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Native American Experience [California] (5 pages)
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Page: of 5
California Historical Quarterly
volitical and social theory, and also from the viewpoint of modern” .
vans alienated by mass socicty, big government, crime, and so on.
night well argue that democracy reached its highest stage of deent not in Greece (where, after all, most of the people were slaves
ided from decision making) but in native California, Of course, it
rue that Californian democracy was able to endure only because of
religious and social conditions which might be regarded as disadvansome quarters. First, most California socictics discouraged the action of material wealth and required hospitality and sharing (that is,
-d” in the sense that a miser would be a social outcast and could not
public office), Many leaders were indeed “wealthy men”; they
calthy because one of the duties of a leader was to show hospitality:
re with others. Thus the people saw to it that a leader possessed
nough to give away.
lack of accumulated, inherited wealth and the required sharing
to prevent the development of hereditary social classes. Social
ire, of course, not only destructive of democracy but also, historiey probably gave rise to exploitation and large-scale imperialism.
id, native Californians (and all Indians) felt themselves to be somether than independent, autonomous individuals. They perceived
ves as being deeply bound together with other people (and with the
ding non-human forms of life) in a complex inter-connected web
that is to say, a true community. This communal outlook was at
ute profound, as when an individual conceived of his life as being
‘ss important than the life of the whole.
¢ various social outlooks, necessary to a true democracy, were in
‘unded in the native view of the universe and indeed can only be
nnprehended as part of the religious experience of the people. .
that, by and large, the Indian people conceived of the universe as
it of, and arising from, the Great Mystery or the Creator. All creaid all things came from the same Father and were, therefore.
sand sisters. From this idea came the basic principle of non-exploif respect and reverence for all creatures, a principle extremely hoshe kind of economic development typical of modern society and
‘ive of human morals, (It was this principle, I suspect, which more
“thing else preserved California in its “natural” state for 15,000 years.
the steady violation of this principle which, in a century and a half,
ight California to the verge of destruction.)
anfolding, creative process inherent in the Great Mystery takes the
at least two levels of reality, a mystical level and an ordinary dayvorld of sense perception, The mystical level is one typified by an
of physical boundaries and an absence of linear space-time relationis the realm, as it were, of ideal forms, a realm in which all creatures
.
The Native Anierican Experience 237
can and do participate both consciously and unconsciously. It is the realm
where, by means of dreams and visions, Indians can enter and secure direct
contact with the sources of “ power” (ability and knowledge) and with the
endless, cyclical creative processes of the universe.
The day-to-day level of sense perception is gencrally conceived of as a
less significant, but real and necessary, part of the unfolding of the Creator.
It is the stage, as it were, for the acting out or giving expression to the
“power” (or potentiality) of the universe. For example, an Indian doctor
acts out in this world the knowledge acquired by means of a vision-experience in the mystical realm. To put it another way, the “unconscious” of the
psychologist docs not exist in a separate area of the brain, but rather is a part
of a larger reality connecting all creatures and life itself.
This view of the universe affected Indian social life considerably, since
it caused them to share a world view common to mystics and the deeply
religious, they tended to emphasize eternal, enduring values, contacts with
the Great Mystery, and the acting out of the beauty and harmony of the
Universe in their own lives. At the same time, they deemphasized the acquisition of material goods and the other kinds of activities which arise from
a purely mechanical-materialistic view of reality.
It would be a mistake, of course, to portray all native Californians as
saints living in five hundred bi-sexual monastic communities. Buc in final
analysis, it is easier to understand the near perfection of the secular level of
Indian behavior if one is able to comprehend that Indian communtics were
indeed religious communties in which virtually every act had religious and
moral relevance. Indians were, and are, earthy, hearty, and happy people
(when among themselves) because their religion was not a negation of the
natural world and its processes. On the contrary, such things as sex, the
human body, and bodily functions were generally viewed as a vital part of
the Creation. In particular, the female-male relationship was scen as a vital
force in the total creative process of the Universe and one to be respected as
essentially a religious or at least a highly moral phenomenon.
Thus Indian communities were at the same time religions and “earthy”
hecause their religion did not create a dualism between the “spiritual” and
the “material.” The Indian view, like the Buddhist-Hindu-Asian view,
blended the spiritual and material into one process of unfolding and return.
The avoidance of dualism was, of course, a crucial philosophical step since
any dualistic system runs the risk of either overemphasizing the negation of
the material world (as in anti-sexual monastic orders) or the negation of the
spiritual world (as in European capitalist society).
I have devoted so much space to emphasizing religious and social behavior because native Californian civilization must be viewed as a 15,000
Year effort to perfect the inter-human and human-creation relationships.
In other words, the native Californians were not machine creating people,