Natural Peoples and ecospirituality

Cassadore

Introduction

THE HEART OF A NATIVE IN ALL OF US…

Being fans of all things Celtic, we have noticed on more than one occasion that anyone interested in that cultural area will also be fascinated by the cultural influence of the Native Americans or other natives around the world.

In point of fact, there is an enormous cultural affinity in evidence here: people sharing love for Nature; the same direct relationship with Mother Earth; common respect for life and all living things; and especially the same personal direct way of living spiritually and enjoying a relationship with the Great Mystery which, even though under different guises, ties the Celts to the Native Americans and all the Natural Peoples of the world, the so-called Tribal Peoples or Native Peoples.

This is no coincidence: when we talk about Native Peoples, we cannot exclude the Native Europeans, those populations who seem to have been swept away by history and yet who are still part of it, just as much as the natives of the rest of the world. The populations of Northern Europe have suffered as much persecution as their brothers across the Ocean, but their cultural influence, which is effectively our roots, has nevertheless never died out. The proof of this lies in the rich store of folklore, myths, music and traditions handed down to us by men and women through the ages who have never surrendered and have never wanted to forget.

Since we have always shown an interest in matters concerning Natural Peoples, we have worked a lot over the last few years on the Mt. Graham Case, the profanation of the Apache sacred mountain. However, we do not do so just because of the clear violation of religious rights nor simply for the obvious fact that this is the umpteenth humiliation the Native Americans have been subjected to.

Fighting for Mt. Graham also means fighting for Native Europeans and all Natives; in other words, for ourselves and our spiritual freedom. It means fighting to expose an abuse of power, to the detriment of a cultural minority whose beliefs are amazingly similar to those of many other Natural Peoples, Europeans included.

Fighting for a sacred mountain in Arizona may seem a pointless exercise in anachronism. If the mountain, though, stands as a symbol for all those cultures that have been forcibly suppressed in every epoch; all those cultures with little hope of survival, despite strenuous resistance; and all those cultures whose only mistake is not wanting to subject themselves to the mass religions of history and whose only hope is the collective conscience of people who refuse to accept the suppression, then surely it is worthwhile fighting with all our strength.

These are cultures that have a lot to say and give to humanity. These are cultures that seem to have no place to be and no reason for being; that are seen as nothing more than minority groups, at best a worthy cause to be supported and defended against abuse, but never acknowledged as an example to follow or as a source of learning.

Yet these same cultures, still alive after all the religious persecutions, colonisations and contamination are important anchor points for the historical roots of humanity. The survival of this collective inheritance is the key to preserving an ancestral experience that belongs to us and is vital to our own survival, since it represents our past, our origins and our roots in history.

We stand at the beginning of a new millenium, a delicate moment in history when events require special attention and growth in the individual. A moment of such growth cannot be faced without adequate preparation, without roots. Just as every social advance draws from the experience of the preceding generations, every stage in the evolution of humanity is the result of a continuum of experience weaving its way through time.

The preservation and rediscovery of our ancient roots could represent a rich store of wealth to help us face the future that awaits us.

The authors

MY FIGHT FOR MOUNT GRAHAM

by Ola Cassadore (1923-2012)

Ola Cassadore Davis was a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, in Arizona. Her father was Chief of the Deschin Clan and her mother belonged to the Istaneyei Clan.

Ola was raised in a strongly traditional Apache family. Her grand mother was a medicine woman who practiced traditional healing for the people of her community.

Her brother followed his father and uncle in becoming a medicine man, receiving his traditional Apache confirmation on Mount Graham.

In her own words, Ola describes her childhood and, as she was the oldest girl in the family, it was important to follow the Apache way of instructing and teaching her the ways of her ancestors in Apache traditions, customs and traditional ceremonial practices so that she should learn the ways of her people.

I remember sitting on a blanket on the floor in my grandmother’s wieki up while she explained me many things about being an Apache woman. She taught me many parts of the spiritual beliefs of my people and to remember I was being taught in Apache ways, and she wanted me to learn the Apache women’s duties.

And at midsummer we would prepare horses, one to ride and one as a pack horse to carry our shelter, blankets and food. We would travel most of the day up to the sacred mountain and stay there several days gathering acorns, berries and wild foods. There were many dangerous wild animals on the mountain but they never came near us or bothered us in our camp.

My grandmother was spiritually strong in her Apache way and she would give me lessons in the darkness of the nights on the mountain. She told me not to be afraid, that we were here in our place on the mountain, we were part of this land and all things on this mountain, and we were protected.

Many years later I heard the lessons of my father and my grandmother again from the Apache Elders when I went to them and they passed on the message that there was a project to build a telescope on Mt. Graham. It was painful for the Elders and tears swelled in some of their eyes as they told me stories about Mt. Graham being a holy mountain and they did not want this mountain destroyed. Then I decided to oppose the project.

Mt. Graham is a sacred mountain and holds many sacred ceremonial items hidden inside it. It is also the burial ground of our ancestors and there are medicine plants and the spring water for the Apache ceremonial blessing and traditional healing. Mt. Graham is the home of the spiritual messenger of the past (Ga’an), the Apache mountain spirit dancer as it is known today, who the Apache people depended upon in our ancestors’ time and in our present generation for our ceremonies and for our cultural survival.

