Native Americans

Garden of Gratitude

For the past several days I have been working as a substitute teacher at Caprock Academy teaching fifth grade science and high school geometry. I am very grateful to many people — especially Mrs. Ellen Robinson who teaches biology classes including Botany. I shared with her this website so she turned me on to a wonderful book called Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer who published the first edition in 2013. I had some time between classes, study hall, and on the weekend so I immersed myself in the book discovering a treasure chest of profound wisdom.

According to her bio, the author is a “mother, scientist, decorated professor and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology and founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.”

I loved reading the opening origin story about Skywoman Falling and rereading it several times including to my family. The author wrote an article last year where she said:

“The mythic story of Skywoman Falling is the heartbeat of Braiding Sweetgrass, both an opening and a closing, enfolding the stories between. The version shared in the first edition is the most widely told account of the epic, but it is not the only one. There is always the deep diving Muskrat and the earth on Turtle’s back. The rescue by the Geese and the gifts of the animals are a constant, as are the seeds Skywoman brings, initiating the covenant of reciprocity between newcomer humans and our ancient relatives. The detail that varies from one telling to another is just how Skywoman finds herself falling from one world to the next. The common version is that she slips, the earth giving way at the edge of the hole in the sky where the great Tree of Life had fallen. It is an accident, with mythic consequences—and so it begins.”

Later in the article she describes other versions of how Skywoman descended to Earth, that this was no accident; her duty to safeguard life.

“In this time of transformation, when creation and destruction wrestle like Skywoman’s mythic grandsons, gambling with the future of the earth, what would it take for us to follow Skywoman? To jump to the new world, to co-create it? Do we jump because we look over our shoulders at the implacable suffering marching toward us and jump from fear and portent? Or perhaps we look down, drawn toward the glittering green, hear the birdsong, smell the Sweetgrass and yearn to be part of a different story. The story we long for, the story that we are beginning to remember, the story that remembers us.”

I am grateful for the wisdom the author shares which is rarely documented in oral traditions of indigenous culture especially by a person with incredible diverse credentials. The book is so rich with examples of our dependency on the natural world and that there is so much more to learn.

How pecan trees communicate across large regions yielding bumper crops one year then go several years without producing nuts and how wildlife responds to the cycle.

The importance and “genius of indigenous agriculture” for sustaining the land and healthy diets known as the Three Sisters: corn, beans, and squash.

The best way to connect with the land and nature showing our gratitude and giving gifts is to grow a garden.

To grow diverse plants, such as many varieties of corn, to fit the land rather than fitting the land to monoculture crops as is common practice with modern agriculture.

Her efforts to make a spring-fed, algae-rich pond swimmable by seeking a balance of what to put in and what to take out.

To harvest no more that half of the potential yield of natural resources to prevent overconsumption and ensure sustainability. The unharvested fruit, vegetables, fish, water (etc.) will benefit other wildlife and provide seeds or species for future growth.

Please share your comments and ideas in the comment section or send an email to info@conserve-prosper.com!

Read this Song of Hiawatha! 

Working for the past couple of weeks as an eight grade educational assistant at Caprock Academy gave me the wonderful opportunity to read The Song of Hiawatha and other Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The full poem provides an amazing intimate glimpse into the natural world for a Native American man. Longfellow captures the oral history tradition of the interdependence of humans and Nature by recounting the Legend of Hiawatha.

Here is the introduction from the Maine Historical Society website:

