek heima / – níu íviðiur, / miötvið mæran – / fyr mold neðan. (Völuspá, stanza 2)

I remember the Jötnar who were born at the beginning of time and reared me in former times. I remember nine worlds beneath the earth, nine giantesses, and also the glorious tree of fate. (Pálsson 1996, 47 & 58)

The völva is raised by giants, reared with primal spirits of old, one of them called Burr, the bear ancestor. Personal and collective or communal time are indistinguishable in this [P116] incantoatory account of earliest Norse history. The giants are primal spirits, presences from before human beings (If we accept Pálsson´s interpretation of iötna as Sámi we still end up with the same understanding: the seeress was raised in the presence of spirits or with spirits.)

 

The connection with one’s dream or vision or medicine power or personal gift is part of native life, manifesting in all the multitude of cultural ways. Reinforcing that connection is the function of rites of passage. Shamanic initiation, in the indigenous sense, is deepening or reinforcing one’s presence to the spiritual realities within a communal framework. While spirit(s) are part of all indigenous conversations, the awareness of and presence to spirit(s) becomes intensified and heightened for shamans. Thus the völva in Völuspá is raised with spirit(s) in such intensity and to such depths that she sees through time, that she remembers the beginnings of things, the center of her traditions (the tree of fate). As the descriptions above indicate, such shamanic initiations are not mere psychological processes. They are a process always also resulting in actions capable of manifesting healing. Paula Gunn Allen (1998, 47) aptly describes the difference between the psychologizing of spirit – a temptation to which many alternate Eurocentered approaches succumb in our current culture of psychology – and the indigenous conversation:

In tribal cultures, ecstatic, mystical states don’t so much convert into emotive personal experience as into physical experience or experience with direct effect in the physical (that is, as a consequence of entering an ecstatic state, a practitioner can do something actual). Visionary experiences, in themselves, are either a direct requirement for some ritual activity in which the individual is engaging or are a prelude to a life as a holy person.

The shamanic self is not so much constructed as affirmed and confirmed during initiations; it is the rigorous confirmation of something which has already been in the process of construction from early on. It is worthy of note that the ‘shamanic illness’ is not something an individual chooses as an endeavor during a sequence of workshops, but that the spirit(s) come to them. The shamanic self is initiated from the ‘outside’, to speak in Eurocentered terminology. We might say more accurately that other aspects of the weave that the fluid, participatory indigenous self is connected into impinge their awareness onto the individual mind. Or, more plainly:

The Indian has achieved a particularly effective alignment of [the physical and imaginative] planes of vision. … The appropriation of both images into one reality is what the Indian is concerned to do: to see what is really there, but also to see what is really there. (Momaday, from Blaeser 1998, 26)

So, this is a self which has easy concourse with spirits and spiritual dimensions, or rather: instead of being unconscious or in denial about such presences and concourse, it is present to it. This is the work of the völva, noaidi, and the various other shamanic practitioners.

 

[P117] Eliade, in his classic book Shamanism – Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1951/1964, 42), complains that not enough “care had been taken to collect the confessions (sic!) of … Siberian shamans” so that they are “reduced to the meager common formula: the candidate remained unconscious for a certain number of days, dreamed that he was cut to pieces by spirits and carried into the sky, and so on.” He sees the following detailed description as a relief from such reductions. This example may be the one most frequently quoted in the literature (see Popov in Dioszegi 1968, 137-146;  Elidade 1951/1964, 38-42; Halifax 1979, 37-49; Vitebky 1995, 60-61), and it can also be found on the internet (see below). Repeating this report one more time may thus contribute to a reification and ossification of what shamanic initiation is. The ones who escaped the care of the anthropological collectors may be the lucky ones, since they have escaped the grasp of anthropology, “the natural enemy of natives” (88), or more elaborately: “Natives are forever studied, invented as abstruse cultures, and then embodied in motion pictues as the simulated burdens of civilization. … These adversities became more grievous and caused a turn in the notions, courses, and literary canons at universities, but the treacheries and dominance of anthropologism, the obsessive, unmerciful studies of natives by social scientists, have not been overturned…” (Vizenor 1997, 86). With the opening of the East Bloc, anthropological attention has turned more intensely on her aboriginal traditions previously more difficult to access. Here is an abbreviated version of the account:

At first he was descending somewhere, then he grasped that there was a sea beneath him. While walking by the sea, he listened to the voice of upper disease who told that he would acquire the shaman’s gift from the Mistress of water and his shaman name would be Hotarie. After that he reached the shore. A naked woman, who was lying there, suckled him. She was the Mistress of water. Her husband Frosty God gave an ermine and a mouse to guide him.  They led him to the hill in the lower world where he saw seven tents. Dyukhade entered the second tent. The Smallpox people were living there. They cut out Dyukhade’s heart and put it in the cauldron to boil. Afterwards Dyukhade visited other tents and got familiar with the spirits of diseases who lived there. Still preceeded by his guides, Dyukhade came to that place of the Shaman’s Land where his throat and his voice were strengthened.  Then he was carried to the shores of the nine lakes. In the middle of one lake was an island and on the island there was a tree, quite similar to the larch, only its top rose to the sky. It was the tree of the Mistress of the earth. Beside it grew seven herbs, the ancestors of all the plants on the earth. In each of the lakes swam a species of bird with its young. There were several kinds of ducks, a swan and a sparrow-hawk. While singing songs and telling incantations, Dyukhade walked round all of the lakes. Some of them were very hot, some were terribly salty. Thereafter Dyukhade raised his head and saw men of various nations in the top of the high tree. There were Nganasans, Russians, Dolgans, Nenetses and Tunguses. He heard voices: “It has been decided that you shall have a drum from the branches of this tree.”  Then he grasped that he was flying with the birds of the lakes. As he left the shore, the Lord of the Tree called to him: “My branch has just fallen. [P118] Take it and make a drum of it that will serve you all your life!” The branch had three forks and the Lord of the Tree bade him make three drums from it. “I let you have three wives, who will watch over your drums,” he said. “The first drum you have got to use for shamanising women in childbirth, the second for curing the sick and the third for finding men lost in the snowstorm.”  Dyukhade took the branch and flew away with the birds. On his way he met a demiman-demitree creature who told: ” If you will be asked to shamanise in the case of serious illness and your heart will not be strong enough, then you will take this,” and he gave him seven herbs. “Each of them has its lords. If you will meet an orphan girl or a widow, you will help them.”   Then Dyukhade reached the large sea. He saw seven cliffs on the shore. When he got close, one of them opened. There were teeth like from the bear inside the cliff. The cliff said: “I am the Heavy Stone. By the use of my weight I hold the fertile soil in its place. The wind would carry it away without me.” The second cliff opened and said: “Let all men melt iron from me.” So Dyukhade studied seven days near the cliffs.  Afterwards the ermine and the mouse led him to the marshland. They reached the hill with swampy slopes. There was an open doorway on the closest slope, and they went in. The interior, except for the ice around it, looked like the one of the conical tent’s. There was a hearth in the middle of the room. On the left side two naked women were sitting. Their bodies were furry and they both had antlers (one of them had green ones). Both of them bore him two reindeer calves destined for sacrifice and nourishment. They gave him some reindeer fur for the shaman costume and for good luck with reindeer.  Then Dyukhade came to a desert and saw a distant mountain. After three days’ travel he reached it and entered an opening. There was a naked man working a bellows inside the mountain. On the fire was a cauldron as big as half the earth. The naked man saw Dyukhade and caught him with a huge pair of tongs. Dyukhade had only time to think: “I am dead!” The man cut off his head, chopped up his body and put them in the cauldron. There he boiled them for three years. There were three anvils on the tundra side of this mountain. The naked man forged Dyukhade’s head on the third anvil, which was the one on which the best shamans were forged. Then he chilled his head in the cauldron, in which the water was the coldest (there were three cauldrons with water). He said: “When you will be called to cure someone, you will remember – if the soul of your patient will be warmer then water in the first cauldron, it will be useless to shamanize, for the man is already lost. If the soul will be as warm as water in the second cauldron, your patient is not very seriously ill and you will shamanize to cure him. Water in the third cauldron has the temperature of the healthy body.” Then the blacksmith poured Dyukhade’s bones and muscles out of the cauldron and separated flesh from bones. He said: “As you have three of them too many, you will have three shaman costumes too.” Afterwards he said: “Your spinal cord is a river now, look at your bones floating away!” He fished Dyukhade’s bones out of the river and put them together. The bones were covered with flesh again. Only the skull was still separated. Then the blacksmith told Dyukhade to read the letters inside the skull. And Dyukhade read. Then the blacksmith covered the skull with flesh and put it to its original place again. He changed his eyes and pierced his ears, making him able to understand the language of [P119] plants. Then Dyukhade found himself on the summit of a mountain. He entered a tent and awakened – in his own tent.   Afterwards he behaved like an insane person: daily he sung incantations and frequently swooned away, nightly suffered torments caused by spirits. During the seventh year of his illness he went far into the tundra and met there a man who gave him back his heart, cut out at the very beginning of his shaman’s sickness. (A. Popov “Tavgitsy” – Trudy Instituta antropologii i etnografii, t. 1. vyp. 5. Moskva-Leningrad 1936, pp 85 – 93. Abbreviated translation by A. Lintrop at http://haldjas.folklore.ee/~aado/vis.htm)

 

As all these descriptions should make obvious: the call to become a shaman is not a light matter; the initiation is a journey where the person’s life is on the line, where not getting something right can easily mean death (see Eliade 1951/1964, 38-42 in particular). The patterns of call, initiation and instruction vary from culture to culture in accordance with the form the nurturing conversation takes in a particular place (local knowledge), time, ancestry, and ceremonial tradition (See Vitebsky 1995 for a brief, comprehensive overview). However, common to all is pressure from spirits resulting in a heightened presence to them, and the imparting of healing knowledge in a way that makes it available to the personal repertoire of the initiand – the person is getting initiated into the deep knowledge of his or her culture. This is the crucial point: while this process certainly has a psychological dimension it functions, when comprehended as a whole, entirely outside of not just a psychological paradigm, but outside of the boundaries of the Eurocentered paradigmata in general. Psychologizing spirit amounts to the appropriation and containment of Eurasian ancestries. Especially since Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces (1949) Eurocentered individuals are prone to interpret initiation in psychological terms, particularly in Jungian archetypal terms (initiation into Self). While such process has psychological validity (there is, of course, such a process as the psychological initiation into the Self archetype), it is a partial interpretation of the Eurasian indigenous process of shamanic initiation (the call from and invasion of spirits) as is, hopefully, apparent from the above statements.

 

An illustration of such contact with spirits can be seen in the story of Óðinn being initiated by fasting and hanging on the tree of life for nine days. While fragmentary, it clearly contains some of the elements described above for Siberian shamanism. We reasonably have to assume that Óðinn started out as the village master shaman, who later became hypostasized and patricarchalized in the course of the emergence of Eurocentered social constructions. In the following quotation Óðinn undergoes shamanic initiation, what is really there and what is really there, come together, the physical and imaginative, spiritual planes get aligned. He is wounded and sacrifices himself for nine long nights on the tree of life, at the center whence the female spirits Urðr, Verðandi, and Skuld renew life continuously from the sources of creation. The giant spirit of Bölthorn’s son (ancestral spirit of his uncle) teaches him the shamanic song for spirit calling, he drinks the mead, the [P120] herbal drink of ecstasy and in-spiration, thus becoming full of spirit and being present to spirits he learns from various spirits, ginnregin, the mighty gods,[2][2] the tools of his shamanic trade (runes, not merely letters or symbols, but images to make spirit present for shamanic work, invocations; carving runes means creating spiritual presences).

  1. Veit ek, at ek hekk 137. I know that I hung in the windtorn tree

vindga meiði á

nætr allar níu                                 Nine whole nights, spear-pierced,

geiri undaðr Óðni,

sjálfr sjálfum mér,                        Consecrated to Odin, myself to my Self above me in the tree,

á þeim meiði

er manngi veit                               Whose roots no one knows whence it sprang.

hvers hann af rótum renn.

 

  1. Við hleifi mik sældu 138. None brought me bread, none served me drink;

né við hornigi,

nýsta ek niðr                                 I searched the depths, spied runes of wisdom;

nam ek upp rúnar

Ïpandi nam,                                   Raised them with song, and fell once more thence.

fell ek aptr þaðan.

 

  1. Fimbulljóð níu 139. Nine powerful chants I learned

nam ek af inum frægja syni

Bölþórs, Bestlu föður,                   From the wise son of Bölthorn, Bestla’s father;

ok ek drykk of gat                        A draught I drank of precious mead

ins dýra mjaðar

ausinn Óðreri.                               Ladled from Odraerir.

 

  1. Þá nam ek frævask 140. I began to thrive, to grow wise,

ok fróðr vera

ok vaxa ok vel hafask;                                   To grow greater, and enjoy;

orð mér af orði                             For me words led from words to new words;

orðs leitaði,

verk mér af verki                         For me deeds led from deeds to new deeds.

verks leitði.

[P121]

  1. Rúnar munt þú finna 141. Runes shall you know and right read staves,

ok ráðna stafi,

mjök stóra stafi,                            Very great staves, powerful staves,

mjök stinna stafi,

er fáði fimbulþulr                         Drawn by the mighty one who speaks,

ok gørðu ginnregin                       Made by wise Vaner,

ok reist Hroptr rjögna.                  carved by the hightest rulers.

(Evans 1986, 68-69)                     (Titchenell 1985, 126-127)

This is one of Óðinn’s shamanic journeys recorded in the Old Norse literature, where he learns what he needs for his craft. While this description seems to contain but remnants of a complete cultural practice, these ciphers direct our attention to a quality of indigenous conversation present beneath the layer of Christianized descriptions and patriarchal conceptualizations. In this nurturing shamanic conversations Óðinn consorts with spirits and feminine sources of creation, renewal, and healing. Hanging from the tree of life he has accessed the deep knowledge of his culture.

 

 

Indigenous Healing

Healing is intimately connected with seeing: the perception of spirits and spirits is an integral part of any healing endeavor. Without seeing spirit there is no healing. Understanding spiritually what is out of balance and how healing needs to happen requires seeing. We find this form of seeing described in Eiríks Saga Rauða:

Slógu þá konur hring um hjalling, en Þorbjörg sat á uppi. Kvað Guðriður flá kvæðið svá fagrt ok vel… Spákonan þakkar henni kvæðit, ok kvað margar þær náttúrur nú til hafa sótt ok þykkja fagrt at heyra, er kvæðit var svá vel flutt.

The women then cast a circle round the ritual platform on which Thorbjörg seated herself. Then Gudrid sang the songs so well and beautifully… The völva gives thanks for the song to her and said many spirits have come to us and are charmed by what they hear as the song was sung so beautifully. (Jones 1961, 136)

The calling of the spirits is done by means of varðlokkur, the spirit song, which has a similar function to the drumming and inspired singing or chanting in other Eurasian shamanic traditions (varðlokkur is oftentimes translated as magic song, Zaubergesang; warlock is a related word; vörðr is soul, fylgja, the familiar spirit who follows, the spirit of the home and hearth, guardian spirit; lúka is what encloses the spirits, binds them). It is the power and beauty of the song that brings the spirits. The völva cannot do her seeing and prophecying without the spirits being present.

 

[P122] The various techniques of spirit calling have led many to interpret indigenous spirituality in terms of the dichotomous pair immanence – transcendence used in religious discussions of “major religions,” for example. However, this represents, I believe, a fundamental misunderstanding of native beingknowing, where even the term “spirituality” creates a division reflecting more the impact of Eurocentered thinking and splitting than the practice of native realities: spirit is everywhere, spirituality is everywhere, everything is spiritual. Everything is immanent, spirit is immanent, not separate or transcendant (immanence and transcendence are more like poles on a scale with many thick and thin places of connection inbetween). While there are all kinds of aspects and levels to this, and while our awareness of these various presences and aspects may be clear or clouded, all these aspects and beings are nonetheless present to indigenous beingknowing. By contrast, the dissociated mind needs to transcend in order to conceptualize or even reach any of these aspects that are immanently present to the indigenous or primal or natural mind, when in balance.

 

Such immanent worldview can be found even at the roots of the Eurocentered traditions. (Historically, they first turned against their own indigenous roots, and subsequently projected this shadow material out; this led to all the colonial and genocidal violence against indigenous people.) We can trace it clearly in someof the central concepts: Within the oldest layers of the Indo-European traditions we find healing, holy, and wholeness all as aspects of such an immanent world view.

IE*kai-lo-, which occurs in Goth hailjan, OE hælan, OHG heilen, and OBulg celjo, all of which mean “to heal.” What is expressed most directly through these terms, however, is not just the establishment of a vague state of “health” or “well-being” but more precisely a state of “wholeness, totality, completion,” as shown in the nominal and adjectival formations from this root, such as Goth hails, ON heill, OHG heil, and OBulg cel, all of which mean both “healthy” and “whole”… So desirable was this state of wholeness thought to be that two common IE formulaic greetings and toasts express the wish that the one addressed may be “whole.” Such a state of well-being and wholeness might be lost through injury or disease, whereupon the healer’s task was to restore it. (Lincoln 1986, 100)

The centrality of this concept of healing is apparent. Hitler turned this very understanding of heil through his evil genius on to the dark side; from an indigenous perspective one could venture to say that the constant everyday use of a formula in older times spoken for the sake of healing, blessing, and greeting, but now spoken millions of times every day for the sake of destruction and genocide, gave the fascism of the Third Reich a particular power and created the mass of bystanders and willing executioners so much in the public debates since Goldhagen’s book. Ever since the word denoting the process of healing carries the shadows of history, and is thus collectively in need of purification and healing. Lincoln’s analysis of the old Indo-European understanding of healing and wholeness identifies magic not as idle superstition, but rather as a

[P123] system of non-Aristotelian, homologic causality, whereby items connected to one another in a relation of underlying constubstantiality are considered capable of acting on one another. And what is more, the precise terms of these homologies are drawn from cosmogonic and anthropogonic myth. (1986, 110)

Within this worldview healing by acts of magical speech is the highest form of healing (ibid. 101). Magical speech, sacred poetry, singing, chanting are part of this evocative context, in which physical accoutrements and interventions form adjuncts which would be less effective if not accompanied by the spiritual presences created through sacred sound. Many words in the Old Norse and other Eurasian indigenous traditions use terms for ceremonial endeavors that are etymologically connected to chanting (Old Norse blót, seiðr, Evenki jajan, etc.), and many words for chanting are connected with seeing (even the English ‘singing’ is). (Another important complex consists of the words for knowing, the-one-who-knows, and seeing.)

 

Lincoln concludes his discussion of “magical healing” by saying

In considering the IE (Indo-European, JWK) vocabulary for the act of healing I noted that one term commonly used in this context, *kai-lo-, signified “wholeness, integrity.” It now becomes apparent just how awesome a task the production or restoration of such integrity must be, for it is not just a damaged body that one restores to wholeness and health, but the very universe itself. I also noted that the verb used to denote “healing,” *med-, stressed the knowledge and authority that enabled a healer to create proper order in an ailing patient. The full extent of such knowledge is now revealed in all its grandeur: the healer must understand and be prepared to manipulate nothing less than the full structure of the cosmos. (Lincoln 1986, 117/8)

Kailo and heill are terms that need to be understood in a communal frame of mind which includes humans, ancestors, animals, plants, and others. To conceive of them or of friðr (peace or Great Peace) as individualistic pursuits (analogous to the “pursuit of happiness”) means not seeing the obligations which weave the individual’s contribution into the communal fabric. Such weaving has its origins in the place from which the possibility of healing and balance emanate: creation and creation story. Óðinnfasting on the tree of life puts him at the center of anthropogenesis where he receives crucial instructions for his way as a shaman or seiðmenn. The following story from Snorri’s Prose Edda (Sturluson 1987) speaks to the centrality of healing and in-spiration emanating from the oldest layers of the story of the people. The literature commonly talks about the mead of inspiration or the mead of poetry, however, as we have seen previously, to be in-spired by poetic song is making the spirits present, is becoming present to them. Such poetic inspiration is not just seeing, but also the foundation of healing, of manipulating the structure of the universe through the power of the magic words chanted. Of course, the power of such tremendous [P124] manipulation is not the shaman’s, but that of the spirits; the power of the shaman is the capacity of varðlokkur, spirit calling, and then the skill of his spirits traveling to where they must go for seeing and healing (the intensification of indigenous presence); the rest is the grace of spirit(s).

 

The story of Óðinn’s recovery of the mead that is given below, illustrates a variety of things important in shamanic work: we read about shapeshifting, wrestling with spirits, the recovery of medicine, and a spirit which has been held by illegitimate owners, spirit journey. Remembering that magical speech is the highest form of healing the significance of the rescue of the source of such magic from thieves and murderers becomes evident. It is important to notice how the nature of the medicine of the mead changes as the story unfolds from creation: from the power of truce between two groups of spirits (the Vanir and the Æsir) to poetic in-spiration from one group of spirits only (the Æsir; Indo-Europeanization is thus strengthened).

