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Black Elk - Native American Religions
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The modern study of Native American religions is one that has undergone significant changes by recognizing the intellectual ethnocentrism that exists among non-Native American people. The source of this problem can be attributed to the lack of a humanistic approach by non-Native Americans in applying objective terminology and explanations to a very non-objective Native American world view. Many scholars have succeeded and failed to make significant contributions to the study of Native American religions in their explanations and insights into Native American views of reality. In his book Native American Religions: An Introduction, Sam Gill makes contributions integral to the approach of understanding Native American religions in a humanistic way. Gill identifies the Native American idea of Person, a view which considers all beings to have the capability of thinking, feeling, and changing the state of the world. Barbara Myerhoff, however, fails to make a significant contribution to the study of Native American religions by applying ethnocentric terminology to aspects of the Huichol culture in her book Peyote Hunt. Myerhoff is unaware that the use of ethnocentric terminology suggests that the Huichol world view has a lesser degree of reality than that of European religions. In REL330, Professor Ken Morrison expands on the concept of Person to also include the concepts of Power and Gift in order emphasize the importance of knowledge and morality applicable to all Native American religions. With these contributions, we can then turn our attention to The Sixth Grandfather, a text which primarily deals with the religion and culture of the Lakota tribe as presented by Black Elk, an important religious leader of the Lakota. By applying the concepts of Gill, Myerhoff and Morrison to the direct dialogue of Black Elk, non-Native Americans can take a humanistic approach to the religion of the Lakota in their own terms. Non-Native Americans can begin their understanding of Black Elk by recognizing Barbara Myerhoff’s failure to make a significant contribution to the study of Native American religion in her application of ethnocentric terminology to the Huichol world view. Myerhoff identifies that, for the Huichol, “there is no reliable separation between secular and sacred” (Peyote Hunt, 74), and that there is a considerable difficulty in finding the Huichol equivalent of the Western idea of sacred. In spite of the recognition of the complexity of this idea, Myerhoff applies this kind of terminology to many aspects of Huichol religion. In addition, Myerhoff uses ethnocentric terminology like “magical”, “mystical”, and “sorcerer”, terms which suggest to the non-Native American that the Huichol world view has a lesser degree of reality that that of Western religions. Non-Native Americans must be conscious of the fact that much of our terminology cannot adequately express multi-dimensional Native American ideas and that much of our terminology can be suggestive and misleading to Native American ideas. The recognition of this linguistic barrier that has been created will help us to understand and appreciate the dialogue of Black Elk by being aware of the complexities of Native American language. Another way in which non-Native Americans can begin to comprehend Black Elk is through Sam Gill’s identification of the Native American concept of Person in order to better understand Native American world views.
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