59). Chief Seattle might not believe that land, sky, and oceans can be owned, but the white people think so, and busily go about claiming territories and expanding their horizons with whatever mechanisms are available.
This audacious approach to the resources of the land and environment posed a tremendous challenge to the cultures of the people who were already in the western hemisphere. The devastation and decimation of people have been chronicled by scholars, media, and popular entertainment. We saw it in Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves. The images of fields full of buffalo, mindlessly killed and skinned, lying to rot in the sun, are indelibly set in the national consciousness.
Part of the difficulty lies in the opposing opinions or views of the intellect over the senses. The Native American cultures viewed their environment and life in a visceral, wholistic manner, a deeply integrated approach to living that is almost incomprehensible to someone not of that background. We could blame Plato and Socrates before him for coldly stating that "trees and countryside have nothing to teach" (Rosenstand, 59). Many modern scholars believe that this early Greek influence on Christian thought set up a disdain for everything physical, both in nature and in human nature. There is a type of fear and prejudice against the primal forces that runs counter to the Native American acceptance of all aspects of life, growth, reproduction, and death. Those from the Greek and evolving Christian point of view were forever trying to leave the physical world, to rise above it and achieve unity with God. Such fusion with God leaves behind the evils of the physical world and poses a challenge to acceptance, cooperation, and simple courtesy to all life forms.
Western forms of rational thought challenge the more delicate balanced Native American views of man within nature. Western thought tends to be scientific and rational, viewing the natural...