 

The mead Óðinn recovers by means of his shamanic work is spiritually of eminent importance: Its origins lie with the truce between the Æsir and Vanir groups of gods/goddesses or spirits. They had spat into a vat to seal the agreement, and then decided to create the wisest of humans, Kvasir,[3][3] out of it. Kvasir travelled through the world teaching his wisdom. He was killed by dwarves who preserved his blood, mixed with honey in three containers. The mead was passed on as recompense for the drowning of a giant. His son kept the mead putting his daughter in charge of it. This medicine, which was ceremonially created by the Æsir and Vanir spirits, and which became manifest in the wandering wise person Kvasir, then gets rescued by Óðinn during a shamanic recovery process, but changes its character significantly in the process – instead of being medicine mediating and balancing between the Æsir and Vanir spirits it now ends up in the possession of the Æsir as the mead of poetry (poetry is also known as Kvasir’s blood), from the seal of truce making between two aspects of spirits it turns into the in-spiration from [P125] and for one group of gods and goddesses; the magic of healing words and inspired song is now in the hand of the Æsir, spirits of Indo-European cultural context:

Óðinn told him his name was Bölverkr (“worker of trickery or evil”); he offered to take over the work of nine men for Baugi (“the bent one”), and stipulated as his payment one drink of Suttungr’s mead (Suttungr is probably “heavy with drink”). Baugi said he had no say in the disposal of the mead, said that Suttungr wanted to have it all to himself, but he said that he would go with Bölverkr and try whether they could get the mead. Bölverkr did the work of nine men for Baugi during the summer, and when winter came he asked Baugi for his hire. Then they both set off. Baugi told his brother Suttungr of his agreement with Bölverkr, but Suttung flatly refused a single drop of the mead. Then Bölverkr told Baugi that they would have to try some stratagems to see if they could get hold of the mead, and Baugi said that was a good idea. Then Bölverkr got out an augur called Rati (“drill, augur”) and instructed Baugi to bore a hole in the mountain, if the augur would cut. He did so. Then Baugi said that the montain was bored through, but Bölverkr blew into the auger-hole and the bits flew back up at him. Then he realized that Baugi was trying to cheat him, and told him to bore through the mountain. Baugi bored again. And when Bölverkr blew a second time, the bits flew inwards. Then Bolverk turned himself into the form of a snake and crawled into the auger-hole, and Baugi stabbed after him  with the auger and missed him. Bölverkr went to where Gunnlöð (“invitation to fight”, giant spirit) was and lay with her for three nights and then she let him drink three drafts of the mead. In the first draught he drank everything out of Óðrærir (“the one stimulating ecstasy”; originally the mead itself, but also the vessel containing it), and in the second out of Boðn (“vessel”), in the third out of Són (probably “blood, reconciliation, atonement”), and then he had all the mead. The he turned himself into the form of an eagle and flew as hard as he could. And when Suttungr saw the eagle’s flight he got his own eagle shape and flew after him. And when the Æsir saw Óðinnflying they put their containers out in the courtyard, and when Óðinncame in over Ásgarðr (the home of the Æsir) he spat out the mead into the containers, but it was such a close thing for him that Suttungr might have caught him that he sent some of the mead out backwards, and this was disregarded. Anyone took it that wanted it, and it is what we call the rhymester’s share. But Óðinngave Suttungr’s mead to the Æsir and to those people who are skilled at composing poetry. Thus we call poetry Óðinn’s booty and find, and his drink and his gift and the Æsir’s drink. (Sturluson 1987, Skaldskaparmal, 63-64)

This seems to be a very old shamanic story that finds clear resonances within the Eurasian complex, for example, in the Rig Veda of 1200-900 BCE: Here Indra, in the form of an eagle or with the eagle as helper spirit, steals the elixir of immortality, soma (which Wasson [1968] identifies with the fly agaric mushroom), the plant spirit of in-spiration and seeing. Verse 4.27.5 offers an interesting conjunction between “overflowing cow’s milk, the finest honey, the clear juice” (all presumably words connoting soma; see Wasson for [P126] extensive discussions), which, by bold Indo-European generalization, brings Óðr, the drink of in-spiration, to the milk the primal cow Auðumla offers as nourishment. Modern Icelandic óður (adj.) means not just “furious,” but also crazy and mad, which originally presumably would have been the “madness” of spirit possession or religious trance of in-spiration. Doniger O´Flaherty (1981, 128) comments that “Soma is the ‘fiery juice’, simultaneously fire and water”, and Auðumla feeds the primal giant spirit Ymir who was born at the place from which the world arises, Ginnungagap, the conjunction of fire and ice (cf. Gylfaginning, Sturluson 1987). Óðrærir is commonly translated as mead (German Met), considered the oldest spiritual drink; it is the drink of fermented honey (but also berries[4][4]), and a word which points to an old connection between Indo-European and Finno-Ugric cultures: Saami miehta (originating from Proto-Finno-Ugric of ca. 4000BCE; Sammallahti, 1998, 119), Finnish mete, etc. are related to the Pre-Aryan Indo-European language layer. In the words soma, mead, and óðrærir we find a constellation of the primal forces of creation, spiritual seeing, renewal, mantic poetry, nourishment from the center of creation and spirit(s), as well as atonement and peacekeeping.

 

The discussions of varðlokkur, kailo, and the mead of in-spiration serve to show that what so many of Euro-centered mind are looking for in Native American and other indigenous traditions can truly be found in their own roots, e.g. the Germanic-Nordic traditions. Healing is not a mere technology, but a spiritual activity which, while using certain pragmatic interventions such as herbs, is embedded in the deep structure of cultural beingknowing and the prerequisite initiations and lifeways. In my case healing can and needs to arise from the place where the Old Norse ancestors were created into their precise cultural identity. Just as it does for Native American tribes and other indigenous peoples. LaPena (1999, 18) comments beautifully: The elders “learn the earth’s secrets by quietly observing. It is a secret language called knowledge that releases the spirit from stone and heals by tone of voice and by changing sickness into elements that flow instead of blocking life.” This is what it means to follow our original instructions in a particular place and time. “Sacred names, dreams, and visions are images that connect the bearer to the earth; shamans and other tribal healers and visionaries speak the various languages of plants and animals and feel the special dream power to travel backward from familiar times and places” (Vizenor 1981, XVII). This is what the völvas, the seeresses, and the seers of the Nordic Germanic traditions did and do. The importance of the connection between language and place is described by Pinkson (1995, 127) based on his initiations into the Huichol tradition:

The original language of the people indigenous to a specific area on Mother Earth’s body grows directly out of the land itself. The vibratory essence of the natural forces in a given area grow upward from the bowels of the land and surrounding elements to form the plant life and vegetation of that area. The indigenous people live, eat, and breathe these natural elements. They die back into them and new generations birth back out again in the passage [P127] of generations. The land literally teaches them how to live in harmony with it through this ingestion process. They take it into their bodies. It “speaks” to them. Then it comes out of their mouths as language. They speak the vibrations of that land. Their language and creation myths are embodied vehicles for for the wisdom of that place. I could now understand why maintaining the original language of indigenous people is important not just to their survival but to all of humanity. Original languages contain within their vibratory sturcture the operating rules for how to live in their home territory in a harmonious manner. The indigenous language is a nierica [gateway, JWK] by which to access the intelligence of place. Lose the language and you lose its vital instructions about right relationship.

This visionary insight finds its reflections in the Nordic Germanic indigenous traditions where the power of the word arising from the lands is used in spells and runes, where the language of the Poetic Edda speaks an ancient wisdom from creation. But this statement does something else also: It clearly identifies the initiatory challenges for those who no longer live in the place of their ancestors, who have forgotten their language, and who may now live in places where the indigenous language has disappeared eating food that predominantly is not indigenous to their area of residence.

 

 

The Loss of Initiations

A dramatic and succinct description from Leslie Marmon Silko’s book Ceremony (1977, 132ff.) captures the rise of the Eurocentric story out of its Indo-European origins. Her use of the words “witch” and “witchery” is clear: it refers to the working of evil and imbalance. In its origins (Indo-European root weik-) it had religious connotations, the working of magic. These and similar words originally seem to have been rather neutral, although always holding the potential not just of good, but also of abuse of magical powers; however, the predominant identification of such words with evil and the devil clearly seems to be a consequence of the rise of Christianity. Before awareness of the medieval European witchhunts had a chance to infuse Native American use of the English language, workers of excess and evil were frequently called “witches” in Indian vernacular, thus assuming the Christian, pejorative use of the term. The word evil is connected to the Indo-European root upo and upelo-, meaning: exceeding the proper limit. And it is this that Silko talks about: It is the story of imbalance, the story of certain aspects of being exceeding their proper limit. It is in this sense that the sustained, thus pathological, dissociation of the Euro-centered endeavors from their balancing aspects can be understood as evil. (During the more than 20 years since the publication of Ceremony the word “witch” has re-established in pagan discourse as a positive and affirmative term.)

 

 

Long time ago

in the beginning

there were no white people in this world

[P128] there was nothing European.

And this world might have gone on like that

except for one thing:

witchery.

This world was already complete

even without white people.

There was everything

including witchery.

 

Then it happened.

These witch people got together. (…)

They all got together for a contest

the way people have baseball tournaments nowadays

except this was a contest

in dark things. (…)

 

Finally there was only one

who hadn’t shown off charms or powers.

The witch stood in the shadows beyond the fire

and no one ever knew where this witch came from

which tribe

or if it was a woman or a man.

But the important thing was

this witch didn’t show off any dark thunder charcoals

or red ant-hill beads.

This one just told them to listen:

“What I have is a story.”

 

At first they all laughed

but this witch said

Okay

go ahead

laugh if you want to

but as I tell the story

it will begin to happen.

 

Set in motion now

set in motion by our witchery

to work for us.

 

Caves across the ocean

in caves of dark hills

white skin people

like the belly of a fish

covered with hair.

 

Then they grow away from the earth

then they grow away from the sun

then they grow away from the plants and animals.

They see no life

When they look

they see only objects.

The world is a dead thing for them

the trees and rivers are not alive

the mountains and stones are not alive.

The deer and bear are objects

They see no life.

 

They fear

They fear the world.

They destroy what they fear.

They fear themselves.

 

The wind will blow them across the ocean

thousands of them in giant boats

swarming like larva

out of a crushed ant hill. (…)

 

Set in motion now

set in motion

To destroy

To kill

objects to work for us

Performing the witchery

for suffering

for torment

[P129] for the still-born

the deformed

the sterile

the dead.

Whirling

whirling

whirling

whirling

set in motion now

set in motion.

 

So the other witches said

“Okay you win; you take the prize,

but what you said just now –

it isn’t so funny

It doesn’t sound so good.

We are doing okay without it

we can get along without that kind of thing.

Take it back.

Call that story back.”

 

But the witch just shook its head

at the others in their stinking animal skins, fur and feathers.

It’s already turned loose.

It’s already coming.

It can’t be called back.

 

 

It is important to underscore that this process of the creation of imbalance is effected not with the help of shamanic paraphernalia, but by means of words, the power of words, the abuse of words, the imbalance or evil of the story – a story that inexorably grinds along, leaving many dead in its wake. The socialization of millions of people in conformity with this story of imbalance and its daily performance and reènactment as individual and cultural injunction constitute its power. As a story which pervades cultures, tribes, civilizations, and societies it cannot just be called back or counteracted with some medicine item as antidote. This requires words of balance, stories respecting proper limits, narratives healing the excessive dissociation from a self construction that acknowledges ourselves as whole and indigenous – the recovery of indigenous consciousness.

 

This story of the development of Eurocentrism from its Indo-European origins can be told in an alternate form using the information from scholarship which continues to be marginalized because it refuses to be part of the creation of imbalance (Silko’s “witchery”). The story is, of course, a complex one with many twists and turns, multiple currents and many voices to be heard. What I present in the following paragraphs is a mere outline of some of the major shifts that are relevant for the discussion of healing and cosmology.

 

— I postulate that the various Indo-European peoples had, at one point in their histories, an understanding or ideal of balanced living, a detailed understanding of their place in the cosmos and its cycles based on detailed ecological understanding, and reflected in their stories and communal ceremonies. The remnants of such understanding are reflected in etymological and other analyses, such as the ones provided from Lincoln above. We can possibly see them most clearly in the images of the tree of life, the anthropogenesis beginning with the nurturing cow Auðumla, and the presence of the feminine in the oldest [P130] stories preserved.[5][5] How and why these peoples changed from a cultural practice of balancing themselves with each other and their environment to a cultural practice of invasion and patriarchy (ultimately linear progress) remains mysterious, as Gimbutas achnowledges when she states that “this is a very serious question archaeologists cannot answer yet, but we can see that the patriarchy was already there around 5,000 B.C.” (n.d., 17). It is reasonable to assume that these oldest Indo-European layers had cultural practices similar in ideology and practice to those who have retained their indigenous ways to this day, although the specifics of their socio-cultural practices were, of course, unique in accordance with their location, specific histories, and local indigenous science inquiries.

 

— According to Gimbutas, beginning at about 4300 BCE the earliest inhabitants of Europe, the “civilizations of Old Europe” become Indo-Europeanized as three waves of Kurgan invasions effect a blending between the indigenous and indo-europen populations. The matristic, matrifocal or matriarchal cultural practices become obliterated in the process as the indigenous peoples are destroyed or assimilated. (In the Nordic-Germanic stories this is reflected in the conflict between the Vanir and Æsir resulting in partial cultural assimilation, the increasing importance of Óðinn and the lessening importance of Freyja and other Vanir goddesses and gods.) We observe the rise of patriarchy, hierarchy, abstraction, dissociation, as well as increasingly larger scale violence and invasions. Healing now becomes an endeavor increasingly shifts into masculine, priestly contexts, with rigidly ritualized forms eclipsing shamanic seeing and inspiration; some of the original healing interventions become marginalized as woman’s work as patriarchal forms of dominance gain strength. The Eurocentered medical sciences find their origin in Greece during the 5th century BCE with Hippokrates.

 

— The rise of monotheistic Christianity through its appropriation of the shamanic Jesus figure and the alliance between Christianity and the Roman Empire in 390-391 by Constantine constitute a major turning point toward increased patriarchal power and the rise of Eurocentrism. The descriptions in Tacitus’ Germania (ca. 98; 1967) reflect the relationship between the “barbarous,” indigenous Germanic (and other) tribes north and east of the Roman Empire from the viewpoint of “civilized” Rome. “They even think that there is a prophetic quality in women, and so they neither reject their advice nor scorn their forecasts” (67). With the end of the East Germanic and Slavic migrations, and the formation [P131] of various royal empires (Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Francs, etc.) anything resembling communal tribal or indigenous practices disappears rapidly in most of Europe as Eurocentrism progresses in the form of Christian missionization and colonization. The reign of Charlemagne (crowned as emporer in 800) represents a major shift, most apparently with the felling of the world tree Irminsul and the massacre of 30,000 Saxons refusing conversion to Christianity in 772 CE (Gimbutas 1999, 190).

 

— The oldest Nordic-Germanic knowledge about indigenous balanced living is recorded in sacred places, rock carvings, monuments, and artefacts accessible to the practice of indigenous science (cf. Kremer 1996). Most of what we know verbally is written down by Christians after Iceland’s voluntary conversion to Christianity in the year 1000 (with Snorri Sturlusson, 1178/9-1241, as central recorder and interpreter). Other written sources can be found in poetry, inscriptions, place names, folk customs, fairy and folk tales, as well as language etymology (the work of the Grimm brothers is seminal in this regard). Just as indigenous peoples have been identified as the Other, their practices getting reified in the process, so have the pre-Christian traditions been reified and safely othered under the gaze of the various Eurocentered human sciences (creating a textual and artefactual museum of Nordic-Germanic self-otherness equals to the dissociation from its origins, thus obscuring the potential of balanced cultural practices within an indigenous Nordic-Germanic worldview). In the oldest writings, healing practices are usually merely alluded to, either because the recorder was no longer initiated or because initiation prohibited the dissemination of such information to the uninitiated. We find much focus on spells and the power of runic knowledge, again with an increasing tendency toward rigid ritualization under the sway of men, increasingly eclipsing women.

 

Beginning with the Renaissance this story becomes the story of the rise of eurocentric sciences. Anthropology can serve as a particularly good illustration for the increase in Eurocentered dissociations and splits from indigenous origins. McGrane (1989) has done an admirably lucid job of tracing the history of the relationship between euro-centered cultures and the Other, the alien, the different – an “archaeology of anthropology”, so to speak. His analysis is helpful for understanding the loss of participation and presence to spirit(s) in greater detail. One of his fundamental premises is that “a culture that discovers what is alien to itself simultaneously manifests what it is in itself” (McGrane 1989, 1). He sees anthropology as an endeavor which is “fundamentally involved in the reproduction of Western society… It manifests and highlights that egocentric tendency of our Western mind to identify itself as separate from what it perceives as external to itself” (1989, 5). Using McGrane’s conceptualization we can break down the process of loss of participation or loss of initiation as follows:

 

— In the Renaissance (14th to 16th century) Christianity came between the European and the non-European; demonology determined that the Other, the fallen, was in need of naming, christening. Trances (and the concomitant healing practices) were seen as a practice which [P132] maintained the contact with demons and christianization meant the termination of such evil proceedings; killing or arrests of tribal members during ceremonies, the destruction or confiscation of artifacts (even during recent history, such as potlatch masks in Canada) are a result of this paradigm. The remaining old knowledge and practice are severely reduced during the three centuries of witchhunts, beginning around 1500. Much of the old knowledge is restricted to midwifery and herbalists. Indigenous cultural practices remain vital along “the margins” of Eurocentrism, particularly in the north and northeast (with the Baltic peoples and the Sámi people of the Arctic North the last be christianized).

 

— During the Enlightenment ignorance was the fundamental coordinate around which the understanding of the Other was constituted: indigenous peoples were living with the errors of superstitution. Trances and alternate modes of healing were seen as superstitious practices which could not provide any true help or serve a healthful function. The 17th and 18th century saw the beginning of colonization.

 

— The evolutionary thinking of the nineteenth century used the coordinate of time to understand natives as “primitives”, or as “fossilized developmental stage” from the prehistory of European civilizations. Thus trances were conceptualized as contemporary remnants of an outmoded, primitive human potential; their usefulness was seen as superceded by medical and other sciences. The 19th century saw the height of colonialism and imperialism. Dion-Buffalo and Mohawk (1994, 33) comment that “the psychological and social foundation of this period of conquest and colonization is found in the ability to coerce the peoples of the world to accept the rules by which European politics and ideologies claimed the power to determine what is legitimate about the human experience.” It is no coincidence that this was also the time in which evolutionary theories were first proposed. Epistemological and evolutionary thinking emerged out of the increasing split from the participation in the phenomena in order to understand and legitimize this dissociative logic of progress: Peoples participating in the phenomena become uncivilized with no possibility to discern truth because of insufficient dissociation. For example, Habermas (1997) makes this point clearly when he discusses the benefits and limitations of Cassirers The Theory of Symbolic Forms: It is the logic of progress and the process of civilization – Aufklärung, enlightenment – which destroys and needs to destroy the impact of participation in the phenomena, the presence to spirits, and the desire for a balanced, meaningful existence. Indigenous healing practices have been relegated to the realm of anecdotes, folklore, fairy tale, to be marginally investigated by Euro-Centered sciences outside of the major trajectory of Eurocentrism (see Kremer 1998 for details).

 

The process of Eurocentered progess and domination seems to impact indigenous peoples at this historical moment most significantly through a process which takes its analogy from the individual psychological process of projective identification (somebody is made to feel the shadow material of somebody else as if it were his or her own). The intra-Eurocentric denial of their own indigenous roots, the persecution of the Other in themselves (witchhunts, etc.), [P133] transforms the bloody and murderous colonizing forces into equally effective, albeit less physically lethal weapons: instead of killing people indigenous cultures get eradicated as natives begin to feel the bad feelings individuals constructed in Eurocentered fashion have about themselves; the devaluation of who they are pressures them to re-create themselves in the likeness of Eurocentered ideals. The ill feelings they have about themselves – expressed in the negligence of traditional ceremonies, pervasive alcoholism and violence, etc. – originated not from within themselves, but have their roots in the denial and projection of what Eurocentered minds have constructed as their “primitive,” “ignorant,” and “filthy” roots from which they have dissociated through the construction of so-called civilization, in contrast to the presumed savagery of their origins. Indigenous peoples carry the burden of the dissociative relationship of Eurocentered peoples to their own ancestries. They take on the such shadow material, as the following quote indicates:

Our stories help us to deal with shadow material individually and collectively; they connect the dark and the light sides of life. The predominant Eurocentered idea of goodness implies suppression and control of what is regarded as not good; this seems to be a behavioral pattern that can lead to genocide when taken to the extreme (when an extreme valuation of certain “good” traits is used as a way to scapegoat and then kill people who are seen as not sharing these traits). People of European descent are frequently surprised when their niceness is not experienced as such by Indians.  I feel this particular collective delusion of what a good human being is in the European sense has become part of our collective Native American delusions leading us to participate in our own genocide. It is an individualistic and profit-centered view of humans. By taking on this image that focuses so strongly on the light side we are led to the denial of genocide, since the Native American genocide is relegated to the shadow side of the good Western person. Consequently, we do not allow sufficient knowledge that genocide is still occurring, and that perhaps we are participating in it ourselves. This reminds me of our tribal children who have been attending Western schools since contact. There they are taught inferiority, linearity, and the objectification of the universe. They internalize this today, just as I did as a child. Growing up, the racism and the notion of humanity from the perspective of Western imperialism became a part of me. I took on the identity of a victim and lost my power. This is how I have taken on the collective shadow by identifying with the self-construction of the dominant culture. How can anyone really grieve when there is the delusion that genocide is not really occurring today? (Bastien 1999)

This process of internalized colonization continues to perpetrate cultural and even physical genocide. Another aspect of this process is captured in the following words by Silko (1977, 132):

They want us to believe all evil resides with white people. Then we will look no further to see what is really happening. They want us to separate ourselves from white people, to be ignorant and helpless as we watch our own destruction. But white people are only tools that the witchery manipulates.

