What Native People Taught Me

Friends talked of using the time of social distancing during Covid to “clear the clutter” at their homes, so as winter arrived and farm chores decreased, I decided to do the same. Unfortunately, my attempts quickly involved more reminiscing than decluttering. High on a closet shelf, I rediscovered the fifty-year-old aerograms that I had written home as a twenty-year-old in Peace Corps. Those blue, single-sheet letters from a West African village in the Sahara contained so much joy that I became motivated to dig out letters and photos from a later time which also felt joyful to me.

That later time was when I joined Indian Health Service in my fifties, and worked with Native Peoples’ tribes in the southwest United States and Alaska. This winter of reminiscing has helped me to remember why I could feel so at home with people living in such extremes: the desert’s heat or the forty-below temperatures of the arctic.

In retrospect, what seemed to give me joy when living with either the Hausa of Niger or the Inuit of the arctic was their strong sense of community. I felt embraced in cultures where community is defined more by how people think and act than by location. For example, these Native Peoples had very few personal possessions, and yet individuals didn’t strive for more; food, clothing or money frequently flowed from one household to another. I witnessed Hausa people in Niger not thanking each other when gifts were exchanged; they thanked God that they were able to either give or receive. Rather than claiming ownership or striving to accumulate wealth, they simply expressed gratitude for being able to share.

Examples of strong communities also abound in the arctic. When Inuit men go out on the ocean with their small seal-skin canoes, they know others in the community will take care of their families. When these hunters return, all the villagers go down to the ocean to help butcher the whale or seal. No money is exchanged when the meat is divided among the entire village, including the elderly and the disabled. They all survive together.

If an individual has been able to accumulate money or goods, a “potlatch” is held. This is where those who have more than others are honored to give away what they don’t need. I was able to attend a potlatch in Bethel, Alaska and it was a festive occasion where the person being honored was the one giving the gifts. With everyone in this Yup’ik community dressed in their best and in high spirits, it resembled a “backwards birthday party” where the guests received rather than gave gifts. The gift was given or received with the same high enthusiasm whether it was a woven basket, tundra berries preserved in seal oil, dried salmon or even a seal fur.

A century ago, a missionary wrote home from that same community telling how “stupid” the native boys were because it took him a year to teach the children to play baseball. What he did not understand is that cooperation is essential for any community to

survive; competition results in winners and losers and a true community does not have losers. As someone who has always rooted for the underdog, that was an easy lesson for me to absorb.

It is not only these kinds of communities that I miss. I was taught the Lakota phrase Mitakuye Oyasin by a Lakota-Sioux friend who lives in Ohio. These words are usually translated as “we are all related.” This concept, which seemed universal to the different communities I lived in, feels natural to me. Not only do I like being “connected” to all life on this planet, but working on a farm makes it evident that nature’s laws apply to all species, including us.

There is a delightful story told to me by an Inuit man that takes this connection even further. Before going out on a whale hunt, the native people of the arctic have a “blanket toss,” where one person is thrown into the air to look far out to sea. I always assumed this was done to see if there were whales present. “Oh no,” an elder told me. It was to let the whale know that they needed its meat. “How else could we, in our small seal-skin canoes, ever capture a whale if it did not give itself to us?,” he asked convincingly. Well, how else indeed? At home, our meal-time prayer is one of gratitude to our homestead’s beautiful animals that provide our food. They depend on us to survive as we depend on them.

That we are “all one" is also exemplified by the Tsimshian people in Metlakatla, Alaska. They each inherit their “totem” animal from their mother: killer whale, raven, wolf or bald eagle. These animals, and others, are referred to as their brothers and sisters. I was delighted to learn from a Tsimshian friend that being one with all living things included not only other animals, but plants. When I was told to turn right at Grandfather tree, I no longer feared getting lost when hiking. It makes me smile to remember that “Grandfather” actually had a spur pointing the correct way. I’ve had a lifetime of wanting to touch, embrace and talk to trees. Being with people who openly felt a kinship to trees felt like coming home.

In addition to Native Peoples’ concept of community and their sense of being related to all life, I also value that many of these people take into account the welfare of “seven generations to come” when making decision. For those of us who strive to leave our corner of the world a better place than we found it, it feels irresponsible that some in our culture prioritize wealth-building above the welfare of future generations. As we watch our planet being plundered, species becoming extinct, topsoil disappearing and precious water contaminated in the name of profit, we have to ask, “Don’t these people also have children and grandchildren?”

So, here I am, living in one culture while trying to incorporate the values of other cultures. This time of reminiscing has allowed me to see that I don’t need to live with Native People to live in harmony with what they taught me. We who are close to the earth—gardening, tending animals, caring for bees, nurturing an orchard—are already doing many of the things that helped Native Peoples to thrive.

Realizing that these concepts are already woven into my life has been empowering to me and makes these years richer in many ways.

One important realization is that, like Native Peoples, I have a caring community. We depend on our neighbors as we help each other during haying season, a difficult calving, an unexpected surgery or with excess garden produce. Not exchanging money means the neighborly exchanges continue, and that is community.

Perhaps my husband and I aren’t doing so badly either in recognizing that “we are all one.” We’ve been able to create habitat for other species by planting wide fencerows and restoring a conventionally-farmed field into wetlands and grasslands. Our neighbor is probably correct when he calls our farm animals “spoiled,” but if each of us has but one precious life, then perhaps a bit of spoiling is okay—especially when it brings us enjoyment. We are “all one” in many ways.

I’ve also come to feel better about our ability to plan for seven generations to come. Like many of you, we work on regenerating topsoil and helping to save heirloom animals and seeds because that seems critical for our children’s ability to grow food. We also want them to have a stable climate, so I became alarmed two decades ago when I witnessed climate change already evident in the arctic. Even though individual effort may seem like a drop in the bucket, we had solar panels installed and I became more faithful about using the clothes line. My husband dug a cistern to contain rain water from roofs for the garden. We want future generations to not only have soil to grow their food, but also have drinkable water and a stable climate.

It’s probably time for me to incorporate a potlatch into our routine because our house still has its share of clutter! Even so, this time of reminiscing has allowed me to appreciate that we don’t need to wait for our culture to change in order to live what we believe. This is true for us whether we live in a city, suburb or farm; we do have the power to live by the values that will make things better for ourselves, future generations and all life on this planet. It’s not just what Native Peoples know. That wisdom is deep inside each of us.