Deloria

Western philosophy requires a hierarchal structure in the process of human development. Hence, Western philosophy justifies this structure by relegating Indigenous peoples into the position of “heathens,” primitives, sub-humans, etc…

The western, philosophical and conceptual framework of the primitive connotes prescience, uncivilized, superstitious, and ignorant.

Prior to 1900s, colonist could have understood Indigenous people.

American Indian philosophy is articulated through western cannons of doctrinal thought.

1960s (relocation) may have been the last generation to articulate the living memories of what transpired back in the 1920 as well as knew the language, ceremonies, and culture.

There is a rush to be “Indian” today without completely understanding what it means to be “The People”

Intergenerational loss.

Non-Indigenous people’s media recordings as sources.

Indigenous people having to project meaning.

Negotiated space of cultural dominance and Indigenous vagueness. Films and all things Indian (e.g. Dances with Wolves).

Academic Indians and Authenticating American Indian Philosophies Claims of the last Indigenous community validates Indigenous philosophies Western notions of philosophy are predicated on knowledge and the cohesiveness of well-structured opinion.

What are the requirements or ideological values of American Indian Philosophies?

1) Consideration for deeply held beliefs has value in Indigenous traditions that transcends mere belief and ethnic pride. 2) Great care must be taken to identify Indigenous societies and Western thinking as being different in their approach to the world but equal in their conclusions about the world. a. Respect b. Indigenous people must examine western phenomena as do western thinkers.

Western science and philosophy have generally worked with syllogisms (a form of argument that contains a major premise, a minor premise and a conclusion) and general terms in the belief that some type of knowledge can be derived from this type of thinking. This type of rational construction is tautological (an unnecessary repetition of meaning, using dissimilar words that effectively say the same thing) in nature and therefore lead nowhere or reinforces false understandings.

Ex. Notes From Virginia (1804)

Additionally, Vine Deloria Jr. argues that American scientist have asserted certain presuppositions which explain, in absolute terms, contemporary society and its restrictions on the intellectual horizons for more than century.

The concepts of monogenesis, time as real and linear, binary thinking, stability of the solar system, and homogeneity and interchangeability of individuals limit our understanding of individuals, communities, relationships with environments and the Earth as well as the cosmology.

Time as real and linear is derived from Christian theology and uncritically accepted as science as the uniformitarian, homogenous passages of time.

Binary thinking stems from Aristotelian logic (either/or) and Christian missionary dogma ("those not for us are against us").

Indigenous thinking can be characterized, in western vernacular, as “pragmatic empiricism”. Accrued living experiences, from one generation to the next, interconnecting through the process of cultural transmission in relationship to space.

Western science would view Indigenous knowledge as delusional (ex. Tsunamis and earthquakes every 300 to 600 years along the pacific coast).

Western science imposes the value of reality and the physical over other realities and the non- physical.

Western logic requires rationality, cause-and-effect explained within a series of chain events, and experiences that substantiate the reality as rational.

The western doctrine of exclusion –what cannot be explained- relegates the “irrational” to superstitional spaces.

In the west, the origins of things are lost as knowledge increases and general statements are made using syllogism containing concepts of which we have little knowledge. Over time people forget the origins or the meaning and start to make statements with no content but are supported with arbitrarily endowed references.

Indigenous peoples requirements placed on themselves have some type of empirical verification that precludes them from making the kinds of statements the West takes as knowledge, and it keeps their minds open to receive the unexpected and to remember it. Western thinking is also rooted in disconnectedness - animals have no feelings and they function by “instinct”.

Indigenous thinking, empirically, includes all forms of life in their body of evidence from the very beginning, so that their concepts must be more precise and involve considerably more evidence.

Indigenous statements, therefore, must be framed in a way that are applicable to not only humans, but also all animals and plants in any circumstance.

Western thinking is rooted on the notion of creating a proposition and subsequently supporting the proposition. In addition, the development of a philosophy based on a concept –how the concept is applied- is important.

Indigenous thinking identifies spiritual phenomena they have experienced as representative of basic energy.

