I used to think that top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation and we scientists don’t know how to do that.
—Gus Speth, environmental lawyer and co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council
It may seem counterintuitive, but this admission from a distinguished environmental advocate and leader feels like a good place to start this post marking the end of Native American Heritage Month. Because what these words suggest is that our nation desperately needs the wisdom of its Native peoples. The peoples whose dispossession, displacement and subjugation were at the very heart of this country’s founding and expansion are the ones whose values, world-view and traditional ecological knowledge may very well be key to surviving the current environmental crisis and forging a more sustainable relationship with the natural world.
Untitled Acrylic on canvas 10″x 8″ Geraldine Barney
My friend and colleague Dr. Jacqueline Vorpahl, a clinical psychologist and enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, is an expert on the cultural and spiritual values at the heart of Native life, as well as on the impact of historical trauma across tribes and generations. She emphasizes that “much of traditional indigenous life is organized around a deep respect for the land, and the resources provided by ‘Mother Earth’ to feed, clothe and shelter us.” Traditional Native spirituality is based on a profound connection to place; there is no separation between human beings and the earth that nurtures them—be that mountain, forest or desert, ocean or rivers, animals and plants. That sense of connection, she says, expands to include connection to one another in community, guided by four basic values: respect, reciprocity, relationship and responsibility.
Ironically, she notes, this was the spirit the Wampanoag tribe of what is now Massachusetts brought to its initial encounters with the Pilgrims who landed on their soil. The settlers knew nothing about how to cultivate the area, and the Native peoples, following the norms of their community, generously shared knowledge and food with the newcomers as winter approached. That openness made it possible for the settlers to survive, says Dr. Vorpahl, setting the stage for an ongoing process of rapacious colonization and what we can now call ethnic cleansing. This included atrocities such as the Trail of Tears and government programs that severed Native children from their roots through forced removal to draconian boarding schools and adoptive placements with white families. By the 1950s, even many of the reservations to which tribes had been displaced had been dismantled by the U.S. government, and large numbers of tribal members were relocated to urban areas, often to struggle in isolation and poverty.
The outcomes of this trajectory were profound: a painful legacy of historical trauma impacting individuals and families, a severing of connection to the land that defines the Native way of life, and a loss of traditions and spiritual beliefs and practices that offered strength and healing for generations. Current repercussions include some of the nation’s highest levels of substance abuse and an epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.
Untitled Acrylic on canvas 5″x 5″ Geraldine Barney
It iss striking to consider these developments in the light of the environmental upheaval humanity is now confronting. For some, this may feel like a wholly new chapter. But Native peoples in the U.S. have already experienced way more than their share of what Dr. Vorpahl calls “ecological grief.” Loss of land, including the medicinal plants and herbal remedies that communities counted on for healing. Sudden changes in location due to forces outside their control. Ongoing struggles over water and mineral rights. The near-disappearance of a precious way of life. “We need to grieve over it all,” says Dr. Vorpahl. But she goes on to recognize the strength and resilience that Native peoples bring to recent assertions of sovereignty and cultural affirmation. Among the many examples are the Standing Rock pipeline protests, the Landback movement, and indigenous language reclamation projects.
Now we’re in this place of reclaiming. Reclaiming mineral rights, land rights, reclaiming our way of life. How are we going to move forward and make use of [this moment]?
That question resonates in many ways. As a non-Native ally, I was struck by Dr. Vorpahl’s chart below, which shows the contrast between what she terms Western and indigenous “ways of knowing”. While it would be a mistake to conflate the diversity of approaches that exist in both the Native and non-indigenous worlds, the broad contrasts she draws are revealing. If the dominance of Western ways of knowing has had a disastrous effect on humanity’s relationship to the planet, can Indigenous ways help inspire the spiritual and cultural change we need? And if so, how do we get beyond the superficial exploitation of Native culture that has too often passed for support in the non-Native world?