To us Apaches Mount Graham is Dzil Nchaa Si An, an ancient name as is given to many of the sacred mountains in the same way. Dzil Nchaa Si An is our most sacred mountain and it is desecrated by the construction of a telescope on its summit.

The telescope project is managed by the University of Arizona, Tucson, together with 3 international partners: the Max Planck Institute of Germany, the Arcetri observatory of Florence, Italy, and the Vatican Observatory of Rome, Italy.

The proposed construction of Astronomical Observatories on Mount Graham is a desecration of an Apache ancestral burial ground, the place where we find our medicinal plants and the spring water used in Apache sacred ceremonies and a religious ceremonial site. It is also disturbing the spirits of our ancestors who are buried on the mountain.

Mt. Graham is now public land but it was part of our original Reservation. Two telescopes have already been built up on Mt. Graham.

Before the building of the telescope or any land disturbing activity, both the University of Arizona and the Forest Service knew that Mt. Graham was sacred to the Apache people, but our Tribe was never properly consulted. United States law was in effect at that time requiring consultation and notice to Indian Tribes under several Federal Laws. The only notification given was a letter written by a student, which asked particularly about some artefacts found on Mt. Graham.

Our Tribal government passed four Resolutions opposing the telescope project, supported by nine Apache tribes, the National Congress of American Indians, the National Council of Churches and many other religious and public organisations in the USA and Europe, but the project partners have ignored all these documents.

We live in a country that is supposed to guarantee Freedom of Religion under an Article in the United States Constitution, but the Indian peoples’ religion has never received the protection afforded to main stream religions in the United States.

Today, Native Americans are undergoing grave Human Rights violations. We have no legal protection of our freedom to worship and follow our traditional religious ways. As we all know, religious freedom is something most Americans can take for granted, but not in the case of us Native Americans.

The Mount Graham struggle highlights a long string of injustices against Native Americans and the seizing of sacred sites continues, as well as the destruction of Native American religions. We are asking for protection for those few sacred sites that remain.

We Indian peoples have already made many sacrifices, and lost many of our holy places. We don’t want the same to happen to our sacred mountain, Mt. Graham.

Ola Cassadore

(15 January 1923 – 25 November 2012)

Chairperson Apache Survival Coalition

Official Spokesperson of the San Carlos Apache Tribal Council

Ola Cassadore, leader of the fight for Mount Graham

PREMISE

Within the complex scenario of the human social condition in this new millennium, there remains the case of the Natural Peoples, that is the planet’s indigenous or Native Peoples. These are cultural groups which, rather than developing any ethical or spiritual reference to the various mass religions that have emerged through history, live and express their own particular way of looking on and relating to life.

To give one example right away, it may be said that the traditions of Native Americans or Australian Aborigines belong to the realm of Natural Peoples, representing cultural entities that, with today’s search for alternatives to the dogma of mass religions, are undergoing a revival of interest in their more suggestive, mystic aspects whilst remaining hermetically sealed when it comes to trying to interpret their underlying precepts.

Yet the basic reference for the traditions of Natural Peoples is extremely simple and within reach of everyone: it lies in the intrinsic values of Nature, considered as the manifestation of a great Mystery which has given life to humanity and to the Universe itself. Existence is thus interpreted as an absolute value of a state of reality that embraces every possible manifestation within its totality as a phenomenon.

Natural Peoples, in referring as they do to the totality of existence, display their own particular mysticism in the form of Power, which grows out of a pragmatic existential experience in tune with the Mystery expressed by Nature. This experience leads to a concept of individual harmony, of peace and brotherhood among people, of individual personal freedom and of knowledge without dogmatic, or any other, limits. It is so simple and straightforward that it remains inaccessible to anyone who fails to find the right feeling with Nature.

This ancestral experience and its underlying existential thesis has given life to different cultural identities for each ethnic group among the Natural Peoples, while binding them together through the same source of reference and life.

For a long time now, the mass religions have branded the world view of Natural Peoples as superstition and ignorance, whilst saying nothing about the real nature of their experience. These peoples have been cast in the role of archaeological remains or something by-passed by evolution and surviving through history only as an anthropological curiosity.

Yet Natural Peoples are not just objects of interest to fill the showcases in an anthropology museum. Nor are they cultures lagging behind the times. They are a modern day reality, very much alive and, despite all the persecutions they have undergone, they have lived their own history alongside that of the mass religions and have progressed along their own particular evolutionary path.

The first thing that comes to the collective mind is the history, the persecutions and the continuity of the Native Americans. It should be borne in mind, though, that the same phenomenon has also been witnessed in Europe. This affirmation gives rise to the concept of Native Europeans, who should be added, on a par with the Natives of America or any other continent, to the numbers of Natural Peoples. Such a concept can be identified in the traditional identity of those free people on European soil who have tried to keep alive a direct relationship with the Mystery of existence, who have made the effort, first to escape from colonialisation under the Roman Empire, then to evade the process of evangelisation imposed by Christianity.

