6 Essays on Native American Thought & Behaviors

Martin initially summarizes the train of thought that led to the choice of the Indian as spokesperson for conservation in America. He leads the reader through the ideas of Leopold, the Transcendentalists, the landscape painters, Rachel Carson, and Paul Ehrlich, who brought popular thinking in the U.S. to a point of needing a powerful symbol for ecology (Martin, 158). Coinciding with disenchantment with the war in Southeast Asia came oil spills and proof that cigarettes cause cancer. Popular writers used the bon sauvage in sentimental literature such as Faulkner's The Bear, Melville's Moby Dick, and Hemingway's Nick Adams stories. In the 1960's and early 1970's utilitarian, aesthetic, social, health, and political forces came together in a type of fashionable anxiety and rage known as the Gospel of Ecology (Martin, 159). This movement needed an image to focus the movement, and the American Indian was so decreed.

Martin dispassionately looks at evidence on either side of the issue of whe

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life in another form. These beliefs make the Ojibwa people reserved when dealing with others. They are cautious because they want to be sure which spirit might be present at the time. The Nelson paper describes the relationship of the Alaskan Koyukon people to their environment. The main idea is that the Koyukon possess a detailed, elaborate knowledge of their environment and carefully live within in, mindful of spiritual punishment for wasteful over-use (Nelson, 211). Nelson, along with other writers, says that knowledge of the environment does not necessarily mean that it will be used conservatively. The Koyukon, however, do seem to have a deep conservation ethic. Certain aspects of their culture relate to subsistence activities·hunting, fishing, trapping, and gathering·sufficient to sustain approximately 2,000 people living in eleven villages (Nelson, 213). Because of extremely limited sunlight in the region, the resource picture for the Koyukon is delicate, constantly fluctuating, varying from one species to another. Such patterns require the utmost sensitivity in order to realize which species to hunt and which crop is expected to do well in a particular year. The Koyukon regards the environment as a "community
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 4037
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page)