Boundaries in Western thinking are constructed through materially linear contours that are define the contiguous borders people are taught.

Indigenous boundaries are defined through their relationships to each other, not what they were taught to believe.

The Sacred Western perspective - Religion attempts to bring people closer the source of power and law.

Concepts of the “sacred” are universally shared amongst the world’s religions.

Indigenous perspective – not everything is explainable; therefore sacred ways rely on natural law.

Phenomena: Western - must be defined and controlled. Indigenous - is accepted as undefinable and controllable.

Religion: Answer questions about how people came to be, validate order, how to cope with reinforce human fragility, and heighten the intensity of shared experience, of social communion.

Indigenous – respect, reverence, the spiritual, and the intangible.

Sacred: out of the ordinary, intangible, conveys a part of something belonging to a larger whole or complex system, it is individualistic and/or collective, inseparable from the ordinary, and necessary for traditions.

Balance, “the Spirit” (soul)

Western – good and evil Indigenous – balance and imbalance (or harmony and disharmony)

Most Indigenous peoples share the following six concepts: 1) A belief or knowledge of unseen powers, or what some people might call the “Great Spirit.” 2) Knowledge that all things in the universe are dependent upon on each other. 3) Personal worship reinforces the bond between the individual, the community, and the greater powers. Worship is personal commitment to the sources of life. 4) Sacred traditions and person knowledgeable in sacred traditions are responsible for teaching morals and ethics. 5) Each Nation has trained practitioners that are responsible for handling specialized, “secret” knowledge. 6) Humor is a necessary part of the sacred. And the belief humans are weak, weakness leads people to do foolish things; therefore sacred clowns and figures are needed to show us how to act and why.

1) Cultural diversity in defining, explaining, or accepting unseen powers. a. Hopi and Zuni dramatize relations with unseen powers in the Kachina dances (via mask, dress, body paint, symbols, and bodily movements). b. The unseen can also be found in “objects” – thunderstones, charred wood, obsidian, feathers, plants, etc. c. Understanding the order and structure of things. 2) All things are dependent upon another. a. Natural law (ecology) b. Human beings have relationships with plants and animals in relationship to spaces. b.i. Historically, the people could talk to these relations c. Through these interdependent relationships, the universe is balanced d. Healing Ceremonies – rebalance the imbalanced. d.i. Dine’ (male/female)* d.i.1. *the notion of balance is not necessarily a dichotomy (western). e. Life and Death (cyclical) 3) Worship Is A Personal Commitment to the Sources of Life a. Purifying b. Blessing c. Sacrificing 4) Morals and Ethics a. Sacred knowledge teaches morals and ethics a.i. How people are interdependent upon each other a.ii. What is predictable or unpredictable in the world a.ii.1. The concept of hell or sin did not exist, traditionally. a.iii. Figures were used to teach children a.iii.1. Sacred Clowns or Elders taught children values such as unselfishness, awareness, patience, cleanliness, etc… a.iii.1.a. Dine’ Story: Poverty, Hunger, Fatigue, and Lice. 5) Sacred Practitioners and Passing on the Sacred a. Sacred practitioners, medicine men, healers, priest, singers, herbalist, & “shamans”. b. Individuals are culturally initiated or self-taught. b.i. Not everyone can be a sacred practitioner. c. Endure personal sacrifice. d. Special knowledge is dangerous and not common knowledge. e. Responsible for retaining and passing on the knowledge. f. Therefore, memorizing is paramount for the survival of sacred oral traditions 6) Humor Is a Necessary Part of the Sacred a. Humor is a critical part of culture. a.i. Humans are often weak and not “gods” a.ii. Clowns teach us not to take ourselves seriously a.iii. Games and Gambling have their roots in Indigenous oral traditions a.iii.1. Games can be season a.iii.2. Cheyenne Calendar a.iii.2.a. January – Hoop-and-Stick game moon a.iii.2.b. February – Big Hoop and Stick Game Moon, Big Wheel Moon a.iii.2.c. April – Spring Moon, fat moon…when they play the Wheels, when high water comes a.iii.2.d. May – May moon, shiny or bright, ball game month