[P134] It attempts to contain ossified, categorically identified remains of indigenous cultures in museums, universities, books, conferences – all endeavors that Vizenor identifies with the end of imagination or what has been called the nurturing conversation with all relations:

Traditional people imagine their social patterns and places on the earth, whereas anthropologists and historians invent tribal cultures and end mythic time. The differences between tribal imagination and social scientific invention are determined in world views: imagination is a state of being, a measure of personal courage; the invention of cultures is a material achievement through objective methodologies. To imagine the world is to be in the world; to invent the world with academic predicaments is to separate human experiences from the world, a secular transcendence and denial of chance and mortalities. (Vizenor 1984, 27)

Internalized colonization manifests also in ways other than alcoholism or violence:

They think the ceremonies must be performed exactly as they have always been done… That much is true… That much can be true also. But long ago when the people were given these ceremonies, the changing began, if only in the aging of the yellow gourd rattle or the shrinking of the skin around the eagle’s claw, if only in the different voices from generation to generation, singing the chants. You see, in many ways, the  ceremonies have always been changing. … At one time, the ceremonies as they had been performed were enough for the way the world was then. But after the white  people came, elements in this world began to shift; and it became necessary to create  new ceremonies. … Things which don’t shift and grow are dead things. They are things the witchery people want. … That’s what the witchery is counting on: that we will cling to the ceremonies the way they were, and then their power will triumph, and the  people will be no more. (Silko 1977, 126)

It is only under the pressures of continuing genocide that ceremonial renewal finally may disappear, and that the definitions of what is traditional or indigenous may be remade in the images developed by anthropologists or the desperate rigid repetition of what are considered the final live aspects of a culture. However, whatever the temporary victories of genocide may be, renewal remains always possible as the land, even if abused, and the ancestors, even if neglected, continue to be present.

 

 

Contrasts in Healing Paradigms

The contrasts between indigenous healing paradigms and Eurocentered approaches can be made visible by looking at how each attempts to explain how healing happens. Within indigenous worldviews healing occurs within the narrative weave of the lived culture as it unfolds imaginatively from creation. Within the Eurocentered worldview healing is researched and understood within a paradigm of Truth, of cause and effect, singularity of [P135] story, and the objective records of experimental observations. This leads to two forms of inquiry which are qualitatively distinct.

 

The skeptical Eurocentered researcher would be primarily interested in the efficacy of Native American healing and would try to isolated the elements considered efficaceous or a necessary condition in healing ceremonies. Maybe the rattle or the drum or a particular herb or the temperature in the sweat lodge. The sympathetic researcher would also, in addition to this analytical approach, pay attention to the “set and setting” as it were, and would attempt to validate native approaches or find similarities, for example via psychotherapeutic approaches such as NLP (neurolinguistic programming) or Rogerian counseling, or via biochemical research of curative agents in herbs. The Eurocentered scientific approach commonly entails a stripping away of what is considered extraneous and the isolation of what is considered effective. Through this process it makes Other what is essential for native understandings.

 

Inquiry into native healing practices by way of what has been termed indigenous science, on the other hand, would begin with the culturally specific, ecologically and historically grounded indigenous understanding of friður or the “the good mind” (Colorado 1988), the balanced way of living in community on a particular land. Healing is needed when the “good mind” is out of balance, when the proper limits are exceeded; the cultural stories and myths then provide explanations. Indigenous healing practices then are based in a synthetic, integral approach to what is out of balance. Native science guides the healer to the point in the fabric where it is rent and where wholeness needs to be reèstablished. The ceremonies done are the precise knowledge and practice designed to create balance on all levels and from all levels (within the person on the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual levels, and by doing so on the level of spirits, community and nature which hold the individual); they are indigenous science. Their efficacy is established through the integrity and the wholeness of the healing ceremony.

 

The different motivations for understanding healing in the case of Eurocentered and indigenous sciences are of note: The researches of the native healer are done to increase the integrity and wholeness of the communal fabric and to benefit the individuals that are part of it. Eurocentered researches of native healing practices rarely seem to benefit the peoples researched directly, but they are a way to address the limitations of the western healing paradigm and to come to terms with events which Eurocentered scientists commonly consider anomalous, inexplicable or nonexistent; they are attempts to better an individualistic paradigm without fundamentally leaving or changing it.

 

Whether an image in a rock carving is perceived as symbol or as spirit marks the difference between indigenous knowing and Eurocentered knowing. The rock carvings in Bohuslän, South Sweden, for example contain extraordinary images from the Bronze Age northern European times. The Eurocentered mind understands them as an assemblage of symbols [P136] which represent certain beings which are significant in the world of the Old Norse and their ancestors; they are commonly seen as ‘symbols of healing’, or ‘symbols of initiation,’ where each piece of the rock carving stands for something else. This interpretation reflects the split in the dissociative Eurocentered mind: the different parts of the rock carving point to something which is elsewhere, outside of the representation. The participatory tribal mind relates entirely differently to the rock carving: The spirits are in the rock carvings, they are the rock carving. The making of the rock carving is the creation of the presence of these beings. The beings are not at all separate from what the carving looks like. Once the rock carving is there, they are there. And then they can be ceremonially honored and renewed by tracing the carving with red ochre or other pigments, by making offerings of amber, axes, etc. Blót, the Old Norse ceremonies of offering, bring rock carving spirits and the people present to each other. This simple distinction marks worlds of differences: Whether a rock carving is a symbol for something or whether it is a certain being indicates the consciousness process we are engaged in. In one case we have symbolic healing, in the other spirit heals. There is no simple technique which can bridge this difference. Each understanding reflects a different way of being in the world. There is no such thing as a simple switch from one to the other. Whether we use trances for symbolic work or to seek healing with and from spirit(s) is an indication of the consciousness and reality in which we are participating.

 

Jungian interpretations of rock carvings (or sandpaintings and other images), myths or healings do not reflect tribal mind. They reflect the process of the Eurocentered mind. Jungian psychology and related transpersonal approaches are certainly the closest to indigenous ways of being in that they validate the seminal importance of participation mystique and spiritual experiences. However, they are only accurate as long as they deal with the Eurocentered mind. There they can be very helpful. If such a psychology gets projected onto indigenous peoples, then grave misunderstandings result. What may be a good starting point for the Eurocentered mind means engaging the indigenous mind in a process of splitting and dissociation.

 

Within the western paradigm we pick an herb for its curative properties known to relieve a certain ailment. Herb collection is an entirely different event within an indigenous context. Here it is a ceremonial event which involves spirit and, especially the spirits of the plant to be collected. It is a participatory event with the plant relations which presupposes detailed knowledge, including knowledge of their language; it requires knowledge of cycles and the preparations necessary for gathering. It means understanding plants like any other intelligent people.

Prayer accompanies all plant use on the Navajo Reservation. … Plants are not picked randomly or wastefully. Rather, they are picked as needed, and then, no more than are necessary. An herbalist finds two of a particular species that she wishes to pick. To the largest and healthiest plant, she says a prayer and explains why she must pick its neighbor. [P137] An offering of shell, pollen, or other sacred material is deposited with the first plant. Then she picks what she needs. Afterward, the plant remains are buried with a final prayer. (Mayes & Lacy 1989, 2-3)

This is no longer the collection of an herb, but an engagement and appointment with spirit to help heal. What heals is more than the beneficial chemical ingredient in the herb.

 

Knowing the medical benefits of a sweat lodge purification or the effective chemical agents in an healing herb is certainly useful. But if this knowledge is not integrated into an indigenous science framework, then we fail to understand indigenous approaches to healing. If what we are doing is healing our Euro-centrically minded selves within the existing paradigm, then iatrogenic diseases which are an expression of the continuing dissociation; are the result (which is one of the reasons why natives are disturbed about the decontextualized use of their healing approaches). The correct technique used in a dissociated way is dangerous because it allows the appearance of a deeper healing that did not occur (individual benefits notwithstanding). Combining indigenous approaches with modern techniques on the basis of the story of excess and imbalance is not the same as integrating the knowledge from psychology and other sciences on the basis of indigenous beingknowing. If we are healing our indigenous selves through the remembrance of indigenous healing ways, then individual healing is also the healing of community and paradigm.

 

 

Decolonization as Initiation

Silko’s poetic evocation of the colonial process of Euro-centered thinking contains a crucial point: the most powerful creatrix of imbalance is not using shamanic accroutrements to wield her power, she uses words, a story. Her imbalancing is the story made of words that splits people more and more from participation, words developing a dissociative world view, where the fluid, participatory process of verbal descriptions turns into the categorical grasp of nouns attempting to wield control via reality definitions they create. This story has many names: we can call it the loss of participation; or the loss of the nurturing conversation with all our relations; or the shift from oral to written traditions; or the loss of sacred writing (rock carvings, runes, hieroglyphs, ideographic, etc.) to the linearity of alphabetical writing; or the change from sacred (cyclical, linear-cyclical, spiral) to linear secular time; or the rise of colonialism and imperialism; or the split of story into its aspects of history, personal story, scientific stories, and others; or the rise of patriarchy from its Indo-European roots to Euro-centrism; or the rise of Christianity; or the rise of the masculinized version of the evolutionary story. These and other vantage points provide ways of coming to terms with the story Silko tells so powerfully: creating imbalance by exceeding the proper limits, by focusing on certain elements at the expense of others (i.e., pathological dissociation).

 

[P138] When the competing workers of imbalance ask her to call the story back she shakes her head and answers: “It’s already turned loose. It’s already coming. It can’t be called back.” The story continues to be told the world over, and impacts every aspect of our lives, from the increasing dominance of the noun-oriented English language (most lately via the internet) to economic globalization. It is clear that the story has not been called back, and continues to dominate the majority of educational systems: more and more young citizens are unconsciously made willing participants and co-narrators in this story. If the story can’t be called back – what to do?

 

As we have seen in the brief discussions above, the story of imbalance and excess of proper limits was not told all of a sudden, but became more powerful over time as its addictive nature exerted a centrifugal force. The increasing literature on early human history and story attests to the various layers through which the telling has shapeshifted. Healing the story would mean peeling back through these layers, not merely for the advancement of the sciences, but to recover a quality of storytelling that is communal and participatory. Euro-centered thinking frequently misconstrues such endeavor as search of some sort of Eden or other paradisical original state of being (it is worthy of note that paradise has its roots in Greek paradeisos, a walled in garden or park, and related terms). Instead of linearly conceptualizing recovery as the reconstitution of a particular state or point of origin, I suggest that it is the reconstitution of a particular process or quality: the recovery of the indigenous quality of storytelling. Healing the imbalancing story of Euro-centrism means beginning to tell the story differently. The evocative power of the word is clearly understood by contemporary indigenous peoples, and it was just as clearly understood by the early Indo-European traditions (most obviously, perhaps, in the use of the Sanskrit mantras). Óðinn’s quest for the mead of mantic poetry, the search for the words of seeing, and his initiation into the sacred, healing use of runic letter carving share this understanding. The word story finds its root in Indo-European weid-, to see; here we find story connected with the wisdom of the prophet(ess) and seer(ess) (an element that, of course, continues to be present in the creativity of contemporary novels and their best authors).[6][6] The story cannot be called back, but it can be changed and told differently if we make ourselves whole again.

 

Telling a story in a participatory frame of mind instead of dissociated consciousness may sound simple enough. But just as the Indo-European healers of old needed to be able to be with spirit(s) in such a way that the entire cosmos was impacted, so does a different telling of the story change the cosmos we are living in. Changing the story is impacting the cosmos (as the cosmos impacts it). Instead of evoking and maintaining dissociation and splitting from an indigenous nurturing conversation, such telling would evoke participatory being. This is no small matter: it is the healing ceremony of the Euro-centered self, the [P139] reconstruction of who we are. Such an endeavor finds its parallel not in “a bandaid on a cut, but in heart surgery.” It is not a mere change in identity, but a foundational, qualitative shift in the process of how we construct our identities. This means we need to deconstruct ourselves as the beings we are so that there can be renewal from the creative source of our origins. While such healing clearly means the return, to use the language of the Old Norse, to the well of memory, Urðr, such remembrance is not for the indulgence of nostalgic or retro-romantic splits (dissociative endeavors indeed), but for the righting of the story for the future. Indeed, just like Óðinn, and other women and men before him, we need to be capable of transforming our selves so that we can drink oðrærir, the mead of in-spiration.The dissociated self commonly gets but very diluted sips from such powerful substance. Aspiring to drinking a higher percentage of mead means having our language fall apart so that the words of seeing can re-emerge, so that words can become in-spirited and healed, so that word, chant, and seeing are part of our lifeworld. And our language inevitably comes apart when we of Euro-centered mind confront the shadows that walk with us.

 

Placing ourselves (those of Eurocentered or Nordic-Germanic mind) at the creative source Ginnungagap is not possible as a direct, unmediated act, since we have divested ourselves from the self capable of getting there with immediacy. Recovering the self that can enter Ginnungagap, the maw of Miðgarðsormr, the world snake, means purifying ourselves from the self construction that is incapable of entering such a place, because dissociation disallows it to be present to the continuing reality of Urðr, Ginnungagap, Miðgarðsormr, oðrærir, and the other spiritual powers of the Norse universe of old. How this universe is to appear today will only become apparent to the self which has initiated itself into participating in its continuing creative, regenerative, and imaginative story. Putting ourselves into the presence of such powers of creation is only possible through the cathartic mediation of the grieving shudder over the story of imbalancing (“witchery”), the confrontation and ownership of the shadow material. As a consequence, what our story evokes may become different. Instead of the story of exceeding the proper limits, we create the possibility the contemporary celebration of indigenous healing stories even among peoples who like to contain their indigenous roots at a safe distance by putting them in museums, and various other reifying and distancing places.

 

 

Recovery of Indigenous Mind and Healing

The following poetic statement is modeled on Eddic poetry, particularly the rhetoric of the völva in Völuspá. It is an attempt to capture the change of the ages about that so many indigenous peoples talk about in a language appropriate to my own cultural background and ancestry. It also serves as an appropriate summary and evocation to what I have said about healing and cosmology. It is the voice of the seeress, the völva, speaking as she looks through the ages, from the past into the future.

 

[P140] I.

Heilir æsir!

Heilir ásynjur!

Heil sjá in fjölnyta fold!

Hail to the gods,

hail to the goddesses,

hail to the allgiving earth!

Mál ok mannvit

gefið okkr mærum tveim

ok læknishendr, meðan lifum!

Wisdom and lore,

as long as we live,

grant us, and healing hands! (from Sigrdrífumál)

 

I remember the giants who were born

at the beginning of time and

who reared me in former times.

I remember the Sámis who were born

at the beginning of time and

who reared me in former times.

I remember nine worlds beneath the earth,

nine giantesses,

and also the glorious tree of fate.

 

I remember towards the beginning of time

at the place where the giant Ymir lived,

there was neither sand nor sea, and no cool waves.

The earth did not exist at all,

nor heaven above:

only a yawning gap

and grass nowhere.

 

I remember when the sons of

grandfather and grandmother Bear

raised the lands,

they who made the great Middle World. (Free after Völuspá)

 

I remember the world of spirits,

I remember the world of giants,

jötun,

the world of dwarves,

álfar.

I remember the time when humankind was created.

 

I remember the three spirits

who found ash and elm

fragile and fateless.

 

I know an ash tree call Yggdrasill;

it is a tall tree

sprayed with white clay.

From there comes the dew

that dabbles the dales.

The evergreen tree towers above Urðr´s Well.

 

From the same place

come three knowledgeable maidens,

who emerge from the lake

that lies at the foot of the tree.

People call one Urðr,

the second Verðandi,

and the third Skuld;

they carved sacred markings

on pieces of wood.

They laid down the laws,

the fates of the people,

and chose life

for the children of humankind. (Free after Völuspá)

 

II.

And I remember

the beginning of a new world age,

when the stars changed places,

and I remember

when the tree of life

[P141] was fastened to the new pole star.

 

Yes, I remember

the world of spirits of the previous world age,

but I also remember the new age

when spirits turned into symbols,

and humankind thus became more lonesome.

And I remember

that even spirits and ancestors

felt more lonesome.

I remember the age

when language was sacred,

when words brought spirits,

when language was filled with spiritual energy.

And then I saw

how language,

how words

lost their powers,

and how the husks remaining

helped humankind to forget

how they are woven

into the world.

And then I saw

how language and writing

helped humankind to forget

how they are

intimate

participants in everything

that surrounds them.

And then I saw them

looking at reality

from the outside.

And I saw how

language became poorer

and poorer,

and reality moved farther

and farther away.

And I saw humankind

greedily grabbing

what remained as reality,

and how they forgot to

evoke the world, and

to chant it into being.

 

And I remember how

human beings slowly forgot

what their medicine gifts were,

how they forgot their totems,

how they forgot their clans,

and how they forgot that

they all were related

as red, black, white, yellow and people of mixed color.

And I remember how they

struggled to reconstruct their

relationship and similarities

through abstract models,

because they had forgotten

the specificity of their relationships.

And I remember how they sought their

universal connections through more and more

abstract thoughts

in order to find each other again.

 

And I remember the age when Óðinn

was a shaman still, seiðkarl,

when he was called Óðr,

when he used the drum on Sámseyja and elsewhere, and

honored women.

Two ravens sat on his shoulders

helping his seeing.

And I remember the new age when Óðinn

took knowledge away from women

and began to reign as patriarch.

 

And I remember the new age

when human beings were reared

[P142] separated from their ancestors,

separated from their stories and histories,

separated from their places of power and spirit,

separated from the healing arts.

And I have seen how they forgot

that happiness depends

on initiations into the higher self

and the world of spirit.

 

I remember seeing lonely humans

in search of completion and wholeness,

even though their ancestors

stood right by them.

I remember seeing lonely humans

blinded by symbols

so that the spirits remained hidden.

 

And I remember human souls

roaming the collective unconscious without bearings,

unable to see their own guardian spirits.

 

And I remember human beings

delving deeply into psychology,

getting trapped on the personal side

of the gateway to spirit,

and when they would chance to encounter

a spirit

they would feel nothing but fear.

 

III.

And I remember the times when the bridges

to spirit went up in flames and collapsed,

and the ancestor boats ceased

to shuttle across the milky way.

 

And I see now

how this world age

is coming to an end,

and that yet another

new age is about to begin.

 

And I see now

souls making the journey home

seeking the roots of their creation.

And I see how these souls

sit in ancestor boats

crossing the spirit bridges

purifying the abuses of the word “heil!”,

seeking healing for the innermost

of their cultures.

And I see humans

once again courageous enough

to sit at the center of their creation

for the sake of healing.

remembering

root meanings

 

kailo

healing holy

 

turning

to the root

kailo

source of wholing

clay of healing

kailo

root memories

reaching into riches

returning

nurtured

returning home

returning from home

healing

 

kailo

[P143] the good omen

from creation

 

issuing

from the fingers

of the woman of memory

white clay

smeared

over the body

wholesome clay

healing

fertilizing

the human tree

 

at the root of healing

is the remembrance

of the center

is the celebration

of the center of our world

 

at the root of healing

is placing ourselves

at the center of our world

the place of balance

 

at the root of healing

is the celebration

of the original instructions

are the prayers

for our courage

to step into the maw of the snake

ginnungagap

the abyss of creation

is the open mouth of the world snake

miðgardrsnake

the snake holding our world

the snake creating our world

through the fire and ice of ginnungagap

created from her mouth

 

healing is the courage

to step into the simplicity

of creation

the simplicity

of the original instructions

instructions for balance

 

purifying the abuses of the word “heil!”,

seeking healing for the innermost

of their cultures.