The Song of Hiawatha

Should you ask me, whence these stories? 
Whence these legends and traditions, 
With the odors of the forest 
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations
As of thunder in the mountains?
  I should answer, I should tell you,
"From the forests and the prairies,
From the great lakes of the Northland,
From the land of the Ojibways,
From the land of the Dacotahs,
From the mountains, moors, and fen-lands
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
Feeds among the reeds and rushes.
I repeat them as I heard them
From the lips of Nawadaha,
The musician, the sweet singer."
  Should you ask where Nawadaha
Found these songs so wild and wayward,
Found these legends and traditions,
I should answer, I should tell you,
"In the bird's-nests of the forest,
In the lodges of the beaver,
In the hoof-prints of the bison,
In the eyry of the eagle!
  "All the wild-fowl sang them to him,
In the moorlands and the fen-lands,
In the melancholy marshes;
Chetowaik, the plover, sang them,
Mahng, the loon, the wild-goose, Wawa,
The blue heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
And the grouse, the Mushkodasa!"
  If still further you should ask me,
Saying, "Who was Nawadaha?
Tell us of this Nawadaha,"
I should answer your inquiries
Straightway in such words as follow.
  "In the vale of Tawasentha,
In the green and silent valley,
By the pleasant water-courses,
Dwelt the singer Nawadaha.
Round about the Indian village
Spread the meadows and the corn-fields,
And beyond them stood the forest,
Stood the groves of singing pine-trees,
Green in Summer, white in Winter,
Ever sighing, ever singing.
  "And the pleasant water-courses,
You could trace them through the valley,
By the rushing in the Spring-time,
By the alders in the Summer,
By the white fog in the Autumn,
By the black line in the Winter;
And beside them dwelt the singer,
In the vale of Tawasentha,
In the green and silent valley.
  "There he sang of Hiawatha,
Sang the Song of Hiawatha,
Sang his wondrous birth and being,
How he prayed and how be fasted,
How he lived, and toiled, and suffered,
That the tribes of men might prosper,
That he might advance his people!"
  Ye who love the haunts of Nature,
Love the sunshine of the meadow,
Love the shadow of the forest,
Love the wind among the branches,
And the rain-shower and the snow-storm,
And the rushing of great rivers
Through their palisades of pine-trees,
And the thunder in the mountains,
Whose innumerable echoes
Flap like eagles in their eyries;--
Listen to these wild traditions,
To this Song of Hiawatha!
  Ye who love a nation's legends,
Love the ballads of a people,
That like voices from afar off
Call to us to pause and listen,
Speak in tones so plain and childlike,
Scarcely can the ear distinguish
Whether they are sung or spoken;--
Listen to this Indian Legend,
To this Song of Hiawatha!
  Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple,
Who have faith in God and Nature,
Who believe that in all ages
Every human heart is human,
That in even savage bosoms
There are longings, yearnings, strivings
For the good they comprehend not,
That the feeble hands and helpless,
Groping blindly in the darkness,
Touch God's right hand in that darkness
And are lifted up and strengthened;--
Listen to this simple story,
To this Song of Hiawatha!
  Ye, who sometimes, in your rambles
Through the green lanes of the country,
Where the tangled barberry-bushes
Hang their tufts of crimson berries
Over stone walls gray with mosses,
Pause by some neglected graveyard,
For a while to muse, and ponder
On a half-effaced inscription,
Written with little skill of song-craft,
Homely phrases, but each letter
Full of hope and yet of heart-break,
Full of all the tender pathos
Of the Here and the Hereafter;--
Stay and read this rude inscription,
Read this Song of Hiawatha! 

Founder's childhood influenced by health issues, pollution, and Chief Seattle.

When I was a little boy growing up in the 1960's in northern Virginia, the air and water were very polluted. Having asthma, I struggled to breath and wondered why anyone would smoke or burn leaves and trash as was commonly done. There were Red Alert days when I could not go outside due to the poor air quality. The Potomac River was an open sewer -- with all the dead fish we could not enjoy walking by or swimming in the water.  A physical and moral brown cloud hung over our Nation's Capitol.

In the early 1970's, a very powerful commercial - a public service announcement - was broadcast to promote Keep America Beautiful. The Native American who appeared in the spot was Iron Eyes Cody but many recall him crying when he saw sickening pollution. . Here is a link to the PSA. His powerful message greatly affected me and helped me initiate a career in environmental science.

CHIEF SEATTLE (MORE CORRECTLY KNOWN AS SEATHL) WAS A SUSQUAMISH CHIEF WHO LIVED ON THE ISLANDS OF THE PUGET SOUND. AS A YOUNG WARRIER, CHIEF SEATTLE WAS KNOWN FOR HIS COURAGE, DARING AND LEADERSHIP. HE GAINED CONTROL OF SIX OF THE LOCAL TRIBES AND CONTINUED THE FRIENDLY RELATIONS WITH THE LOCAL WHITES THAT HAD BEEN ESTABLISHED BY HIS FATHER. HIS NOW FAMOUS SPEECH WAS BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN GIVEN IN DECEMBER, 1854.

THERE ARE SEVERAL VERSIONS OF HIS LETTER; THE FOLLOWING WAS PROVIDED BY Cal State University at Northridge.

“The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy of sell the sky? The Land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.

We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family.

The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.

The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give the rivers the kindness that you would give any brother.

If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life that it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.

Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.

This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.

Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted with talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is to say goodbye to the swift pony and then hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.

When the last red man has vanished with this wilderness, and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?

We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother's heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it, as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children, and love it, as God loves us.

As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you.

One thing we know - there is only one God. No man, be he Red man or White man, can be apart. We ARE all brothers after all."