American Indian Reflections: March 2006 Archives

The Long Walk of the Navajo, also called the Long Walk to Bosque Redondo, was an Indian removal effort of the United States government in 1863 and 1864. The plan called deporting all Navajo from their native lands, which were called, in the Navajo language, Dinetah. (Dinetah included land from northeastern Arizona through western New Mexico, and north into Utah and Colorado.) The Navajo cultivated crops on the fertile floors of canyons, including Canyon de Chelly, home to the ancient Anasazi people.  The first contingents began arriving March 13 and 14, 1964.

(Banner from Navaho, info and banner were hat tipped from Peace Buttons.)

Yesterday, I was talking with a retired minister about Florida.  The subject drifted from native plants to native people, and what we knew about Florida before 1491.  I expressed my opinion that "indigenous wisdom" has much to teach us, and he expressed surprise.  "You mean that you think there is something behind all that superstition," he said, "aren't you romanticizing the past?"  The liberal clergy have had a love affair with modernism, and many continue to suffer under the prejudice that all thinking by pre - Enlightenment people was irrational and not worth serious consideration.

I have been thinking a lot about "indigenous wisdom" lately.  The Six Nations (Iroquois) told stories about the "three sisters" which were corn, squash, and beans.  They told how these three food plants were gifts to the people, how the people learned to care for and cultivate these together, and the stories told the people that the cosmos was broken when three sisters were not grown together.

Superstition?

We now know of that corn, squash, and beans provide complimentary proteins, provide a balance of fibers and complex carbohydrates, and planting them together provides a natural nitrogen depletion and renewal cycle thus contributing to a sustainable agriculture.

The so called science advanced by modernism is based on reductionism,  breaking things into smaller and smaller mechanism.  But the observations of the indigenous people led to wisdom, because it was based on seeing connections.

The illustration is from Cooking with the Three Sisters.