 

And I see how the past

becomes hotter and hotter,

and how humans find the courage

to warm themselves

at the fires of their ancestors.

And I see how humankind

remembers the conversation

with all relations.

 

And I see how woman and man

are willing to be taken apart

and ask the fire to consume

their addictions to civilisation

and progress.

And I see how woman and man

deconstruct their modern identities

to become aware that they are still

interwoven with their fellow humans,

the plants, the animals, and the rocks.

 

And I see spirits

once again

stepping out

of symbols.

 

And I see humans

remembering

that not only they need nourishment,

but that their relations

need nourishment also.

 

[P144] And I see how humans

find their balance

in the great cycle

of nurturing

and being nurtured.

 

Heilir æsir!

Heilir ásynjur!

Heil sjá in fjölnyta fold!

Hail to the gods,

hail to the goddesses,

hail to the allgiving earth!

Mál ok mannvit

gefið okkr mærum tveim

ok læknishendr, meðan lifum!

Wisdom and lore,

as long as we live,

grant us, and healing hands! (from Sigrdrífumál)

 

 

 

Summarizing Table

The following table gives a visual display of the major distinctions I have talked about throughout this article. The terminology used below is defined in its narrative context above. It may help to recall the broad outlines that underlie the detailed discussions.

EUROCENTRIC DISCOURSES                             INDIGENOUS TRADITIONS

MODERNITY AND ITS CRITICS                                  OUTSIDE EUROCENTRIC DISCOURSE

 

OPPOSING PAIR                                        THIRD PROCESS

MODERN CONSCIOUS-NESS CRITIQUES OF MODERN CONSCIOUS-NESS RECOVERED INDIGENOUS CONSCIOUS-NESS INDIGENOUS CONSCIOUS-NESS
good subject

                                 

bad subject

 

developing non-subject non-subject
unconscious participation breakdown of un-conscious participation regaining conscious participation conscious participation
singular Truth

 

                                 

multiple truths

 

 

re-contextualizing truths and Truth locally & historically locally & narratively contextualized truths and Truth
[P145] his-story

 

 

 

                                

her-stories

Story revealed as his-stories

 

 

recovering female aspects of stories; remembering multiformous gender identities multiply engendered stories: Freyja-Freyr, Nerthus-Njörðr, twins, metamorphoses, spirit marriages
objective reality

 

                                

narrative realities

 

 

recovering ancestral narrative realities & anchoring them in present ecology & historical moment communally & locally anchored narrative realities
rationality recovery of reasonableness reasonableness reasonableness
imperial self non-imperial self re-connecting self connected self
individualism

                                

individualism

 

intentional communities natural communities
progress progress (albeit  questioned in appearance) linearity struggling for balance balance
linearity variegated linearity cyclical linearity cyclical linearity
dissociation suffering from dissociation recovering participation participation
colonialism

       

post-colonialism

 

decolonization beside, outside & inside of colonization

[Chart by Jűrgen W. Kremer, inspired by Mohawk & Dion-Buffalo. From Kremer 1999, Bearing Obligations.]

 

 

[P146-148] References

Bastien, Betty. “The genocide of Native Americans: Denial, Shadow, and Recovery” (with Kremer, Norton, Rivers-Norton, and Vickers). In ReVisionI, Vol. 22, #1, 13-20 1999

Campbell, Joseph The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Princeton: Bollingen. 1949.

Churchill, Ward. From a native son. Boston: South End. 1996.

Colorado, Apela. “Traditional knowledge leads to Ph.D. “ (Interview with Pamela Colorado and Jürgen Kremer, by Richard Simonelli). Winds of Change, 9, #4, 43-48. 1994.

Colorado, P. “Indigenous science.” In ReVision, 18(3): 6-10, 1996.

Colorado, P. “Bridging native and western science.” In Convergence, XXI, 2/3: 49-67, 1988.

De Vries, Jan. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Leiden: Brill. 1977.

Dion-Buffalo, Y. & J. Mohawk. ‘Throughts from an autochtonous center.’ Cultural Survival, Winter, 33-35. 1994.

Dumon, Dirk. 1993. Shamans of Tuva. Feature of BRT, Belgian Public Television. 1993.

Eiríks Saga Rauða In Íslendinga Sögur (CD-ROM). Reykjavík: Mál og menning. (Transl. by Gwyn Jones as Eirik the Red. Oxford: Oxford. 1961)

Eliade, Mircea. Shamanism. Princeton: Bollingen. 1951/1964

Evans, David (Ed.). Hávamál. London: Viking Society. 1986

Gimbutas, Marija. The living goddesses. Berkeley: University of California. 1999

Gimbutas, Marija. “An interview with Marija Gimbutas.” (With David Jay Brown & Rebecca McClen Novick). In Magical Blend, 13-20. No year given.

Gunn, Allen, Paula. Off the reservation. Boston: Beacon. 1998.

Habermas, Jürgen (1997),  Vom sinnlichen Eindruck zum symbolischen Ausdruck, Suhrkamp: Frankfurt/M, Germany

Haozous, B. (1994). Interviewed in The Native Americans, pt. 4, TBS.

Horn, Gabriel. Contemplations of a Primal Mind. Novato, CA: New World. 1996.

Kremer, Jürgen Werner. “Introduction.” In ReVision, Vol 18, #3, 2-5.

Kremer, Jürgen Werner. ‘The shadow of evolutionary thinking.’ In Ken Wilber in Dialogue, edited by

Donald Rothberg and Sean Kelly, 237-258. Wheaton, IL: Quest. 1998.

Lapena, Frank. ‘In Vision We Can Balance the World.’ In News from Native California, vol. 12, #2, 18-19. 1998.

Lincoln, Bruce. Myth, Cosmos, and Society. Boston, MA: Harvard. 1986.

Mayes, Vernon & Barbara Lacy. Nanise’. Tsaile: Navajo Community College. 1989.

McGrane, Bernard. Beyond anthropology. NY: Columbia. 1989.

Mohawk, John. ‘Indigenous Creation-Centered Spirituality’ (interview with Charlene Spretnak). In Creation, 16-18. September/October. No year given.

Pálsson, Hermann. Völuspá. Edinburgh: Lockharton. 1996.

Pentikäinen, Juha Y. Kalevala mythology (trans. R. Poom). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1989.

Pinkson, Tom Soloway. Flowers of Wiricuta. Mill Valley: Wakan. 1995.

Rig Veda (Transl. Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty). NY: Penguin. 1981.

Sammallahti, Pekka. The Saami Languages. Karašjohka, Sápmi: Davvi Girji. 1998.

Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. NY: Penguin. 1977.

Sturluson, Snorri. Edda (trans. Faulkes). London: Everyman. 1987.

Tacitus. Germania (Transl. Herbert Benario). London:University of Oklahoma. 1967.

Terry, P. 1990. Poem of the Elder Edda. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Titchenell, Elsa-Brita. The masks of Odin. Pasadena, California: The Theosophical UP. 1985

Vajnštejn, S. I. “The Tuvan (Soyot) shaman’s drum and the ceremony of its ‘enlivening’.” InPopular beliefs and folklore tradition in Siberia (Ed. Dioszegi). Bloomington: Indiana University. 1968.

Vasilevič, G. M. “The acquisition of shamanistic ability among the Evenki (Tungus).” InPopular beliefs and folklore tradition in Siberia (Ed. Dioszegi). Bloomington: Indiana University. 1968.

Vitebsky, Piers. The shaman. NY: Little, Brown, and Co. 1995.

Vizenor, Gerald. Earthdivers: tribal narratives on mixed descent. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. 1981.

Vizenor, Gerald. The people named the Chippewa. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. 1984.

Wasson, R. Gordon. Soma. NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1968.

 

[1][1] The available sources on Siberian shamanism are not without serious problems, and need to be discussed in the context of the history of Soviet ethnography, etc.

[2][2] Titchenell translates ginnregin as Vaner, the older layer of Norse gods or spirits, relating Óðinn’s wisdom thus to the deepest and more clearly woman-centered base of Norse mythology (with Freyja as the great goddess and primal shamanic spirit).

[3][3] ‘Kvasir’ is an interesting word: It is connected to Norwegian kvase and Russian kvas, denoting the fermented berry drink created through the communal chewing of the berries which were then spat into a vat. The mead of the skalds, the Old Norse poets, is also known as kvasis dreyra, Kvasir’s blood (De Vries 1977). English ‘quash’ and German (dialectical) quatschen are related. The latter word leads me to surmise an interesting etymology for this word, which can also mean ‘to talk nonsense, to babble’: talk in-spirited by the mead, by kvase, was increasingly considered nonsense, as it became unintelligible as people lost their ongoing and ceremonial presence to the world of spirit(s) – what people claimed to come from that world was increasingly considered Quatsch or nonsense, while before it had been the wisdom of Kvasir. (Just as the seeresses of the Delphic oracle increasingly appeared to babble nonsense, thus “necessitating” the interpretation by men, and resulting in the patriarchal control of intercourse with spirits.)

 

[4][4] It is beyond the scope of this article to display the rich web of connections in its entirety. However, it is worth mentioning that the berry, especially in its form as elderberry (Hollunder) is also the sacred blood from the female spirit or goddess (Frau Holle), and that we find lines leading us back into the Nordic culture at the times of Old Europe (cf. Gimbutas 1999).

[5][5] Within the Euro-centered frame of mind exists a strong tendency to read words like “traditional” or “indigenous” in a reifying fashion, postulating some stable, Edenic original state. While such projections of unfullfilled needs and desires may be momentarily satisfying, they reinforce the dissociative movements of progress thinking and the projective identification with indigenous peoples (making them feel our own shadow material as if it was theirs). We have to understand that whatever we are capable of identifying as beginning, original, traditional, indigenous, etc. immediately is always already imbued with history, and, whatever we manage to recover of it, we have to understand as the imaginative stories of communal truths, and not categorical statements of absolute truths.

[6][6] The Indo-European root weid- is connected to story and wisdom, while the root skei- (to cut, split) is connected to the word conscious; knowledge is connected to the root gno-, which has narration and normal in its wake.

On Understanding Indigenous Healing Practices (PDF)

 

 

On Understanding Indigenous Healing Practices

 

Published in:

Ethnopsychologische Mitteilungen,1995, Vol. 4, #1, 3-36

[Page numbers inserted below as P3 etc.]

 

 

Jürgen W. Kremer

3383 Princeton Drive

Santa Rosa, CA 95405

jkremer@sonic.net

 

[P3] Introduction

Interest in the healing practices and ceremonies of Native American and other indigenous peoples has increased quite dramatically in recent years. This surge in curiosity seems to be fueled by the experience that the conventional western healing paradigm frequently hits its own limit and that the spiritual connections within one’s self, with community and with nature have desiccated. While this yearning for holistic healing by way of indigenous healing practices is valid and important, it raises not only ethical and political issues, but also epistemological questions: Is the euro-american way of knowing indigenous healing compatible with the native understanding and use of these practices? What are the implications if it is not? And if the euro-american way of approaching indigenous healing practices is incompatible with their ways of knowing, what is the possibility of developing a compatible approach?

I am raising these questions to promote a self-reflective look for euro-americans from an indigenous perspective. Born in Germany, I have been trained as a clinical psychologist in the western paradigm of research and scholarship. My experiences with Native American people have not only been humbling as to the extent of their indigenous scientific knowledge, but they have also taught me the limitations of euro-american epistemologies when it comes to the understanding of native ways of knowing, ceremonies and healing practices (Kremer, 1992a & b). As a consequence, I am trying to write this paper as an “indigenous Teuton” about the healing practices of peoples working within a related native paradigm, rather than as a Western researcher interested in what is Other.The provocative term “indigenous Teuton” signifies the problem (from the political to the very personal dimensions) as well as the potential.[1][1] I hope to be able to explain how I have arrived at this stance, which satifies my standards for intellectual consistency and, secondly, provides a credible way for me to be engaged with as well as to research indigenous healing practices, and, finally, allows for the personal, emotional resolution of historical issues (stemming from German and European history and the history of colonization [P4] and imperialism in particular). All this makes it possible for me to teach in a graduate program entitled “Traditional Knowledge” which gathers native peoples for academic study based on their own ways of knowing (interfacing with western knowledge from that perspective).

The most succinct way to describe my stance would be as follows: The exposure to indigenous healing practices should be an occasion for euro-americans to develop and remember their own indigenous healing approaches. This would lead to an exchange of knowledge about native healing practices within the same paradigm and based on equality. This process would include the integration of the western medical and psychological achievements from indigenous euro-american perspectives. While this approach may seem provocative, it is necessitated by the profound paradigmatic differences between indigenous and western sciences. Looking at my  personal experience I would have to say that I was forced to take this stance as I have moved into a deep exploration of my own indigenous consciousness;, rather than that I am electing to take this viewpoint.

Increasingly, scientists are stressing the importance of indigenous knowledge for the resolution of the various crises or limitations of the conventional western paradigm (for examples see Durning [1992] and Inglis [1993] for ecology; Achterberg [1985] for the healing arts, Bohm [1993] and Bohm & Edwards [1991] for social issues). This new valuation is reflected in decisions at the Earth Summit Rio Declaration (Principle 22; see Rogers [1993: 196) as well as articles 8 and 10 of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and statements by the Canadian Polar Commission (Polaris Papers [1993]). Almost all of these and similar declarations are somewhat problematic from the perspective of traditional indigenous peoples (meaning: those who are not assimilated into the eurocentric world view). They commonly disregard what I have termed a deep structure of cross-cultural differences, meaning differences between all the various (sub)cultures who are or are trying to become part of the eurocentered paradigm on the one hand, and all the (sub)cultures who are struggling to maintain ancient indigenous practices on the other hand. This difference in world view seems particularly significant when native healing ways and their use of traditional ecological knowledge (including traditional medicines) are concerned. Berkes (1993: 4) has summarized the paradigmatic differences between scientific ecological knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge (including herbal knowledge) as follows:

  1. TEK (traditional ecological knowledge, J.W.K.) is mainly qualitative (as opposed to quantitative;
  2. TEK has an intuitive component (as opposed to being purely rational);
  3. TEK is holistic (as opposed to rationalistic);
  4. In TEK, mind and matter are considered together (as opposed to a separation of mind and matter);

[P5] 5. TEK is moral (as opposed to supposedly value-free);

  1. TEK is spiritual (as opposed to mechanistic);
  2. TEK is based on empirical observations and accumulations of facts by trial-and-error (as opposed to experimentation and systematic, deliberate accumulation of fact);
  3. TEK is based on data generated by resource users themselves (as opposed to that by a specialized cadre of researchers);
  4. TEK is based on diachronic data, i.e., long time-series on information on one locality (as opposed to synchronic data, i.e., short time-series over a large area).

This quote adequately summarizes (exceptions notwithstanding) central paradigmatic differences which, to my mind, need to be resolved if there is to be a clean break with the history of colonialism; this history, from the perspective of indigenous peoples, is continuing to this day with unrelenting force. Traditional peoples see the research of the various sciences (including anthropology and psychology) as an expression of a colonial desire, unconscious or submerged and implicit as it may be. Native peoples increasingly talk about the “extraction” of their healing and spiritual knowledge (e.g., Churchill; [1992: 215-228]). “‘Today,’ says Adrian Esquina Lisco, spiritual chief of the National Association of Indigenous Peoples of El Salvador, ‘the white world wants to understand the native cultures and extract those fragments of wisdom which extends its own dominion'” (Durning, 1992: 36). Medicine people and elders from Amazonian tribes have made equivalent statements in regards to the recent surge of interest in their traditional medicines and the swell of shamanic and eco-tourism in their lands (Dobkin de Rios, 1994). Shiva (1993) has presented a thorough critique of prevalent approaches to biodiversity and biotechnology from an ecofeminist perspective (a perspective which is in many aspects related to indigenous approaches).

If we take Lisco’s statement and similar comments by other indigenous persons seriously, then – if we are sympathetic to their situation and well intentioned – what are we to do? This article attempts to address this complex issue using the following basic argument:

  • If we take the resolutions from the Earth Summit (and other similar statements) about the validity and importance of indigenous knowledge seriously, then we have to reflect on the appropriate and respectful ways of doing so.
  • Part of taking indigenous knowledge (including knowledge about healing and medicines) seriously is taking its ways of knowing seriously and attempting to understand them on their own terms (empathically, so to speak).

[P6] • If such an analysis shows that indigenous ways of knowing are qualitatively different, then we have to look critically at our own ways of knowing and their inherent qualities and values (provided we want to pay attention to statements by Lisco and other elders).

  • If we find that the eurocentric qualities and values are inherently problematic and not or not entirely respectful of indigenous ways of knowing, then we need to find an alternate stance from which to conduct scientific inquiries.
  • It is my suggestion that this alternate stance should be the recovery of indigenous roots for peoples inquiring within the framework of eurocentric paradigm(s).
  • This allows the critical review and integration of past scientific accomplishments (in the broadest sense), and to approach indigenous (healing) knowledge of other peoples within a comparable epistemology and value perspective. The result would be a relationship between inquirers of a recovered indigenous framework and inquirers living now in indigenous cultures, where knowledge is explored and exchanged based on equality (rather than some (post)modern form of inherent colonialism).

This argument contains more complexities and intricacies than this paper will allow me to explore. However, I will attempt to explain it first by presenting an extensive conventional discussion based on my reading of the literature as well as exchanges with traditional people on this topic. In a second move I will try to engage the reader in a thought process which is someplace between a scholarly explication and genuine indigenous explications.

 

 

Part I: Two Perspectives on Indigenous Healing Practices

Using the language and terminology of the eurocentric paradigm, I am trying first to explain the paradigmatic differences between indigenous and western sciences and the differences between indigenous and (post)modern consciousness. I will subsequently apply these distinctions to examples from the Diné culture, the Native American sweatlodge and native ways of gathering medicinal herbs. The final sections of this part are dedicated to paradigmatic differences in the understanding of health and the position of the inquirer.

 

[P7] Indigenous and Western Science[2][2]

The term ‘indigenous science’ has been coined by Colorado (1988, 1989) to validate the detailed and intricate knowledge which the indigenous peoples of this planet have accumulated over the millenia (see Kidwell [1991] for a summary for Native American tribes). We find extraordinary examples in Pacific navigation (Hostetter 1991; Kyselka 1987; cf. also Vebæk & Thirslund, 1992 for Viking navigation), archaeoastronomy (Williamson & Farrer 1992), agriculture and herbal knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge (Inglis, 1993). The construction of Stonehenge and Newgrange (Burenhult 1993, 96-97; Wernick 1973, 114-115) or the markings on Fajada Butte or the alignments of the kiva Casa Rinconada in Chaco Canyon are exquisite examples of ancient knowledge (Sofaer & Sinclair 1983; Carlson 1983; Williamson 1983). Hopi dryfarming or the survival of Australian Aborigines in areas generally consider uninhabitable are others. Canoe journeying between Tahiti and Hawaii requiring detailed navigational knowledge is another astonishing example (Kyselka 1987) which indicates why ancient indigenous knowledge should be considered on par with the scientific knowledge of the modern era; additionally, this approach avoids the continuing euro-american denigration and takes it seriously. However, the paradigmatic differences between these two forms of science are not only significant, but they are highly relevant for our topic. Let me explain the differences between indigenous science and western science, primarily with reference to the healing arts (Colorado 1988; Deloria 1993).

The skeptical euro-american researcher would be foremost interested in the efficacy of Native American healing and would try to isolated the elements considered efficacious or a necessary condition in healing ceremonies. The sympathetic researcher would also, in addition to this analytical approach, pay attention to the “set and setting” as it were, and would attempt to validate native approaches or find similarities, for example via psychotherapeutic approaches such as NLP (neurolinguistic programming) or Rogerian counseling, or via biochemical research of curative agents in herbs. The western scientific approach commonly entails a stripping away of what is considered extraneous and the isolation of what is considered effective. It is through this process that western science makes other what is essential for native understandings. (While these statements apply particularly for conventional understandings of western science, they are also applicable to alternate approaches which are on the verge of bridging to native ways of knowing. Chaos theory (Gleick, 1987), various human sciences approaches (e.g., Polkinghorne, 1983; [P 8] Giorgi, 1970), and narrative psychology (e.g., Polkinghorne, 1985; Deslauriers, 1992) are among the examples of approaches which expand the conventional paradigm without leaving it.)

Indigenous science, on the other hand, would begin with the culturally specific, ecologically and historically grounded indigenous understanding of “the good mind” (Colorado 1988: 52), a balanced way of living in community on a particular land (“balanced mind” would be an alternative term); the Iroquois people call this skanagoah, literally “the great peace.” Healing is needed when the “good mind” is out of balance for reasons which the cultural stories and myths can provide. Indigenous healing practices then are a synthetic, integral approach to what is out of balance. Native science guides the healer to the point in the fabric where it is rent and where wholeness needs to be reestablished. Indigenous ceremonies are the precise knowledge and practice designed to create balance on all levels and from all levels (within the person on the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual levels, and by doing so on the level of spirits, community and nature which hold the individual); they are indigenous science. Their efficacy comes through the integrity and the wholeness of the healing ceremony.

