When it comes to rural NDN country today, we are still dealing with the aftermath of missionaries who tried to convert us to death. "Kill the Indian, save the man... (or child)."
Here in Northern California (on reservation row), from one corner to the next a person can literally count the amount of churches boasting various Anglo-faiths on two hands.
In addition to the usual suspects: baptist, jehova's witness, mormon, non-denomonational, evangelical, pentecostal, etc.; there are also several hybrid religions that emerged when Native Self-Sacrifice for the Fixing of the World hooked up with the Cross and gave birth to "all sorts of jumpin and jiving."
That is how powerful our native religion is, when the most powerful churches & country alligned themselves against our cultural selves and cultural salvation; our religions did not die.
When driven between four walls, Earth religion simply began to dance between pews!
Thus we began to stomp dance, while wearing crosses-
speak in tounges while receiving visions from god at public ceremonies that happened to be held on Sunday to the rhythm of a steel guitar-
Thus we received the gospel of snake handlers, and we handled native snakes ourselves-
Thus we bought pictures of Jesus and marveled about how much he looked like our cousin down the road, you know- the one with long hair & a beard...
Our Native religions were so strong, when it became safe to come back in their traditional forms, our dances were born again!
...and yet, the only ones who had seen the dances in their oldest & purest forms
were elders
members of a stolen generation
converts by force
by osmosis
by proximity
show me who your friends and neighbors are faithful too...
and i'll show you your religion-
well, during the time of revival it is said that the misfits of a generation embraced the indian identities that made it impossible for them to assimilate-
and so the spiritualists put down their liquid medicine and took up packing obsidian instead- and so the spiritualists took up dancing basket, again...
the young were hungry for a religion that belonged to them,
instead of religious figure heads that simple shared a similar haircut
but in a world post-christian influence
where the native religion had so strongly influenced the various forms of christianity in NDN country...
as the traditional elders taught us how to be,
their peers showed up to ceremony to socialize
and many of them were still more afraid of hell then they were of the earth not being fixed-
post boarding school, post-attempted genocide, post-traumatic-stress-DISorder...
christian values, the mean and undermining ones
the anti-love socialization practices
began to trickle into Native Religion.
And so we have reached a time of Neo-Traditionalism where Eurocentric rural thinking is tampering with Earth based ancient belief systems and the results are having troubling effects on Native community mindsets...
" 'In rural areas, more than any other geographic setting, conformity is strongly urged, if not demanded. Deviation from the 'traditional way of living' is strongly discouraged(Foster, 1997, pg.24)' This has positive & negative consequences. Well-established behavioral norms provide clear guidelines in many areas of life and reduce the incidents of deviant behaviors, such as alcohol abuse. On the other hand, those individuals who are 'different' may be stigmatized more than in diverse urban environments. Unfortunately racism, sexism, and homophobia may be tolerated in this conservative context (Smith & Mancoske, 1997). "
Add this reality to the confusion of Indigenous Wealth, and European monetary value and the result is a troubled time on the rivers. A time where how you conform is more important then how you treat others, a time where sometimes who you know is more important then how you live...
But, in the words of Bobby Dylan, "the times, they are a' chang'in."
No comments:
Post a Comment