These are free people who, in relating to Nature, have discovered values that are inevitably identical to those of other Natural Peoples spread over the planet and have established traditional cultures with many similarities among them. Today there are obvious cultural ties uniting, for example, Native Americans and Native Europeans, notwithstanding the geographical and historical distance between these two peoples.

At the present moment in time, Natural Peoples are very much alive and kicking, every one of them present in history expressing its own particular tradition, with such an unequivocally universal sense that it has a lot to say in a world torn apart by religious wars.

It can actually be seen how the spirituality of Natural Peoples can generate the feeling that a universal spirituality exists, as has never before been imaginable. By referring directly to Nature, Natural Peoples live a form of spirituality that can set an example for living in touch with and respecting Nature. What is more, they can also set an example of brotherhood among peoples and effective spiritual unity, binding them in a united community with reference to a natural religion, the property of all the peoples of this world.

In short, Natural Peoples present fundamental values that are not contaminated or distorted by the biased historical interpretations of mass religions; values that belong to people and the sense of existence and that can, today, make a preciously important contribution towards the evolution of the individual and the planet.

THE HISTORICAL REALITY OF NATURAL PEOPLES

The Discovery Doctrine and the case of the Natural Peoples

Over the ages we have become used to the idea that the intimate relationship between a person and that Mystery which animates existence and gives meaning to the human condition itself should be channeled through one of the various, centuries-old forms of religion on this planet. Just as we are used to the differences between these religions and the impossibility of imagining any valid alternative for people to relate to Existence. Yet, no matter what we are used to believing, other cultural forms do exist, which do not depend on religious beliefs deriving from the revelations of various founding prophets.

Here, we’re talking about the experience of Natural Peoples, who have discovered existence through a direct approach, without any intermediate vested interests, by letting every individual freely relate to the mystery of existence. These same Natural Peoples have been constantly beseiged for centuries by the mass religions, enduring every imaginable form of violence, and stripped of their spiritual dignity by forced conversion, a denial of the reality of their experience.

As symbols, they are becoming a historical case, often otherwise known as Indigenous Peoples, Tribal Populations or Native Peoples of the world.

They are the cultures which do not relate ethically or spiritually to the mass religions that have appeared through history, spreading their own derived cultures. They are peoples who live and propose their own particular way of living and relating to life. By definition, the concept of Natural Peoples takes in all those ethnic entities that have developed a spiritual culture outside the context of the mass religions.

To take some examples, there are the ethnic cultures of the North American Natives, the Indios of Central and South America, the Australian Aborigenes, the natives of Oceania, Africa and Asia, but also the Celtic populations of northern Europe. Practically speaking, they are the natives of every continent, cultural groups all over the planet who have kept their relationship with Nature intact without the interference of religious dogma.

Today, the Natural Peoples are being rediscovered by history and arousing interest due to the fact that they offer a hope of peace and wellbeing for the whole of mankind.

The case of the Natural Peoples doesn’t follow the obvious path of the history of mankind, nor does it proceed randomly. It originates from a precise historical motivation which upset the entire planet and split mankind into two specific socio-cultural areas.

We ought to point out that until quite recently, the peoples of the Earth followed a natural evolution which took them towards the future, holding onto the roots that linked them to an ancient tradition. Any historical groups, represented by empires and dictatorships which arose here and there around the world represented mere slip-ups and mankind progressed towards a common planetary future.

Then, in Europe, after the advent of Constantine, Christianity became a political force which mimicked that of the previous Roman Empire, from which it seemed to inherit structures and expansion-based ideas.

After completing the Christianisation of Europe, placing a veto on the culture of the European natives, the Catholic Church of the time, which no longer had any organised military opponents in Europe, prepared for the colonising evangelisation of the other continents, supported by the military power of the European nations, which were now linked to the Papal power.

In 1452 Pope Nicholas V issued a papal bull announcing the so-called Discovery Doctrine. This was an official deed that allowed Portugal, in consideration of public opinion of the time, to colonise areas of Africa.

Subsequently, in 1493, Pope Alexander VI extended this official deed to Spain, after the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the new world, in order to colonise the land on the other side of the Atlantic without difficulty.

The example of the Church was later imitated by other political entitles and historical religions which used it to increase their power in their areas of influence.

The principle established by the Discovery Doctrine officialised every possible abuse of land claimed by the European invaders in every continent all over the planet, where the murdered, raided and enslaved defenceless populations. By divine right, they were entitled to take possession of the land they discovered and everything on it, including the inhabitants, to do as they pleased.

Naturally as happened in Europe, there were peoples who, in the secret of their most traditional institutions, resisted the devastating rage of the invaders. Following this event, two precise categories of mankind were created on the Earth:

a) the so-called majority society, made up of the variegated society of colonisers, ruled by the religious ideology of the various Churches, which still dominate today and tend to draw weaker people into the culture, eliminating those who resist;

b) the minority society, made up of those who still withstand colonisation today and are defined as Natural or native peoples, who are the only people who uphold