Colorado gives some coordinates for indigenous science:

Just like western science, indigenous science relies upon direct observation; there are tests to insure validity and data are used for forecasting and generating predictions. Individuals are trained in various specializations, for example, herbalism, weather observation, mental health and time keeping. Unlike western science, the data from indigenous science are not used to control the forces of nature, instead, the data tell us ways and means of accommodating nature. Other critical distinctions include the following:

  1. The indigenous scientist is an integral part of the research process and there is a defined process for insuring this integrity.
  2. All of nature is considered to be intelligent and alive, thus an active research partner.
  3. The purpose of indigenous science is to maintain balance.
  4. Compared to western time/space notions, indigenous science collapses time and space with the result that our fields of inquiry and participation extend into and overlap with past and present.
  5. Indigenous science is concerned with relationships, we try to understand and complete our relationships with all living things.
  6. Indigenous science is holistic, drawing on all the senses including the spiritual and psychic.
  7. The end point of an indigenous scientific process is a known an recognized place. This point of balance, referred to by my own tribe as the Great Peace, is both peaceful and electrifyingly alive. In the joy of exact balance, creativity occurs, which is why we can think of our way of knowing as a life science.
  8. When we reach the moment/place of balance we do not believe that we have transcended – we say that we are normal! Always we remain embodied in the natural world.
  9. Humor is a critical ingredient of all truth seeking, even in the most powerful rituals. This is true because humor balances gravity. (Colorado, 1994: 1-2)

[P9] The different motivations for inquiry in the case of western and indigenous sciences are of note: The researches of the native healer are done to increase the integrity and wholeness of the communal fabric and to benefit the individuals that are part of it. Western researches of native healing practices rarely seem to benefit the peoples researched directly, but they are a way to address the limitations of the western healing paradigm and to come to terms with events which western scientists commonly considered anomalous, inexplicable or nonexistent.

As the voice of the indigenous other emerges within industrialized nations – however limited and distorted – through neo-shamanic techniques and the alternative interpretations which transpersonal psychologies and holistic medical approaches have to offer, a profound question arises: Are (post)modern people trying to heal their western, euro-american selves or are they trying to heal their indigenous selves? This question is of utmost importance to indigenous peoples. If what they are doing is healing their euro-american selves within the existing paradigm, then iatrogenic diseases which are an expression of the continuing dissociation from holism and indigenous roots are the result (this is one of the reasons why natives are disturbed about the decontextualized use of their healing approaches). The correct technique used in a dissociated way is dangerous because it allows the appearance of a deeper healing which did not occur (individual benefits notwithstanding); natives would also talk about spiritual dangers which imperil any attempts of healing (as opposed to curing). From an indigenous perspective, if western people are healing their indigenous selves through the remembrance of native healing ways, then individual healing is also the healing of community and paradigm.[3][3]

 

Indigenous And Modern Consciousness

The discussion of differences between indigenous and western sciences is an indicator of the significant differences between indigenous and modern (or postmodern) consciousness. Without understanding these differences we cannot adequately explore the use of trance narratives. Barfield (1965) offers distinctions which are helpful for our purposes (Kremer, 1992a, b). He argues that in the subject – object interaction between human beings and the ‘out there’ (external reality, the unrepresented), they may participate in what they consider phenomena in radically different ways.[4][4]

Barfield distinguishes three major types of participation which are of epistemological relevance for euro-american traditions: 1) original participation, 2) the loss of or the unconscious [P10] participation of modernity, and 3) final participation. I call these three types of participation 1) indigenous consciousness; or mind, 2) modern / postmodern consciousness, and 3) recovered, remembered or retribalized indigenous mind. I am using these distinctions outside of the evolutionary scheme which Barfield represents (his linear, monocausal approach to evolution is quite contrary to indigenous perspectives).

Indigenous consciousness;: In what Barfield calls ‘original participation’ (the interaction with the phenomena in shamanic hunter-gatherer societies, in particular) , the embeddedness of human consciousness in nature is experienced and lived in a direct with very permeable boundaries between self and phenomena, and with a language structure and narrative reflectiveness which expresses this engagement with reality (Müller, 1981: 241ff.[5][5]). Precise observation and accurate visual descriptions are usually of utmost importance. This synthetic type of consciousness allows an experience of a systemic connection with nature and here perception is integrated into the whole. Thinking occurs more in images than concepts.

Barfield’s descriptions are not free from the prejudices which his inspirateurs Lévy-Bruhl and Durkheim espoused. The archaeoastronomical, navigational, agricultural and healing knowledge of native peoples indicates the level of cognitive functioning they have been capable of for millenia. Spirit is part of the considerations of indigenous science. Indigenous consciousness; or original participation defines itself at the intersection of the seasonal and astronomical cycles, the ecology, the ancestral heritage, the community and the gifts or medicine of the individual (these are necessary conditions for the presence of indigenous mind). Trance narratives are particularly relevant in this cultural context for the understanding of personal medicine or gifts and healing. The individual narratives are contextualized within tribal stories, ceremonial structures and communal interpretations (with the guidance of elders and shamans). Prime examples of such oral cultures could and can be found among the egalitarian hunter-gatherers (Lerner1986: 15-53; Mason 1993: 50-90). Napaljarri, a clan elder of the Australian Warlpiri, describes this consciousness as follows: “Each person is related to other people, to their jukurrpa [dreamtime, J.W.K.] ancestors, to the places they own and are responsible for, to the narratives and songs concerning the places and ancestors, and to the gestures, dances and designs that belong to the places” (Napaljarri & Cataldi 1994, xix).

While it is true that individuals are (or are not) in their indigenous minds, it is also true that the indigenous mind is not individual. Individuals are in their indigenous minds if they [P11] understand how they stand in the weave of their ancestry, community, nature, spirit(s) and cycles. The individual gift from spirit(s) (medicine, endowment) of a person comes to life if, and only if s/he recognizes where s/he stands in this weave. Individuals embody the indigenous mind, which encompasses more than their individual self. Indigenous consciousness; is participatory in reality. Reality is not out there and opposed to the individual, they are part of each other and each individual is challenged to maintain balance and harmony in this weave. It is important to emphasize that the indigenous mind is thus grounded both in spirit and matter. While it is a potential for every human being, this potential can only be realized if it is specifically grounded in the necessary conditions just mentioned (which means that it, ultimately, cannot be realized in an individualistic paradigm).

My previous descriptions and quotes have focused on describing indigenous science using euro-american coordinates. From an indigenous or native perspective it is

often understood through the imagery of the tree, is holistic. Through spiritual processes, it synthesizes information from the mental, physical, social and cultural/historical realms. Like a tree, the roots of Native science go deep into the history, body and blood of the land. The tree collects, stores and exchanges energy. It breathes with the winds, which tumble and churn through greenery exquisitely fashioned to purify, codify and imprint life in successive concentric rings – the generations. Why and how the tree does this is a mystery, but the Indian observes the tree emulate, complement and understand his or her relationship to this beautiful life-enhancing process (Colorado 1988, 50).

The language of this quote reflects indigenous mind more accurately than the descriptions which may be more accessible and palatable for western scientists.

Let me emphasize two presuppositions about original participation or indigenous consciousness; which are of tantamount importance for our contemporary situation:

1) The indigenous mind is a human potential which can be actualized by anybody and everybody – past, present and future.

2) The indigenous mind is not something of the past, but a consciousness present among various contemporary indigenous peoples.

Indigenous mind is thus understood as a human potential for all and everybody, and it is also understood as a world view, or rather a particular way to participate in the world and to experience reality. The indigenous mind as a world view does not so much signify a particular set of beliefs as it refers to a pragmatically, experientially grounded and validated way of being in the world. While this mind appears to rest in individuals (and needs their intentionality to be present), [P12] it only emerges when the individual rests in the weave of the ancestral heritage, the community, nature and spirit(s).

Modern and postmodern consciousness;: According to Barfield, by the seventeenth century the center of perception and thinking had changed in Europe from the phenomena to the self, with the mind moving outward toward the unrepresented and the phenomena (rather than from the phenomena inward) — thus the mind had severed itself from its connection with nature. This second epistemologically relevant process internalizes meaning and treats the phenomena as existing independently. “… A representation, which is collectively mistaken for an ultimate — ought not to be called a representation. It is an idol. Thus the phenomena themselves are idols, when they are imagined as enjoying independence of human perception, which can in fact only pertain to the unrepresented” (Barfield, 1965, 62). This is why his book title calls out to save the appearances from the idolatry of modernity during the next process.

The underlying drive of modernity (with the beginning of the Enlightenment) is the creation of a tight mindweave (shrinkwrap) of control over all which is not considered part of the rationalistic aspects of mind. I have termed this dis-ease process in the knowing of Eurocentric cultures ‘dissociative schismogenesis’ (Kremer, 1994d); this process is the abstract core of the empiricist and rationalistic world view, which is an attempt to align the world to man’s will (needless to say, an imperialistic endeavor on all counts) and an increasing split from its origins. The consciousness process of the modern mind is thus labeled as an escalating process, which not only will lead to intolerable stress, but because it has continued relatively unchecked, to the possibility of cultural breakdown (cf. Bateson, 1958/1972, 171ff.). This whole process of dissociation could also be interpreted as the eradication of indigenous consciousness; in people subscribing to the modernist paradigm of progress. Dissociative schismogenesis is the stilling and killing of those aspects of being human which an indigenous person would consider necessary in order to be whole or in balance. The modern scientist frames healing primarily in terms of disease control (rather than the maintenance of balance) while trances and other altered states are likely to find themselves in the company of psychopathological descriptions. Dissociative schismogenesis is the increasing unconsciousness of human participation in the perceived phenomena. The search for universal, abstract concepts (even when used in the context of cultural relativism) is part of this external (other cultures and nature) and internal (the body, the unconscious, the feminine, etc.) scientific colonization. All this indicates how the history of colonialism and the history of modernity and science are intertwined not only on the obvious, crude and cruel levels, but also on [P13] subtle levels which affect our understandings to this day. (Cf. Ani, 1994 for a comprehensive indigenous African discussion of these issues.)

Postmodernism can be seen as the chaotic breakup of this shrinkwrap or net of control (unsuccessful as it may have been). The emergence of an increasing interest in trance experiences and narratives, indigenous modes of healing, mythology, goddess cultures, archetypes and symbols appear to be a part of this epistemological crisis as the euro-american cultures are searching for what Spretnak has called ecological postmodernism (1991) or what Swimme and Berry (1992) have described as the emergence of ecozoic consciousness. Postmodernity and deconstructionism establish the possibility of ending the idolatry of representations.

Recovery of indigenous consciousness; is what Barfield terms ‘final participation’ (and what I have called also ‘future participation’, Kremer 1991, 4). I view neo-shamanism as an indication of the desire for the recovery of indigenous ways of knowing within (post)modern societies. Such recovery would reconnect modern consciousness; to the seasonal and astronomical cycles, specific ecologies, the remembered ancestral heritage, community and the individual’s medicine. Then spirit would be, once again, part of science (see especially Spretnak, 1991, 196ff.). (See Kremer (1993 & 1995) for important distinctions between tribal shamanism and neoshamanism.)

Even this very brief discussion should make the answer to the following question obvious: “If the indigenous mind is lost – can it be recovered?” From an indigenous perspective the answer to this question is an emphatic “yes!” The reasons for the possibility of the recovery of the indigenous mind can be grouped in five major dimensions of 1) the continued presence of cycles, 2) the continued presence of ancestral spirit(s), 3) the presence of artefacts and spiritually significant places, 4) the continued presence of nature, and 5) the psychological capabilities of the individual human mind:

Barfield thus describes the rise of Western consciousness as the rise of human consciousness from nature leading to high levels of conceptual reasoning and reflections without conscious participation in the phenomena, even with the denial of the involvement in them. This is also the masculinization of the phenomena. This process can be seen as an explanation why it is so easy to deny nature in human consciousness. This antithetical, dissociative process between human beings and the phenomena has found its acme in the Western enlightenment movement. It is out of the dark night of the masculinized scholar that a future and new type of participation may arise through the use of trance narratives in modernist societies. For indigenous peoples this would be the end of the Dark Sun era (according to Mexican prophecies; Colorado, 1991, 22), or [P14] the time when, according to the Kogi prophecies, younger brother has remembered who he is (Ereira, 1992, 113-114).

Barfield’s most important point is that the worlds of the indigenous mind (original participation), the loss of participation of the modern Western mind and future participation (recovery of indigenous origins) are different. It is not just that humans see things differently in each of these worlds – but the worlds are different.

The Sami people of Norway, Sweden and Finland are a good example for the changes from indigenous to modern consciousness;. The follow quote gives a clear illustration of the perils of linear progress thinking. The hunting and fishing Sami of old clearly fit the descriptions for indigenous mind.

The traditional Sami order makes clear the culturally provisional nature of an active self in the contextually shifting references of the crucial term siida. In every situation, from the most “everyday” organizations of domestic life and productive activities to the most “extradordinary” occasions of ritual sacrifice, the term siida refers to a diffuse unity of humans, animals, and the land. Traditional Sami believed that at the birth of a child, a new siida was created. This unit consisted of the human child, its particular “animal guardian spirit,” and a particular “land spirit” (represented by the “birth stick” that marked the spot where the placenta was buried). A higher-level siida unit, foregrounded in the summer months of intense productive acitivity, included the separate domestic household (usually all those living in one tent), its summer territory, and the animals within that territory. Still more generalized was the winter siida assembly, including the entire human community, the total band territory, and all the animals. … The most general siida unit – operative only in the most important and carefully controlled ritual contexts – consisted of both this world and the other world of the gods, the dead, and the generalized animal guardians. At this level, the siida was identical to the all-encompassing female earth god, the Stem-Mother (Maddarakka, J.W.K.) (Stephens, 1986, 212-213).

This world was reflected on the traditional Sami drum of these times, which allowed the shaman or noaidi to shift their attention to the higher level siida. However, “the drum’s cosmic map was not simply a picture of the universe as it existed at any given time. Rather, drumming could effect transformations in siida levels and corresponding changes in siida actors and their objects” (Stephens, 1986, 217; cf. Pentikäinen, 1984, 144-145, 147). Growing older meant acquiring the capacity through transformative learning to stay at the center of increasingly generalized siida units.

All this changed significantly with the advent of pastoralism and the migrations with the herds of domesticated reindeer (after about 1600C.E.): Maddarakka becomes a minor deity and the male gods are seen as “controlling the powers and actions of their female consorts in order to [P15] prevent any far-reaching female transformations of the existing order” (Stephens, 1986, 219). The siida units are given a more restrictive and more clearly boundaried meaning, and linearity enters the migration pattern (substituting for the clover leaf like traditional four-directional pattern). The drum now shows a linearly layered world instead of the ovoid world outlined around the central goddess Maddarakka (Ahlbäck & Bergman, 1991; Kjellström & Rydving, 1993 for clear illustrations; also Lommel, 1965). Previously the drum had been an instrument by means of which the Sami participated in the ongoing creation of the universe, now it has become a picture of a certain cosmic order. The journey to the more generalized siida units becomes increasingly a matter of specialists and the boundaries between siida units become more impermeable. The relationship to the divine is now defined by sacrifices governing the symmetrical exchanges between male gods and men (cf. Bäckman & Hultkrantz, 1985). A process of dissociative schismogenesis from the loom of life has set in with the consequences of a threatening ecological catastrophe. What once was a concern with a continuing balance becomes part of a linear model of progress. The Warlpiri people of Australia talk about this same shift, which came with the arrival of the Europeans, as “the end of the Jukurrpa” (Napaljarri & Cataldi, 1994, xx), the end of the dreamtime.

 

Understanding Native American Healing Ways (Examples)

Let me explain the differences in paradigm a little further through the use of an example from the Diné people (Navajo).[6][6] I am choosing this example not because they may be the most popularized native tribe of this continent or because of the beautiful drypaintings which have drawn attention to their healing ceremonies (such as ma’iijí hatáál or Coyoteway, Luckert 1979) have been widely heard of because of the drypaintings. I am using this example because the Diné people seem to have exchanged knowledge with nordic tribes during ancient migrations west (Ashley, 1993). It is in this context of relationship that I as an indigenous Teuton have sought to learn from Diné traditions.

Whether an image in a sandpainting is perceived as symbol or as spirit marks the difference between Diné knowing and euro-american knowing.[7][7] The drypaintings show beings which are significant in the world of the Diné people. The western mind understands them as an assemblage of symbols which represent certain beings [P16] which are significant in the Diné world; they are commonly seen as ‘symbols of healing’, where each piece of the sandpainting stands for something else. This interpretation reflects the split in the dissociative western mind: the different parts of the sandpainting point to something which is elsewhere, outside of the representation. The participatory tribal mind relates entirely differently to the sandpainting: The deities and other beings (ye’ii) are in the sandpainting. The making of the sandpainting is the creation of the presence of the beings. The beings are not at all separate from what the sand looks like. Once the sandpainting is there, they are there. This simple distinction marks worlds of differences: Whether a sandpainting is a symbol for something or whether it is a certain being indicates the consciousness process we are engaged in. In one case we have symbolic healing, in the other spirit heals. There is no simple technique which can bridge this difference. Each understanding reflects a different way of being in the world. There is no such thing as a simple switch from one to the other. Whether we use trances for symbolic work or to seek healing with and from spirit(s) is an indication of the consciousness and reality in which we are participating.

Jungian interpretations of tribal sandpaintings, myths or healings (see Sandner [1979] for an example) do not reflect tribal mind . They reflect the process of the western mind. Jungian psychology and related transpersonal approaches are certainly the closest to indigenous ways of being in that they validate the seminal importance of participation mystique and spiritual experiences. However, they are only accurate as long as they deal with the western mind. There they can be very helpful. If such a psychology gets projected onto indigenous peoples, then grave misunderstandings result. What may be a good starting point for the western mind means engaging the indigenous mind in a process of splitting and dissociation (amounting to psychologizing spirit, McNeill 1993). Faris (1990: 12) has made a pertinent summarizing statement about Jungian interpretations of Navajo traditions:

Such motions … are still popular and continue to be attractive to both romantics and humanists who seem interested in fitting Navajo belief into some variety of universal schema – reducing its own rich logic to but variation and fodder for a truth derived from Western arrogances – even if their motivations are to elevate it. And thus, while often paraphrased in terms of a challenge to Western scientific tradition (Sandner, 1979), these motions nevertheless maintain the “classic ratio” (Foucault, 1973) with such traditions by its interpretation rather than acceptance of Navajo truths at face value.

Now we can make further distinctions not only in the research of, but also the use of Native American healing approaches in a euro-american framework. Sweatlodges are a well-[P17]known healing approach also used by non-indigenous people. The western mind can easily grasp the benefits of the sweat experience via the knowledge about saunas, for example (the effects of the heat on the immune system, etc.). Achterberg (1985) summarizes as follows:

The sweat lodge or saunalike structure is a commonly used vehicle for inducing an altered state of consciousness. … A sweat lodge without ritual is just hot; but even with ritual, it can induce a masive systemic effect that includes rapidly increased pulse rate, nausea, dizziness, and syncope (fainting) – in short, the warning signs of the impending medical condition we call heat stroke. … From a physical standpoint, there is a biochemical component of high body temperatures during fevers that reflects the natural reactions to toxins, and is correlated to the immune system in action. The artificially induced high temperatures of the sauna may mimic or induce this activity (as does sustained aerobic exercise). Furthermore, the sweat or sauna may act as a sterilization procedure, killing bacteria, viruses and other organisms that thrive at body temperature, but are susceptible to heat. The growth of tumors may also be inhibited when core body temperature is significantly elevated. (pp. 33-34)

However, the name ‘sweatlodge’ was coined by euro-americans; each tribe has its own specific name for this ceremony which embeds it in the deep structure of the specific culture (such as inipi among the Lakota). It is certainly true that many westerners have received tremendous benefits from sweatlodge experiences. And it is also true that their healing is not the same as a sweat lodge healing for a tribal person. The healing which the symbolic journey into the womb of the Mother Earth affords (as many euro-americans have described it) is different from the healing which a native person might receive through the encounter with spirit during these ceremonies. Decontextualized healing continues our cultural malaise of dissociation from interconnectedness and spirit; if we begin to remember our own indigenous minds, then we can understand the indigenous science which went into making of these exquisite healing ceremonies. The usefulness of the sweating technique is different from the integral balancing within self, community, nature and spirit which a traditional native person would expect.

