by paimei01 » Mon 08 Feb 2010, 04:18:04
What do you need to end a tribe ? A tribe is the natural way people organize when free. Same as other animals - people live in groups. One may go sit on the mountaintop alone to meditate, but we are not solitary like the tiger for example.
You can find incipient tribes in all the gangs in the world, or just groups of friends. Living inside this artificial environment with no direct access to food - their culture is different from their ancestors. Even if they are "tribe".
What does it take to end this natural organization ? Kill them, take their land, make them dependent on the system. No more direct access to food - no more cooperation in everyday work. Slaves. Add a religion - that says God is above, separated from nature and people - no more "animism" and you can do anything - to people and to other life around. These Disneyland "religions" are really evil. Going very far into them - some say they find "God", the other sheep call them "saints", "enlightened ones" - but what they find is the same old concept "God is everything", "we are God".
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '&')quot;Shortly after crossing into the Congo we entered the forest, and for the first time I felt real fear... For the forest was evil. I felt it as soon as I saw it...
I made up my mind that I would make it my work to bring the heathen out of the forest, to give them sunlight, to show them how to live in God's open world..."
"It was wonderful to see the forest coming down on all sides. I could feel the power of Satan receding as every tree fell... He [Amboko] did not even like cutting down the forest, he said it will bring misfortune, unless we were going to use the ground for plantations... He said we should have at least some trees standing for shade, and for the protection of the soil...
We tried to make gardens and fill them with flowers, but they soon withered and died. The baked earth made admirable tennis courts, tough... And it was good to be able to relax and forget for a while that one was in Africa, surrounded by heathens. I had tried to make friends with them but it was impossible, and it always will be, at least for many years to come...
In the kitchens they used to give away food without my permission, to all their friends and relatives. When I chided them they asked me if I had not taught them to share whatever they had, that more will always be given to them by the Lord..."
Reverend Spence required that every employee on the mission be a Christian and he fined them if they failed to attend church services. He also tried to separate children from their parents, just as the Bureau of Indian Affairs often did in the United States. Finally he warned that if the natives chose to reject his message, "their blood is not on my hands but theirs, and on the hands of the Evil One who is in them all"
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '&')quot;The American Indian is of the soil, whether it be the region of the forests, plains, pueblos, or mesas. He fits into the landscape, for the hand that fashioned the continent also fashioned the man for his surroundings. He once grew as naturally as the wild sunflowers, he belongs just as the buffalo belonged..."
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"There is a road in the hearts of all of us, hidden and seldom traveled, which leads to an unkown, secret place. The old people came literally to love the soil, and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. Their teepees were built upon the earth and their alters were made of earth. The soul was soothing, strengthening, cleasnsing and healing. That is why the old Indian still sits upon the earth instead of propping himself up and away from its life giving forces. For him, to sit or lie upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply and to feel more keenly. He can see more clearly into the mysteries of life and come closer in kinship to other lives about him."
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The old Lakota was wise. He knew that a man’s heart away from nature becomes hard.
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"Knowledge was inherent in all things. The world was a library and its books were the stones, leaves, grass, brooks and the birds and animals that shared, alike with us, the storms and blessings of the earth. We learn to do what only the student of nature ever learns, and that is to feel beauty. We never rail at the storms, the furious winds, the biting frosts and snows. To do so intensifies human futility, so whatever comes we should adjust ourselves by more effort and energy if necessary, but without complaint. Bright days and dark days are both expressions of the Great Mystery, and the Indian reveled in being close the the Great Holiness."
- Luther Standing Bear, Oglala
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') have been to the end of the earth.
I have been to the end of the waters.
I have been to the end of the sky.
I have been to the end of the mountains.
I have found none that are not my friends.