Part of the answer may lie in the concept of Two-eyed Seeing, an integrative approach developed by Canadian Mi’k Maw elder Albert Marshall. Two-eyed seeing is
learning to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing, and from the other eye with the strengths of Western knowledge and ways of knowing… and learning to use both eyes together for the benefit of all.
For too long the centers of power in our society have seen through just one of these lenses, with catastrophic results for the environment. Centering Native peoples and indigenous ways of knowing is a critical correction to that imbalance. For we who are not indigenous, supporting Native American communities and organizations, amplifying Native voices, and learning about Native history and current issues can help to make this happen. Letting indigenous values and ways of knowing inform our efforts to heal the planet can move us closer to the spiritual and cultural transformation that has eluded scientists.
About the art. This post’s guest artist gives us a glimpse of the gifts and challenges of Two-eyed Seeing. Geraldine Barney is a painter, printmaker and musician currently living in Massachusetts and originally from northwest New Mexico, the eastern part of the Navajo Nation. Her artwork and music explore the relationship between the traditional Navajo values and beliefs she grew up with and contemporary city life off the reservation. The paintings shared here are part of her latest series featuring designed or actual landscapes from the Navajo reservation. Emphasizing the use of color, these paintings invoke the artist’s passion for the land of the Southwest, the concept of caring for the land before colonialism, and her deep connection to and respect for “Mother Earth and what she provides”. (You can see more of her art on Instagram at @GeralDine Barney.) Also a singer and songwriter, she was selected by ethnomusicologists from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History to appear on two Smithsonian Folkways CDs: “Music of New Mexico: Native American Traditions” and “Heartbeat: Voices of First Nations Women.” In this National Public Radio excerpt, she shares a moving song and talks about her journey to integrate two cultures, concluding with these words:
It’s all in the prayers, all the sayings for positivity. Giving all your best in a beautiful way, because that’s what this world is and this earth is. I’m not just full Navajo, I’m not just of the dominant society, I guess you could say I’m a new product, with both of them to keep me sane.
Don’t miss the song.
Resources. There are many excellent resources for learning about Native American history, culture, and current issues and organizations worthy of support. Here is a sampling to start with.
Partnership with Native Americans
National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center
Institute for New England Native American Studies
Indigenous Environmental Network
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Land acknowledgment. Big Planet Love is created in Cambridge, Massachusetts on the ancestral and unceded lands of the Massachusett people. We acknowledge the ancestors and current community members in gratitude and respect.
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Learning from indigenous ways of ecological stewardship can’t help but expand our ability to express care and work for restoration for our endangered planet. Supporting the Native protests over water and mineral rights etc. is an obvious requirement of people who take treaty language as seriously as any other government statement of faith.
However, I challenge Dr. Vorpahl’s unnuanced and ahistorical distillation of “western ways of knowing.” Is hierarchy always in place in the West, and when it is, is that always negative? (Think of Nelson Mandela in his role as President of a modern nation state or the Dalai Lama as the leader of Tibetan Buddhism.) Has Western culture always valorized competitive vs cooperative behavior? If so, how could socialism or even the kibbutz have developed? Have Native communities never competed or acted in conflict? The history of intertribal warfare in the Americas would argue that is not the case.
I would argue that in the present moment, we can and should identify common values for our collective survival, and then deploy the deepest wisdom of every culture, both Native and transplanted, to bring those values to fruition.
Thank you for making the important point that neither Western nor Indigenous culture is monolithic. The generalizations made in the discussion with Dr. Vorpahl are not meant to mask the nuances or contradictions of either approach, but rather to emphasize the predominant and systemic features of the two different world-views, as seen through Native American eyes and experience. As a Native woman and expert on Native history and culture, Dr. Vorpahl invites us to look at the dominant (in this case “Western”) culture through the lens of a culture (in this case “Indigenous”) that has been subordinated and marginalized, and learn from taking that perspective. This doesn’t negate that there is value in both (and all) perspectives–in fact, the concept of “Two-eyed Seeing” described at the end of the discussion grew out of a recognition of the importance of tapping the wisdom of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultures in the service of common values and a better world.