The rite of the onikare (sweat lodge) utilizes all the Powers of the universe: earth, and the things which grow from the earth, water, fire and air. The water represents the Thunder-beings who come fearfully but bring goodness, for the steam which comes from the rocks, within which is the fire, is frightening, but it purifies us so that we may live as Wakan-Tanka wills, and He may even send to us a vision if we become very pure. (…)

When we leave the sweat lodge we are as the souls which are kept, as I have described, and which return to Wakan-Tanka after they have been purified; for we, too, leave behin in the Inipi lodge all that is impure, that we may live as the Great Spirit wishes, and that we may know something [P18] of that real world of the Spirit, which is behind this one. (Black Elk, 1971, 31 & 43)

The contrast between Achterberg’s summary and Black Elk’s descriptions is instructive and illustrates the paradigmatic differences. Most recently, Kripppner (1995) has advocated to take indigenous narratives about their ceremonial endeavors  more seriously. The depth of native descriptions of sweat lodge and other experiences is commonly at least partially obscured by the filter which (post)modern consciousness represents; it is also, most obviously, obscured by the understandable native distrust of researchers who are approaching them from within a different paradigm (this affects the type and quality of information communicated). The recovery of indigenous consciousness (plural) among eurocentric peoples would create a different relationship between current scientific knowledge (as represented by the Achterberg quote) and native narratives from other cultures.

Within the western paradigm we pick an herb for its curative properties known to relieve a certain ailment. Herb collection is an entirely different event within a native context. Here it is a ceremonial event which involves spirit and, especially the spirits of the plant to be collected. It is a participatory event with the plant relations which presupposes detailed knowledge, including knowledge of their language; it requires knowledge of cycles and the preparations necessary for gathering. It means understanding plants like any other intelligent people. This is no longer the collection of an herb, but an engagement and appointment with spirit to help heal. What heals is more than the beneficial chemical ingredient in the herb. But in order for such healing to occur a certain protocol (which is expressive of the traditional ecological knowledge of a particular healer and tribal tradition) needs to be observed:

Prayer accompanies all plant use on the Navajo Reservation. Prayers are said when Rocky Mountain bee plant (Cleome serrulata) is gathered for stew, when yarrow (Achillea lanulosa) is picked to cure skin disease, when a sacred plant is gthered to treat a horse’s sore leg, when a variety of plants are picked to make a rainbow of soft, long-lasting wool dyes.

Plants are not picked randomly or wastefully. Rather, they are picked as needed, and then, no more than are necessary.

An herbalist finds two of a particular species that she wishes to pick. To the largest and healthiest plant, she says a prayer and explains why she must pick its neighbor. An offering of shell, pollen, or other sacred material is deposited with the first plant. Then she picks what she needs. Afterward, the plant remains are buried with a final prayer. (Mayes & Lacy, 1989: 2-3)

Lake, a northwest California native expresses the indigenous relationship between healer and healing plants as follows:

Plants are “people” in the same ways we are people. They are born into certain families; they have extended families, tribes, and nations; they also [P19] have friends and even enemies. Some work individually, but most prefer to work cooperatively. They have individual personalities which are influeced by physical chemistry and mental-spirituall thinking. A happy plant is a healthy plant. A plant in its indigenous source of power is more potent and “powerful” than a domesticated species that has been cultivated. A natural plant gathered from its natural environment is more powerful in healing, especially if it is gathered in the right and proper way and at the right and proper time. Harvesting plants with prayer, ritual, and knowledge (communication formulas) will insure that the spirit of the plant stays with the body of the plant, and the plant will also be more effective in treatment for an illness. (Lake, 1991: 147)

The detailed herbal knowledge of Native American tribes has been collected in various publications of differing quality (e.g., Balls [1962], Chesnut [1902], Densmore [1928], Jones [1972], Mayes & Lacy [1989], Weiner [1972], Stammel [1986], Hutchens [1969]). Of course, related publications, some of them more reliable and less fanciful than others, about old plant knowledge can also be found in Europe (examples are: Grimm [1966/1888], vol.III; Golowin [1973]; Thiselton-Dyer [1889]).

Knowing the medical benefits of a sweat lodge purification or the effective chemical agents in an healing herb is certainly useful. But if this knowledge is not integrated into an indigenous science framework, then we fail to understand indigenous approaches to healing.

 

 

 

Healing Means “Nothing Less Than Manipulating the Full Structure of the Cosmos”

Within the conventional western medical paradigm, as indicated earlier, the therapeutic focus is on a clear identification of the symptom and the monocausal, linear analysis of its cause. Holistic medical approaches have expanded this approach to include a systemic understanding of causes as well as spiritual dimensions (beyond the emotional dimensions added by health psychology approaches). The conventional paradigm focuses on pathology, while the holistic medical approaches begin to focus more around notions of health (Kremer, 1982), thus putting themselves closer to indigenous sciences (on the far end of modern approaches, so to speak, but without truly bridging the deep structure of cross-cultural differences defined above). From my survey of the literature it seems accurate – albeit dangerous in this generalizing language – to say that indigenous peoples understand illness and healing in a cultural context which calls for a balancing of afflicted persons within their own cultural universe. Different indigenous cultures use different valid stories to explain the incident of illness; they address all aspects of the ill person (mental, emotional, physical, spiritual as well as communal), and they use a multifaceted approach in order to re-balance the sick within the indigenous cosmos. Indigenous approaches to [P20] healing imply a quality of control (i.e., balancing) different from the western monocausal, linear model of control. Let me use the Diné chantways as an exemplar for what I am talking about (without making the case why chantways are appropriate as exemplars).

The various chantways (Water Way, Coyote Way, Great Star Chant, Night Way, Mountaintop Way, Wind Way, Flint Way, etc.; cf. Wyman 1983a, b) use singing, praying, sweating, herbs, impersonation, bathing, sandpainting, etc. among their components (the ceremonies last up to nine days). Each of the chantways connect the healee to the Diné creation story, also commonly giving the origin of the chantway in use (Spencer, 1957). Thus the healees can be balanced within the Navajo world by being put, literally (not metaphorically or symbolically) at that point in the universe where balancing (healing) becomes possible. This place of balance is defined by an intricate system of diagnosis, the understanding of the creation story, and various detailed procedures. Accomplishing all this requires extensive ceremonial knowledge. The complexity of these chantways and their use is such that their learning can easily be compared to the acquisition of one PhD per chantway. They reflect a very detailed understanding of the world the Diné live in. Much of what is recorded in anthropological texts has little to do with Navajo practice and philosophy; when Diné practitioners share with other indigenous people facets of their world emerge which anthropology, in particular, has misrepresented or failed to fathom. Faris (1990: 13) criticizes anthropological understandings of “how Navajo belief works: that it reflects and symbolizes rather than constitutes, that actions “express,” that illness is cured “through symbolic manipulation.” Anthropologists are still “interpreting ritual.”” Faris (not a Navajo himself) describes his understanding of Diné causality in relation to illness as follows:

From my conversations with Nightway medicine men there has emerged a distinct concept of Navajo command over their universe – a personal and individual responsibility which, certainly in Nightway causality in any case, is not explained by the productions of the ‘natural world’ or events external to human agencies. Indeed, all ‘natural’ phenomena (lightning, fire, snakes, and so on) are only dangerous if there is a sacrilegious attitude toward them, or mistreatment of them, or in failing to observe the proper relationship toward them. (…)

Thus, Holy People do not themselves ’cause’ illness.[The Holy People are no more ‘supernatural’ than rocks or trees – they are simply invisible to humans. {p. 23}] It is violation by humans of prescribed order and proper ceremonial observances and attitudes, conditions of balance, beauty, harmony, and peace that brings about illnes. This order, these ceremonial observances, these proper social relations have been set down by the Holy People in Navajo history. Illness is disorder, unbalance, uglines. Violations may, of course, sometimes be unintentional or committed through ignorance; re-balance and re-order come through appropriate and proper [P21] appeal to the Holy People. In the attempts to re-order, there are supplicating features addressed to Holy People, of course, but their attendance at the healing ceremonies is, it such ceremonies are done properly, very compelling – indeed, they cannot resist attending. And if all is done properly, this attendance and this healing and this blessing and these offerings and these expressions of rigid propriety, beauty, and order bring about and restore a condition of hózhó, literally, holiness that is the harmony sought – a beauty, a balance in an order set out in navajo history and recapitulated in ceremony. (…)

This detailed command, so overwhelmingly impressive in its intricacies, say, of a nine-night Nightway, is what attracts holiness, what commands the attendance of the Holy People, and what balances. Indeed, it is only in observing such details, that one comes to see how sketchy, in fact, are the very best of accounts…(Faris, 1990: 14-15)

 

The reader may think that this perspective is entirely alien to the eurocentric cultural worlds. But this is only the case as long as we restrict our glance to contemporary medical practices. Once we go back only one hundred years, we find traces and tracks of a very similar cultural understanding of healing, health and illness in the older indo-european cultures (the very cultures which developed later on a dissociative approach to these issues). A review of the pertinent literature (which I began just recently) yields data, which quickly guide us toward the older indo-european and even pre-indoeuropean understanding of health and balance (see below for a number of references). Additionally, the continued existence of indigenous people culturally relevant for the indigenous roots of German and Scandinavian peoples, for example, easily adds to the possibility of recovery indigenous roots (the Saami people in the northern Scandinavian countries and the Kola Peninsula, and the various Siberian cultures, so far as they have survived Soviet oppression).

The following quote is an indication of the richness of information which can guide the development of a new relationship to indigenous peoples – neither based on the dominant eurocentric paradigm nor New Age or other fantasies, but based on a thorough personal and scholarly examination of what already is and what can be known. The Diné still practice an extraordinary healing system. But their practices and understandings are not alien to an older indo-european understanding of healing:

The nature of the order a healer established is also spelled out in the semantics of another verb applied to the art of healing, particularly within the Germanic languages: IE *kai-lo-, which occurs in Goth hailjan, OE hælan, OHG heilen, and OBulg celjo, all of which mean “to heal.” What is expressed most directly through these terms, however, is not just the [P22] establishment of a vague state of “health” or “well-being” but more precisely a state of “wholeness, totality, completion,” …

It now become apparent just how awesome a task the production or restoration of such integrity must be, for it is not just a damaged body that one restores to wholeness and health, but the very universe itself. … The full extent of such knowledge is now revealed in all its grandeur: the healer must understand and be prepared to manipulate nothing less than the full structure of the cosmos. (Lincoln, 1986: 100, 117-118)

Some of the parallels with Diné culture should be all too apparent. Pieces of knowledge like this represent a spark of hope for traditional indigenous peoples who live in continuing fear of genocide and the total loss of their culture. They represent the possibility of recovery of indigenous roots for people living in the eurocentric paradigm.

 

Who are you?

To traditional people western researchers commonly look very lost, “they don’t know who they are.” When indigenous peoples ask the question, “Who are you?”, then they are seeking to understanding a person’s place in the weave of blood relationships, ancestry, traditions, place, etc. The significance of this question is difficult to overestimate. If there is to be a relationship of equality between inquirers and indigenous peoples, then it needs be answered in depth and to the satisfaction of the traditionalists. The challenge is that a satisfactory answer has indigenous consciousness as a prerequisite. Seeking the answer leads back to indigenous mind. One of the requirements during this process is a deep look at the history of imperialism.

If indigenous healing occurs in the context of a complex cultural weave, then we need to know where we stand in our own weave and in relation to the other weave we are approaching – provided we want to do so with respect. Answering the question “who are you?” in all its depth opens the possibility to step out of colonial relationships. Until such time, colonialism is the frame for the knowledge given and the knowledge received; this means that the western sciences commonly define for indigenous peoples what is reality and which aspects of their “purported reality” are valid and significant. Of course, it is by now well known that many inquirers have taken answers seriously which were, in fact, given to distract and protect knowledge from the intrusive eye of western science (joking, teasing, and entertaining stories are part of this). Colonialism, of course, is a context of utter inequality, where internalized colonialism plays as much a significant part as the contemporary cultural threats: Indigenous knowledge (if it is shared) is commonly given based on the assumption of cultural and personal inferiority, a consequence of the relentless onslaught of the dominant paradigm. Because of all this the quality [P23] of eurocentric knowledge is seriously questioned (not to speak of the ethics and politics of all this).

When indigenous peoples meet they commonly introduce themselves by stating their kinship affiliations (in the broadest sense) in one form or another. The Australian aboriginal Warlpiri social arrangement may illustrate this:

This kinship system relates the people to each other, but its central importance for the Warlpiri world view is that is also relates the people to the Jukurrpa (the Dreaming, J. W. K.) and the land. That is, for Warlpiri people the relationship between each person and the world is mediated by their kinship subsection. Each jukurrpa, and each place, belongs to one (or possibly two) of four pairs, Jupurrurla-Jakamarra, Jungarryi-Japaljarri, Jangala-Jampijinpa, Japangardi-Japanangka, and the female counterparts. These pairs also mark the relationship of father and son. That is, through their particular subsection, each person is related to other people, to their jukurrpa ancestors, to the places they own and are responsible for, to the narratives and songe concerning the places and ancestors, and to the gestures and designs that belong to the places. (Napaljarri & Cataldi, 1994: xix)

Understanding indigenous healing sufficiently can only occur in this context. In order to enter this context, the inquirers need to know who they are, which then puts them in relation to the indigenous culture they are visiting; the context of the visit now is not colonialism, but a shared way of knowing. The following, more personal statement gives a tiny slice of my own process of addressing the question “who are you?”

 

Part II: Struggling to recover indigenous roots

Although the format of this part II reflects indigenous thinking to the extent that it emphasizes a process orientation and has a certain circularity, it nevertheless presents a compromise: Euro-american scholarly discourse shapes the way thinking and writing are framed. The hearing of the indigenous voice depends on finding a way to speak through the dominant discourse – and in spite of it. Thus it is most important to remember that this paper is not written in an indigenous language.

The best approach to reading the following paragraphs may be that of an initiation: I am asking the reader to engage with patterns of thought which are contrary to habit. The intention is, literally, to boggle the mind. This may lead to confusion and dark night experiences along the way. However, it is hoped that this initiatory journey ends in a place where all the threads may come together in a new weave, maybe a new approach to native healing ways.

[P24] Writing about indigenous healing practices is always situated in a specific socio-cultural, ecological, historical, gendered and autobiographical context. This is asserted in the face of those euro-american schools of thought which give us ways to think otherwise; from an indigenous perspective these need to be understood as routes of denial. I am voicing what is commonly considered “OTHER” – outside the shrinkwrapping strictures of the dominant euro-american conversations and discourses. OTHER is defined by the rationalistic discourse. OTHER is what the splitting from our indigenous origins is continuing to colonize and control in a rationalistic paradigm of dissociation: the beingknowing of the body; creative, artistic, crafting beingknowing; emotional beingknowing; spirit and spiritual beingknowing; nature, wilderness, environmental, ecological beingknowing; the beingknowing of all that which is commonly labelled feminine or female or woman; cyclical beingknowing; narrative, storied, integral beingknowing; the beingknowing of community. OTHER has always been systemic and understood itself as systemic in nature. Speaking, writing from OTHER (and as OTHER) I voice my beingknowing not in any of these categories, but I am trying to weave myself being woven into a fabric which is refusing such seductive categories as epistemology or ontology.

In the indigenous voice it is illegitimate to split knowing from being – thus ‘beingknowing’. I OTHER am playing with the language in order to create a fluid fuzziness which is illuminating about transforming learning transforming processes of indigenous minds. By twisting conventions of grammar and vocabulary I allow myself to say things more precisely and genuinely than I could otherwise (hoping that the reader will gradually relax into the flow of consciousness of indigenous beingknowing). I am running words together, weaving them into a process which should not be thought asunder.

Odin’s sacrifice on the tree (as described in the Elder Edda) was a fast for words and deeds, beingknowing, for chants which would put him at the center of beingknowing, becoming the tree of life himself, drinking from the Source (Urd, Wyrd), knowing the fateful runes of his life, thus he became empowered. “I know that I hung in the windtorn tree // Nine whole nights, spear-pierced, // Consecrated to Odin, myself to my Self above me in the tree, // Whose root no one knows whence it sprang. // None brought me bread, none served me drink; // I searched the depths, spied runes of wisdom; // Raised them with song, and fell once more thence” (Tichtenell, 1985: 126). It is not easy to quote these powerful stanzas, since they so clearly represent the Nordic worldview after the invasions of the indo-europeans. Odin is the grand patriarch who sees himself as the center who contains everything. But the Eddic poetry can be used to discover older layers hidden in them. It has been said that “most egalitarian societies are to be found among [P25] hunting/gathering tribes, which are characterized by economic interdependency. … Most evidence for female equality in societies derives from matrilineal, matrilocal societies” (Lerner, 1986, 29 & 30). Understanding the indigenous mind and its relationship to transformative learning and healing in a context of equality thus requires that we look through what Odin is trying to make us believe. The tree of life was female before the Kurgan invasions (Gimbutas, 1991). But even in the later Eddic texts we find the female spirits, the norns, by the names Origin, Becoming and Debt spinning fates with their waters under the tree. These waters nourish the tree of life, which is also the human being. Its guardians are feminine spirits, dísir. Indigenous peoples know how words create worlds, words are a weave. They often have clear guidelines on when to say and when not to say certain things (Witherspoon, 1977, 1987). They are unhappy with the language pollution the dominant cultures foist upon them; for them the indo-european languages create careless worlds which are out of balance.

Healing is transforming, and the learning of transforming healing is an aspect of transforming learning transforming. If I were to write about healing solely within the common discourse of modernity, then I would leave parts of my indigenous mind behind in order to join the dominant discourse (an easy and safe move, given my academic training). In writing about healing from an indigenous perspective I am struggling to be true to a process of consciousness, a process of community and a process of beingknowing which is a potential for all humans. It is not just that the surviving indigenous peoples have access to this process, but all euro-americans have potential access to this. While I am struggling to keep communicative doorways to the dominant discourse open, my primary concern is voicing my indigenous mind. As I am standing in a communal circle of people who are fighting to live, know, and speak the indigenous minds of their endangered traditions, the only honorable thing I can do is living, knowing, and speaking my ancestral indigenous mind – a mindprocess rejected, “for good”, a very long time ago. “Indigenous Teuton” seems a surefire provocative term, since it posits the possibility of indigenous beingknowing for a contemporary German living in the United States, and since it evokes a mythological realm which is part of the history of genocide and continues to be used for anti-indigenous ends. In choosing between dissociating from what is a living history and my ancestral roots or living in and acknowledging an indigenous mind which weaves me into the spirits of my ancestral lands, the spirits of the place where I am living now (California), the large cycles of the earth, my current community and family – in choosing between these two alternatives I am left with no real choice. In seeing the alternatives the choice is made. In seeing the alternative my fate becomes transparent and the only honor I have is to be true to that fate.

[P26] For every German the gateway to the indigenous mindprocess is a concentration camp. Hitler’s barbaric abuses of Teutonic mythology have made this entry to the old indigenous mind of Northern Europe unavoidable. Without taking this painful walk understanding my fate is relegated to shadow material and my indigenous mind would contain wishful fantasy and perpetrate an unhealthy split. Fate was a central coordinate for the Nordic peoples (Bonnefoy, 1993b). They dedicated their children to the dísir, the female guardian spirits connected with the land, the powers of fate which determined their individual máttr ok megin, their personal capacity and possibility of success. Thus they dedicated to the source and the Yggdrasils – springs and trees being so important for them. Rites of passage later on allowed for a conscious dedication and commitment to this destiny. It was the work of the mature adult. It is my work as I speak my indigenous mind. Walking through the gateway of the German holocaust is one of my rites of passage. I was born German, I grew up in Germany shortly after the Second World War and I left – or fled – the Federal Republic of Germany to live in the United States of America. Contained in this is, no doubt, my destiny, my máttr ok megin. My torment has been the realization that I personally could only recover by delving into my feelings of shame and by walking through Auschwitz past Hitler, past Neonazis, past Wotan, past Heidegger, past Jung, past Christianization to whatever lies beyond. My feminine dísir has helped me many times in my transforming learning transforming. Máttr ok megin is not an abstract category, it is my story weaving amidst the stories from the past into the German story of the present into the genocide on this land into the stories of different indigenous minds. For the old Nordic peoples sacredness was experienced in the certainty of their destined endowment; this notion has since been thoroughly perverted by the Nazis. Part of my fateful challenge has been to build an internal (if not external) bridge from Northern Germany to the United States, especially California, and to its native cultures. Part of my fate and challenge has been to be in my indigenous mind when with people who are commonly called ‘tribal.’

‘Honor’ is a word that is almost inextricably tied to the masculine. The German Ehre is etymologically connected to grace and gift (Mitzka, 1960). The old Norse folks called their feeling of connectedness to the sacred and the certainty of their endowment honor. They took pride in justifying their destiny, made it known, and wished to be recognized by it. This meant that they had to know and accept themselves with their destiny and that they would work to manifest the nature of what they understood their fate to be. (Self-acceptance, when not balanced, may result in femininized or masculinized narcissistic inflations, with the Vikings representing a masculinized heroic inflation.) Thus they would commune with the sacred. The rite of passage [P27] during adolescence would strengthen the commitment to their fateful endowments (German Schicksal, a late Christian word; the old words are wurd, wyrd, weird and urdr). The fates of the tribe would be the weave of the individual fates. One would honor one’s tribe by honoring one’s individual destiny. I cannot but write as a German. As such I am also writing for Germany. In order to reestablish my personal honor I need to recover my feeling of sacred connectedness and destiny. To live on this land honorably means beingknowing my indigenous mind. Honor and integrity means struggling not to create OTHER inside and outside.

Germany and the Nordic heritage lost its honor during the Third Reich. The understanding of fate and destiny was perverted. The honor of Germany can only be reestablished through a profound connection with the sacred weave of its ecology. This is not a grandiose act; it is a humbling confrontation with the ashes of burnt people. I have an obligation to honor my personal destiny in order to reestablish my personal connection with the sacred. In so doing I am also confronted with a tribal obligation, “the honor of Germany.” This is as disgusting a thought as it is inevitable. Honor has been masculinized – men are concerned with their honor. This is alien for most women who view life fundamentally from a relational perspective. The honor of old may have been just like that: I honor the land because I understand my relationship to her; I honor my community because I see how I am part of its weave and story; I honor my friends because I affirm their destiny; I honor my destiny, and thus I affirm my relationship with the sacred. Maybe honor was never this; but maybe it was at one time affirmative, relational and connected to love and self-love. Willy Brandt was in his woman when he fell to his knees in Warsaw; he honored relationship. The female side of honor would mean that it is honorable to cherish the feminine and nature. My honor is my connectedness. I have no honor without wholeness. Honor is in walking in Dachau and Neuengamme. Dishonor is walking around these places of pain, grief and shame. The ancient ones can only speak again once we have listened to them there. Honor is in facing the torture of the Jewish, gay and gypsy spirit. Honor is in transforming learning transforming in the indigenous mind.

Over the painful process of the recovery of my indigenous roots circles the raven; it goes by the name of Munin, memory. In one of the Eddic poems Odin, oftentimes pictured with two ravens on his shoulders, remarks how he fears more for Munin than for Hugin, the raven of intentionality and consciousness. Maybe this reflects an old, prescient knowing about the diffulties indigenous minds would have in the future, our contemporary struggle. But then, recovery of indigenous roots and the validation of this knowledge works in curious ways: I recently received an article by Kenin-Lopsan (1995) from the Republic of Tuva for a journal [P28] issue I am editing. In it he wrote about kuskun, the raven: “The raven was the shaman’s faithful and favorite informant. The raven was always attributed with a magical quality. Wooden figures were often carved of the black raven. As a rule, shamans wore two figures of ravens on their shoulders, due to the bird’s vigilance, keenness, and wisdom” (p. 2). (An initial survey of the literature on Siberian shamanism has yielded many surprising, and oftentimes very specific parallels with the Nordic literature, an article waiting to be written.)

My personal need for transforming learning transforming is constellated by the necessity for further rites of passage and ceremonies of healing my indigenous mind; the destructions of the San Francisco Bay Area ecosystem and the near extinction of its first peoples; my grieving remembering of the Nordic fabric before herding patriarchs, Vikings, Christianity, witchhunts and Nazi perversions; my confrontations with the genocidal histories of this and other continents.

Indigenous consciousness is specifically grounded in a story of pastpresentfuture which aligns the people in the seasonal and larger cycles while grounded in a particular environment and spiritual life. For me it is grounded in the source of the shamanic tree Yggdrasil. If this is indeed a story woven in balance, then it affords the possibility of comprehending not just the deep story of the particular community, but consciousness of other communities, Mother Earth consciousness and questions of origin and indigenous science way beyond what the euro-american dissociative narrative would acknowledge. There are many examples of this. Among the popularized ones are the Hopi prophecies (Kaiser 1991) and the Kogi prophecies (Ereira, 1992), which represent an uncanny knowledge of the dymanics of European history.

‘To heal’ is etymologically connected, as mentioned earlier, with the German heilen and the indo-european root *kailo-, referring to a state and process of wholeness. But to heal is also connected to holy (as is heilen to heilig), which gives an ancient root to the reemergent wholistic and transpersonal perspective on healing (needless to say, ‘whole’ is also related to *kailo-). In order to stay healthy (whole, holy) we need to learn how to transform ourselves continuously so that we renew our place in the weave (Mitzka, 1960; Shipley, 1984).

‘To learn’ is connected with the German lernen, and, further back, with the Sanskrit root leis, meaning track, footprint or furrow (Shipley, 1984). ‘Track’ and ‘footprint’ would seem to be the older meaning given that ‘furrow’ would require the existence of agriculture and domesticated farm animals (thus the root leis could thus be seen to hold both, the older connections with foraging gatherer and hunting communities as well as the new agricultural societies). Learning is tracking – the wild animal, the stars, the cycles of the seasons, etc. In order to track we have to [P29] know our natural environment. If we can’t track natural events, then we don’t learn. If we can’t track, then we don’t stay whole and fail to honor what is holy – we loose our health.

‘Transforming’ is connected to the Sanskrit root merbh, to shine, appear or take shape (which becomes the Latin forma and the Greek morfh, ‘morph’); the water emerges from the source and takes shape as it moves from stream to creek to river. Morfh implies not just any form, but a form which is free from the accidental and incomplete; it alludes to beauty and grace, to harmony and balance. By changing form we presumably change toward something which reflects a process of greater balance (although the direction of transformation is never assured).

The Kogi Indians of Colombia have an understanding of their craft of the loom which pertains. As the Kogi Indian works on his loom, he works the loom of life; spinning is thinking and thoughts are threads, and by weaving he interlaces individual thoughts with the social web. When the heart thinks, it weaves. Thoughts make a blanket. The fabric of life is a garment, a web of knowledge made of thoughts. It is life’s wisdom that envelops us like a cloth. The earth is a loom on which the sun weaves the fabric of life. The loom is the person, with different parts of it corresponding to human anatomy. The loom is also the ecology in which the Kogi live as well as the different ceremonial centers as well as different spirits. A garment woven on such a loom is more than the garment which meets the euro-american eye (Reichel-Dolmatoff, 1978). In the northern European countries, it is the fabric which the norns weave from Urd under the tree of life, which contains the destiny of people. Knowing the weaving is knowing the thought of spirit. The craft (die Kraft, power) of weaving is a spiritual practice which requires a particular moral stance (Kremer & White, 1989). Odin fasts for nine days and becomes the tree of life; through this act he looks deeply into the mystery of Source where his roots lead. If I fast and honor the tree which I am, then I see the pattern into which the women at the Source are weaving me (Bauschatz, 1982). In indigenous consciousness these correspondences are neither just metaphorical nor idle word play: They reflect the awareness of us weaving being woven on earth as our individually and communally destined lives.

If we are to ask what is being healed or transformed, then the answer is: It is the transforming of a smaller or larger part of the weaving; what is transforming is relationship. The weave is always changing. We are always changing. Where we are in the weave is always changing. Transforming learning transforming is how we live and experience ourselves in the changing weave as part of the weave being woven. It is knowing where we stand so that we can be properly woven – which is the illusion of weaving. It means tracking the weaving of the system and knowing when transforming is needed. I have the option of dropping out of the [P30] ongoing process of staying healthy (or transforming learning), in which case I will become increasingly out of balance with the possible consequences of ill health, misguided ratiocinations, dysfunctional emotional patterns, denial of the spirit of the weave and various other dissociative pathologies. If I remain true to the capacities for tracking then my form of balance will continuously transform itself into new forms of weaving being woven in the fabric.

As an indigenous Teuton I can understand the healing ceremonies of indigenous peoples from the perspective of the tree of life Yggdrasil which is so central not only in the nordic traditions, but also in many Asian shamanic traditions (Davidson, 1993; Bonnefoy 1993a, b). Knowing the trunk, the roots, the branches and the leaves of this tree teaches me about balance. The descriptions are precise in that they reflect a way of balance which the indigenous peoples of northern Europe had come to. Yggdrasil teaches about relations and healing. Using my indigenous science I can approach the indigenous science which, say, the Native Americans of this continent have developed in their healing practices. What I learn now is different from what I learn when I do western science. (It also gives me a way to review and integrate the results of the western sciences in a new way.) What I try to heal now is not my euro-american self, but my indigenous self.

This perspective is the result of 25 years of personal and academic work (Kremer, 1994b)[8][8]. One way of labeling this would be to call it a re-socialization. The shift in consciousness and paradigm which I have alluded to in this paper consists not in the use of various tribal or shamanic techniques, but in the labor to make the world appear differently before my eyes – a process far from closure.

 

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[1][1] I have explored some of the political issues of this stance in Kremer (1994b).

[2][2] This and the following section have been taken primarily from Kremer (1995).

[3][3] I have discussed the historical changes in the relationship between the western paradigm and indigenous consciousness in Kremer (1995) based on McGrane (1989).

[4][4] I am amending Barfield’s descriptions by deleting eurocentered prejudices in my summaries of his work.

[5][5] Halifax, Lomax and Arensburg came to similar conclusions about thirty years ago at Columbia University, NY; Halifax (1994: n.p.).

[6][6] A more extensive discussion of differences between the Diné and euro-centric worldview can be found in Kremer (1995).

[7][7] I would like to acknowledge the helpful discussions with Hanson Ashley, David Begay, Avery Denny, Jim Faris, Nancy Marybody and others on these issues. I have tried to represent the Diné perspective as accurately as I can, any misrepresentations should be attributed to me.

[8][8] Intense grief work is part and parcel of undergoing such a process; see Kremer (1995) for a discussion.

Power and Place Equal Personality (PDF)

Power and Place Equal Personality

Vine Deloria, Jr.
American Indian Studies
University of Arizona, Tucson

Western science resolves itself into certain “laws” which describe the natural world . These laws are makeshift descriptions of the manner in which physical reality appears to operate, but they are often regarded by Western scientists as inviolable. Phenomena that fall outside the prescribed patterns of behavior are said to be “anomalies,” which can be disregarded when explaining how the physical universe functions. Eventually, of course, the Western scientist must deal with the so-called anomalies. These phenomena form an increasingly large body of knowledge and facts which cannot be explained using the acceptable paradigm into which the rest of scientific knowledge is deposited.

American Indian knowledge of the world does not suffer this structural handicap While tribal peoples did not have a detailed conception of the whole planet in the sense that Western scientists presently do, they did have a very accurate knowledge of the lands they inhabited and the plants, animals, and other life forms that shared their environment. It is also becoming increasingly clear that they had a fairly comprehensive knowledge of the heavens, with their own set of constellations and stories.

Emphasis on the Particular
The boundaries of American Indian knowledge were those of respect, not of orthodoxy. For instance, certain stories about the stars could not be told when the constellations in question were overhead. Some other kinds of stories involving animals, plants, and spirits could only be told at a particular time of year or in a specific place. There were no anomalies because Indian retained the ability to wonder at the behavior of nature, and they remembered even the most abstruse things with the hope that one day their relationship to existing knowledge would become clear.

The key to understanding Indian knowledge of the world is to remember that the emphasis was on the particular, not on general laws and explanations of how things worked. Consequently, when we hear the elders tell about things, we must remember that they are basically reporting on their experiences or on the experiences of their elders. Indians as a rule do not try to bring existing bits of knowledge into categories and rubrics which can be used to do further investigation and experimentation with nature. The Indian system requires a prodigious memory and a willingness to remain humble in spite of one’s great knowledge.

Keeping the particular in mind as the ultimate reference point of Indian knowledge, we can pass into a discussion of some of the principles of the Indian forms of knowledge. Here power an place are dominant concepts—power being the living energy that inhabits and/or composes the universe, and place being the relationship of things to each other. It is much easier, in discussing Indian principles, to put these basic ideas into a simple equation: Power and place produce personality. This equation simply means that the universe is alive, but it also contains within it the very important suggestion that the universe is personal and, therefore, must be approached in a personal manner. And this insight holds true because Indians are interested in the particular, which of necessity must be personal and incapable of expansion and projection to hold true universally.

The personal nature of the universe demands that each and every entity in it seek and sustain personal relationships. Here, the Indian theory of relativity is much more comprehensive than the corresponding theory articulated by Einstein and his fellow scientists. The broader Indian idea of relationship, in a universe very personal and particular, suggests that all relationships have a moral content. For that reason, Indian knowledge of the universe was never separated from other sacred knowledge about ultimate spiritual realities.

The spiritual aspect of knowledge about the world taught the people that relationships must not be left incomplete. There are many stories about how the world came to be, and the common themes running through them are the completion of relationships and the determination of how this world should function. Such tales seem far removed from the considerations fo science, particularly as Indian students are taught science in today’s universities. However, when the tribal concepts are translated into scientific language, they make a good deal of sense. Completing the relationship focuses the individual’s attention on the results of his or her actions. Thus, the Indian people were concerned about the products of what they did, and they sought to anticipate and consider all possible effects of their actions.

And on Appropriateness
The corresponding question faced by American Indians when contemplating action is whether or not the proposed action is appropriate. Appropriate includes the moral dimension of respect for the part of nature that will be used or affected in our action. Thus, killing an animal or catching a fish involved paying respect to the species and the individual animal or fish which such action had disturbed. Harvesting plants also involved paying respect to the plants. These actions were necessary because of the recognition that the universe was built upon consecutive and cooperative relationships that had to be maintained.

We can view this different perspective in yet another way that will speak more directly to Indian students studying Western science. Very early, at least beginning with Greek speculation on the nature of the world, the Western peoples seem to have accepted a strange binary system of reasoning in which things are compared primarily according to their size.

American Indians seem to have considered this kind of thinking at one time because there ar tribal stories which compare humans to various animals. The stories always emphasized that while humans cannot see as well as the hawk, they can see; they are not as strong as the bear, but they are strong; not as fast as the deer, but they can run; and so forth. However, when these comparisons are carefully analyzed, one finds that both physical and psychological characteristics are described.

When using plants as both medicines and foods, Indians were very careful to use the plant appropriately. By maintaining the integrity of the plant within the relationship, Indians discovered many important facts about the natural world which non-Indians only came upon later. The Senecas, for example, knew that corn, squash, and beans were the three Sisters of the Earth, and because they had a place in the world and were compatible spirits, the Indians always planted them together. Only recently have non-Indians, after decades of laboratory research, discovered that the three plants make a natural nitrogen cycle that keeps land fertile and productive.

Plants, because they have their own life cycle, taught Indians about time. George Will and George Hyde, in their book Corn Among the Indians of the Upper Missouri point out that it was the practice of the agricultural tribes to plant their corn, hoe it a few times, and then depart for the western mountains on their summer buffalo hunt. When a certain plant in the west began to change its color, the hunters knew it was time to return home to harvest their corn. This knowledge about corn and the manner in which its growth cycle correlated with that of plants of the mountains some 500 miles away was very sophisticated and involved the idea of time as something more complex than mere chronology.

Star Knowledge
Much Indian knowledge involved the technique of reproducing the cosmos in miniature and invoking spiritual change which would be followed by physical change. Hardly a tribe exists which did not construct its dwellings after some particular model fo the universe. The principle involved was that whatever is above must be reflected below. This principle enabled the people to correlate their actions with the larger movements of the universe.

Star knowledge was among the most secretive and sophisticated of all the information that Indians possessed. Today, archeoastronomers are finding all kinds of correlations between Indian practices and modern astronomical knowledge. Very complex star maps painted on buckskin hides or chiseled on canyon walls give evidence that Indians were astute observers of the heavens. A good deal of Indian star knowledge continues to exist, but religious prohibitions and restrictions continue to limit the propagation of this information.

The Principle of Correlation
Star knowledge gives us an additional principle of Indian information gathering That principle is correspondence, or correlation. Being interested in the psychological behavior of things i the world and attributing personality to all things, Indians began to observe and remember how and when things happened together. The result was that they made connections between things that had no sequential relationships. There was, consequently, no firm belief in cause and effect, which plays such an important role in Western science and thinking. But Indians were well aware that when a certain sequence of things began, certain other elements or events would als occur.

A kind of predictability was present in Indian knowledge of the natural world. Many ceremonies that are used to find things, heal, or predict the future rely upon this kind of correlation between and among entities in the world. The so-called medicine powers and medicine bundles represented this kind of correlative understanding of how different things were related to each other. Correlation is responsible, for example, for designating the bear as a medicine animal, owls as forecasting death or illness, and snakes as anticipating thunderstorms.

This kind of knowledge is both tribal- and environmental-specific. In diagnosing illness, for example, medicine men might search for the cause of sickness by questioning their patients on a variety of apparently unrelated experiences. They would be searching for that linkages which experience had taught them existed in these situations. Here again, there was considerable emphasis on the heavens. One need only examine the admonitions of different tribes with respect to shooting stars, different configurations of the moon, eclipses, and unusual cloud formations to understand how correlational knowledge provided unique ways of adjusting to the natural world.

A More Realistic Knowledge
The acknowledgment that power and place produce personality means not only that the natural world is personal but that its perceived relationships are always ethical. Fr that reason, Indian accumulation of information is directly opposed to the Western scientific method of investigation, because it is primarily observation. Indians look for messages in nature, but they do not force nature to perform functions which it does not naturally do.

The Indian method of observation produces a more realistic knowledge in the sense that, given the anticipated customary course of events, the Indian knowledge can predict what will probably occur. Western science seeks to harness nature to perform certain tasks. But there are limited resources in the natural world, and artificial and wasteful use depletes the resources more rapidly than would otherwise occur naturally.

Indian students can expect to have a certain amount of difficulty in adjusting to the scientific way of doing things. They will most certainly miss the Indian concern with ethical questions and the sense of being personally involved in the functioning of the natural world. But they can overcome this feeling and bring to science a great variety of insights about the world derived from their own tribal backgrounds and traditions.

By adopting the old Indian concern what the products of actions, students can get a much better perspective on what they are doing and how best to accomplish their goals. By maintaining a continuing respect for the beliefs and practices of their tribes, students can begin to see th world through the eyes of their ancestors and translate the best knowledge o the world into acceptable modern scientific terminology.

Most important, however, are the contributions being made by American Indian scientists. With their expertise, we can better frame our own ethical and religious concerns and make more constructive choices in the use of existing Indian physical and human resources. It is this linkage between science and the community that we must nurture and encourage.

American Indian Metaphysics (PDF)

American Indian Metaphysics
Vine Deloria, Jr.
American Indian Studies
University of Arizona, Tucson

For many centuries, whites scorned the knowledge of American Indians, regarding whatever the people said as gross savage superstition and insisting that their own view of the world, a complex mixture of folklore, religious doctrine, and Greek natural science, was the highest intellectual achievement of our species. This posture of arrogance produced some classic chapters in the history of the western hemisphere: Ponce de Leon wandering around the southeastern United States vainly searching for the Fountain of Youth, Swedish immigrants on the Delaware River importing food for thirty years because they could not grow anything in this country, and the Donner party resorting to cannibalism because of their fear of the local Indians.

In recent years, there has been an awakening to the fact that Indian tribes possessed considerable knowledge about the natural world. Unfortunately, much of this appreciation has come too late for anyone, white or Indian, to recapture some of the most important information on lands, plants, and animals of the continent. In a parallel but unrelated development, Indian religious traditions are now of major interest to whites whose own religious traditions have either vanished or been swamped in reactionary fundamentalism Fluctuating between a recognition of practical knowledge about the world possessed by Indians and outright admiration for their sense of the religious is unsettling and nonproductive; it does not attribute to Indians any consistency, nor does it suggest that their views of the natural world and religious reality had any more correspondence and compatibility than do western religion snd its science. Instead of talking of an Indian “science” or even a Indian “religion,” we should focus our attention on the metaphysics possessed by most American Indian tribes and derive from this central perspective the information and beliefs which naturally flowed from it.

Metaphysics has had a difficult time regaining its intellectual respectability in western circles. Its conclusions were greatly abused by generations of Europeans who committed what Alfred North Whitehead called the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness,” which is to say that, after they reached the conclusions to which their premises had led them, they came to believe they had accurately described ultimate reality. Metaphysics need not bear the burden of its past, however, if we understand it as simply that set of first principles which we must possess in order to make sense of the world in which we live. In this sense, the Indian knowledge of the natural world, of the human world, and of whatever realities exist beyond our senses has a consistency which far surpasses anything devised by western civilization.

The best description of the Indian metaphysics was the realization that the world, and all its possible experiences, constituted a social reality, a fabric of life in which everything had the possibility of intimate knowing relationships because, ultimately, everything was related. This world was a unified world, a far cry from the disjointed and sterile world painted by western science. Even though we can translate the realities of that world into concepts familiar to us from the western scientific context, such as space, time, and energy, the Indian world can be said to consist of two basic experiential dimensions which, taken together, provided a sufficient means of making sense of the world. These tow concepts were place and power, perhaps better defined as spiritual power of life force. Familiarity with the personality of objects and entities of the natural world enabled Indians to discern immediately where each living being had its proper place and what kinds of experiences that place allowed, encouraged, and suggested.

Western scientists frequently suggest that the Indian way of looking at the world lacked precision because it was not capable of nor interested in mathematical descriptions of nature. But, as Carl Jung pointed out with respect to the so-called primitive mind, once a person knew the places of things, a mere glance was sufficient to replace counting and, in most instances, was more accurate. The Indian mind was considerably more interested in learning the psychological characteristics of things than in describing their morphological structure. Hence, in some instances when defining common personality traits which men and animals shared,the Indian seemed to be talking nonsense. Today, as western science edges ever closer to acknowledging the intangible, spiritual quality of matter and the intelligence of animals, the Indian view appears increasingly more sophisticated.

Indian students today are confronted with a monolith of western science when they leave the reservation to attend college. In most introductory courses, their culture and traditions are derided as mere remnants of a superstitious, stone-age mentality which could not understand or distinguish between the simplest of propositions. Additionally, they are taught that science is an objective and precise task performed by specialists who carefully weigh the propositions which come before them. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Western science traditionally represents the consensus of the established scientists who almost always reject new ideas out of hand. Much of the progress made by western science has been made by amateurs and martyrs who have been derided and cursed in their lifetime, only to be canonized by a new generation which has learned to accept the smallest of changes with more grace than their fathers and teachers.

Indian students are further misled by outrageous claims made by science which suggest that the various fields of inquiry, if taken together, represent the sum total of humand knowledge. In fact, almost all of western science is reductionist in nature and seeks to force natural experience and knowledge into predetermined categories which ultimately fail to describe or explain anything. The whole process of science is that of finding common denominators which can describe large amounts of data in the most general terms, rejecting anything which refuses easy classification as “anomalous,” existing outside the generally accepted labels and, therefore, not to be given standing or serious attention. This way of gathering information about the world–and ourselves–is, of course, absurd.

One of the most painful experiences for American Indian students is to come into conflict with the teachings of science which purport to explain phenomena already explained by tribal knowledge and tradition. The assumption of the western educational system is that information dispensed by colleges is always correct, and the beliefs or teachings of the tribe are always wrong. Rarely is this the case. The teachings of the tribe are almost always more complete, but they are oriented toward a far greater understanding of reality than is scientific knowledge. And precise tribal knowledge almost always has a better predictability factor than does modern science, which generally operates in sophisticated tautologies that seek only to confirm preexisting identities.

We live in and industrial, technological world in which a knowledge of science is often the key to employment and many times is essential in understanding how the larger society views and uses the natural world–including, unfortunately, people and animals. Western science has no moral basis and is entirely incapable of resolving human problems except by the device of making humans act more and more like machines. Therefore, Indian students, as they study science and engineering, should take time and make the effort to regain a firm knowledge of traditional tribal lore. Even if many of the stories seem impossible under existing scientific explanation of phenomena, Indian students should not easily discard what their tribes have traditionally believed. There is most assuredly a profound knowledge present in many things which the tribes have preserved.

Richard Ford’s article on “Science in Native America” is a good representative piece recognizing the knowledge of Indians. It fairly surveys the various aspects of knowledge which Indians had and gives reasonable explanations of some of the ways in which our ancestors understood natural phenomena. Considering the present state of things, it is important for scholars such as Ford to begin to help us break the ice of ignorance and neglect which has been thrust upon our traditions for nearly half a millennium. Without the voices of respected white scholars, there is little chance that we can get sufficient attention from the scientific establishment in order to plead our own case. But we must remember that every article which attempts to discuss this problem should be understood as a call for each of us to enter into the exchange of knowledge. In this sense, Ford calls us, as Native Americans, to become more truly scientific–to offer our knowledge to the larger benefit of our species.

Fire & Ice: Natives, Alcohol and Spirituality, a Northern Health Paradigm (PDF)

Fire & Ice: Natives, Alcohol and Spirituality, a Northern Health Paradigm

Pamela Colorado, Ph.D.
Faculty of Social Welfare
University of Calgary
4401 University Drive
Lethbridge, Alberta
CANADA T1K 5A8

Science
The Language Between the Cultures
Native and non-native interaction is powerfully and intricately interwoven with western science. Native alcoholism and the way it has been addressed provides insight to this complex phenomena and illuminates the possibility of global sobriety. From initial contact to contemporary times, the scientific view of the Indian has evolved through stages. Each stage has dramatically impacted the lives of both peoples.
Stage One, Scientific Racism
Scientific inquiry and literature on American Indians was born in the scientific racism of the nineteenth century. This doctrine replaced the word, “nation” with the word, “race” and assumed that moral qualities of people were positively correlated with physical characteristics; further, that all humanity could be divided into superior and inferior stocks (Berkhofer, 1978).
Typical of his time, Leslie Scott (1891) wrote an article entitled, “Indian” Diseases as Aids to Pacific Northwest Settlement” in which he States:

…Wherever went the white man’s appetites and wares went also his afflications which multiplied manifold in the savage habitat. Indians in the white man’s clothing, in his houses, in his liquor drinking, were like the cultures of malignant germs which the scientist multiplies in his laboratory…. throughout the entire West the Indians were victims, but perhaps nowhere else so badly as in the Pacific Northwest; and nowhere else were the results so good for the whites….

Thus, scientific arguments provided a rationale and a justification for the genocide and ruthless appropriation of Indian lands. Political rhetoric of the early 1800’s which was filled with optimism for the human race and the improvability of humankind gave way in 1850 to a strident “pessimism for inferior races and a belief in ineradicable racial weakness” (Horsman, 1975). In a popular work of the mid 1800’s phrenologist Combe argued that comparison of the heads of American Indians and Blacks demonstrated that Indian intellect was weaker but pride stronger therefore Blacks…

…were able to appreciate the superior moral and intellectual powers of the European race, and are content in some measure to live under their guidance.
The Indian on the contrary has refused to profit, to any great extent by the arts of literature of the Europeans and has always preferred death to servitude.

Bailey, who wrote as late as 1922, codified the scientific racist paradigm when he stated:

“From the statistics which relate to the two so-called primitive races, the African and the American Indian, it appears that the primitive could not under any present circumstances attain the average intelligence of cultured races. This appears to be so, not because there is any detailed information as to the potentiality of the primitive mind but because mental deficiency is so profuse that their average intelligence must be inferior to that of average European intelligence.”

Because Native alcoholism was understood to be a function of inferior biological stock, the treatment was death or near death. This view, turned on Native medicine and healers was examplified in a letter written in 1892 by Mrs. Willard, Christian Missionary who wrote:

It is here….I would speak of the Kling-get (Tlingit) fiend, the medicine man, and beg of those in authority to cause his extermination. His incantations should be held a crime and his uncut hair, his touch of power, should be shaved clean to his head; the whipping post and work under guard on public improvements would be better than a prison….(Dauenhauer, 1980)

These scientific “proofs” continued to assert innate Indian inferiority and establish complete confidence in ultimate Indian disappearance. In fact, scientific racism marched hand in hand with expansionists who at the close of the 19th century had exterminated more than twenty-five million Indian people!

Survivors of this “paradigm” became subject to the emerging cultural anthropological paradigm – at its worse a covert form of scientific racism and at its best, a harbinger of the golden age in Indian policy.

Cultural Anthropology, the Second View
In the birth of ethnography and cultural anthropology (beginning in the last part of the 19th century) the raciology and the evolutionism of scientific racism was repudiated. Boasian scholars such as Swanton, and later, Kroeber, espoused the idea of culture to explain the diversity of lifestyles of humankind. The cultural anthropological school separated biological heredity from the social transmission of culture, challenging previous work in the field.

Using empirical methodology, Boasian scholars stressed the import of replacing evolutionary history of Natives with actual history. They were convinced that tribal change, including alcoholism, happened more as a result of diffusion among tribes from a unilinear sequence of modifications in cultural perceptions and practices presumed by evolutionists.

This shift in thought produced dramatically different research. Radin (1972) wrote:

“the relationship of conquered to conqueror is important to both. Up to the present, all attempts that have been made to understand them, or to come to any reasonable adjustments with them have met with signal failure, and this failure is in most instances due to the scientific accredited theories of the innate inferiority of primitive man…”

Drawing on this earlier thinking, Lemert (1954) studied Haida and other Northwest tribes. His research indicated that alcoholism was not a function of race; that greatest drunkeness occurred when tribes were intensely involved in fur trade. Lemert argued that anomie, interclan rivalry and cultural conservatism were the most appropriate way to view Northwest Native alcoholism.

Lemert’s findings were typical of those in the flowering of cultural anthropology in the 1950’s. From this time forward, any discussion of Native alcoholism would include “culture”. The word “primitive” was no longer used to refer to Alaska Natives; empiricism became the method and major theories of deviance and social control became the philosophical underpinnings of future research.

The Sociocultural Model – A Third View of Native Alcoholism
The activism of American Indians, the Civil Rights Movement and the growth of the human sciences brought national attention and funds to the problem of alcoholism among Native people. The field exploded, producing more studies in a single decade than in the preceding fifty years. (Bates, 1980) More than half the literature continued to be anthropological (Leland, 1970) but the sociocultural model was emerging. This model,

derives from the view…that human behavior is the complex resultant of any interplay of biological and historical factors including interactions among systems that can be distinguished as those of the culture, the society and the individual…” (Berkhofer, 1970)

The contribution of the sociocultural model include: freeing Natives from the “ethnographic present” of anthropological research. No longer were Native people frozen in time. The model led to awareness that the effects of ethanol include social, economic, historical and cultural factors as well as chemical, physical and biological factors. Using history as a methodological tool, socio-cultural theorists have shown how attitudes, values and ways of drinking have changed in various ways and at different rates in many cultures. (Heath, 1980) Finally, this multi-disciplinary approach of the sociocultural model showed a propensity to get within the society being studied, to see history and life from the view of the people being studied.

The application of this science looked different from previous models. Psychiatrists and physicians including Bergman (1971) and Pascarosa (1976) participated in traditional Indian ceremonies and reported that Native science or way of coming to knowledge was efficacious, rigorous and humane. Native alcoholism and health sciences united. Alcoholism was viewed as a medical problem properly treated with technology. Publicly funded community programs struggled to integrate Western and Native healing techniques.

A second significant event that occurred was the emergence of the first generation of college educated Native scientists. This small group used the sociocultural model to talk with non-Native people about Native issues. Their work looked to external forces – historical, economic and political, as causative agents of Indian problems. The work was concerned with continuity, tended to be highly descriptive and combined realistic and spiritual themes.

The New Empiricism, a Fourth Model
Early sociocultural research produced a wealth of descriptive and explanatory studies but few claims were made for scientific rigor (Heath, 1980) and the need for definitive studies pushed empiricism to the fore (Nobel, 1976). The nascent cross-cultural scientific exchange was effectively halted as the study of “Native People” moved toward the harder sciences.

As a result of the new more rigorous and robust scientific empiricism, fundamental issues were raised regarding previous work. First scientists recognized that Native social problems are a complex phenomenon about which little is known; second, data collection and interpretation problems presented manifold problems and finally, the appropriateness of theoretical models was called into question.

“…it is not clear that the disease we call alcoholism is the same in both white and Indian societies or even that there is one unified pathology we call alcoholism. Those indicators, both behavioral and physiological, which have been used to diagnose alcoholism in the White society have been found to be determined in part by sociocultural factors. The behavioral indicators have been most frequently used to diagnose the presence of alcoholism in Indian populations. Since the association between these behaviors and either a physiological predispositions to drink has not been demonstrated, there must be an effort on the part of clinically oriented researchers to observe and measure the causative agents of alcoholism more directly if, in fact, this is possible…” (Nobel, 1976)

Lacking a precise definition or clear understanding of the variety of Native cultures meant that the new empiricism was confounded in its earliest efforts. And the increasing reliance on sophisticated analysis produced a new set of problems:

“There is a growing concern about where quantitative techniques are carrying us…our data manipulation techniques are carrying us…our data manipulation techniques have become increasingly complete mathematically sophisticated and governed by strict assumption, but, paradoxically, our interpretive frameworks which make such data meaningful have grown looser, more open ended, fluid and contingent…there seems to be rather widespread skepticism surrounding the ability of conventional data collection techniques to produce data that do not distort, do violence to, otherwise falsely portray the phenomena such methods seek to reveal…” (Van Mannen, 1979).

Thus, in the early 1980’s alcohol research and the science that guided the research were again in search of a paradigm that would work. Van Mannen observed:

“…there is something of a quiet reconstruction going on in the social sciences…There has come of age that significant realization that the people we study (and often seek to assist) have a form of life, a culture that is their own and if we wish to understand…we must first be able to both appreciate and describe their culture…”

Toward a New Paradigm
The sterility that characterized the findings of much of the “New Empiricism”, triggered a movement back towards holistic and qualitative research in Native alcoholism. Theories of Paulo Freire, South American educator, and research by UNESCO prompted researchers to look at culture in a very different way. Freire observed:

Research is a cultural action, if it has a humanist character, it is eminently dialogical and dialectical. In culture based research, “MEN DO NOT ACT ON OTHER MEN AS OBJECTS”.

Freire concluded that research should not be

“our research on you, but rather a research project in which, together, in dialogue, we will come to know each other better and the reality in which we find ourselves so that we can more effectively transform that reality”.

For the first time scientists began to recognize that Native people have a voice, and by extension, a way of knowing or science. Methodologies and approaches have evolved from this recognition. Popular writer, Milam, typifies the movement towards synthesis. While arguing for medical dominance of the filed he nevertheless recognizes that the “ism” in alcoholism necessarily involves a human or family system not merely the alcoholic. Participatory research, systems theory and family therapy all focus on relationships, development and the strengths of an existing system.

In Canada application of Native science has sparked a fire in Indian alcohol treatment. Tache a small reserve in British Columbia has used its mobile treatment model to move from 100% alcoholism to 95% sobriety. According to Maggie Hogson, Director of Nechi Training Institute, the spark has now jumped over to Alberta and other parts of Canada. The key to this phenomenal success lies in a careful integration of western treatment methodology and Native traditional ways.

These methods complement, native science and offer the possibility of intercultural scientific exchange. Native Alcohol work, usually the unwelcome relative to “harder” science, may draw on its theoretical underpinnings of wholism to assume leadership in the new pardigmatic shift. The firs step is to ask Native People, what is Indian science?

INDIAN SCIENCE

“…This is what Raven did for us…The shelter is the tree…”

Indian science, often understood through the tree, is holistic. Through spiritual processes it synthesizes or gathers information from the mental, physical, social and cultural/historical realms. Like a tree the roots of Native science go deep into the history, body and blood of the land. The tree collects, stores and exchanges energy. It breathes with the winds, which tumble and churn through greenery exquisitely fashioned to purify, codify and imprint life in successive concentric rings – the generations. Why and how the tree does this is a mystery but the Indian observes the tree to emulate, complement and understand his/her relationship to this beautiful, life-enhancing process.

The Meaning of Science
To the Indian, the tree is the first spirit or person on Earth. Indeed, the tree which oxygenated Earth’s atmosphere, is the precursor to our human existence. Because of its antiquity it is a respected Elder but the greatest power of Native Science lies in the reasons behind the trees existence.

When discussing the origins of the tree Chief Donawaak, Tlinget Elder says:

“This is where stories begin, there is no story before this…When Raven spirit and Black Raven are working on this land, they put coves in it where you can come in when it’s blowing – a place where you can come ashore.

My Great Grandfather who told this story to me said – the cove is where you’re going to be safe. If you pass that harbour you’re not going to go very far…you will tip over or drown. But if you come to the cove you will be safe. This is what Raven did for us. The shelter is the tree. You could get under the tree and stay there overnight. All this is what the Raven did…(Colorado, 1985)

From these words we see that Native science has a sacral basis and that its teachings are grounded in the natural world. The Navajo and the Natural World are one; he expresses that unity this way:

The foundation, you have to know your roots, where you are coming from. It is understood that we all come from God, God created us. But you have to understand in your own Indian way, where your roots are. You see a tree that is weak, about to give up. Sometimes you find people like that. Why is that tree just barely making it. Because the roots are not strong. If the roots are solid and strong, then you see the tree is strong and pretty. It can withstand cold, hot weather and winds. The human, has to have those roots because we are growing too. The Great Spirit put us here with nature. We have to understand the nature. That is why we understand how an animal behaves. That is why we have to talk to them. We don’t pray to them, we talk to them because they breathe the same air we do. We are put here with them. We are also a part of the plant life. We are always growing, we have to have strong roots. (Colorado, 1985)

Indeed all of life can be understood from the tree.

…just after the earths crust was formed Raven (the Creator) made the tree. Why did he make this tree? He made it to shelter us. Even before Raven broke light on the World, people took shelter from the tree. And after he broke light, look what your sitting on, what’s above you, it comes from the tree.

And that’s where the Tlingit gets his canoe, his house, his clothes – everything. The Raven put it there for him (the people).

And look, what’s growing under that tree? The grass. In the spring the Bear comes down to eat that grass and the wolf, the moose and the mountain goat. All these things, they come. And the berries, growing there – salal, salmonberry, huckleberry and beneath them, the plants, the medicine. All that, it comes from the tree… (Colorado, 1985)

So the roots and their functions form the basis of Native scientific methodology. Seeking truth and coming to knowledge necessitates studying the cycles, relationships and connections between things. Indeed a law of Native science requires that we look ahead seven generations when making decisions!

Principles of Native Science

Laws and standards govern Native science just as they do western science. In an Indian way, Bear who is the North, represents knowledge, healing and comfort. The Bear is also fierce, his claims are non-negotiable. Western Science understands Bear in terms of rigor, reliability, and validity.

In the spring Bear marks his territory on the tree. Stretching as far as possible, Bear uses his claws to score the tree. Other bears, passing by are challenged to meet this standard. If they cannot reach the mark they leave the territory. For the Native scientist the tree is not merely science but science interwoven inseparably with life. We meet the mark or die. Like the Bear passing through, no one watches us; the science relies on utmost integrity.

Native science assumes its character through power and peace. Vine Deloria (1986) noted Lakota scholar discusses its principles:

Here power and place are dominant concepts–power being the living energy that inhabits and/or composes the universe, and place being the relationship of things to each other…put into a simple equation: Power and place produce personality. This equation simply means that the universe is alive, but it also contains within it the very important suggestion that the universe is personal and, therefore, must be approached in a personal manner…The personal nature of the universe demands that each and every entity in it seek and sustain personal relationships. Here, the Indian theory of relativity is much more comprehensive than the corresponding theory articulated by Einstein and his fellow scientists. The broader Indian idea of relationship, in a universe very personal and particular, suggests that all relationships have a moral content. For that reason, Indian knowledge of the universe was never separated from other sacred knowledge about ultimate spiritual realities. The spiritual aspect of knowledge about the world taught the people that relationships must not be left incomplete. There are many stories about how the world came to be, and the common themes running through them are the completion of relationships and the determination of how this world should function.

Deloria notes that there is no single Native science, each tribe or Nation follows ways specific to a locale. However, the tree and the Bear are nearly universal. From South America to the Arctic, the tree and all that it implies has been guiding and shaping the thought of Native people since the dawn of humanity. Those who follow this natural science do so in search of balance, harmony or peace with all living relations. Iroquois call this SKANAGOAH.

The Goal of Indian Science
Skanagoah, literally interpreted as “great peace”, is the term used to describe the still, electrifying awareness one experiences in the deep woods. This feeling or state of balance is at the heart of the universe and is the spirit of Native science. For the western educated audience, the notion of a tree with spirit is a difficult concept to grasp. The English language classifies reality into animate and inanimate objects, with most things falling into the inanimate classification. Native languages do not make the same distinction. As Deloria says, the universe is alive. Therefore, to see a Native speaking with a tree does not carry the message of mental instability, on the contrary, this is a scientist engaged in research!

Put another way, western thought may accede that all natural things are imbued with energy. Much like the electromotive force in a capacitor, the force of the energy is transmitted without there being a direct flow of energy. If you had a piece of wire, electricity would travel from one end to the other uninterrupted. But if you put a capacitor in the line, the force is transmitted from one side to the other without there being a direct flow of electricity form one side to the other. This is how energy is transferred from tree to tree to tree to person without there being a direct flow of energy. The spiritual energy of a tree isn’t transmitted directly but rather its life force is felt. Like a capacitor, the thickness of the dielectric, the physical distance between the person and the tree, is not important; the exchange still occurs.

This exchange suggest that human beings play a vital part in Skanagoah. Western thought teaches the value of the specialist, especially to the masses who are mostly generalists. In an Indian way, we may think of the Bear as a specialist, indeed, if I compete with the Bear in his own environment and on his terms, there is no way I can match his proficiency. But the generalist, in this case, human beings determine the continuance of Bear’s habitat. We are related, we are all one, life and death, good and bad, we are all one. The Indian acknowledges this and so discovers the most liberating aspect of Native science; LIFE RENEWS and all things which support life are renewable.

The struggle through Native alcoholism has repeatedly brought two peoples together. Let us hope that the fire of sobriety sparked in northern communities, spreads south and our sciences lead the way.

The Bear Has Made His Mark…
Can you Reach It?