Telling the Story: Native- American Spirituality and Sovereignty
by Marvin B. Abrams
Storytelling is key to understanding Native-American spirituality and Native-American sovereignty. From ancient times and among all Peoples of the earth, storytelling had a special role in the lives of the Peoples. Storytelling:
It is through stories that we learn about ourselves, our neighbors and our culture. Through stories, we learn how we must treat one another. Such is the story of the rabbit who wanted to show off told by Ernest Benedict, a Mohawk from the St. Regis Reservation in New York State:
Rabbit was showing how fast and how long he could run. He ran so long that eventually it began snowing and the snow got packed underneath him and lifted him up. It snowed and snowed. Soon he found himself in the branches of the trees, so he jumped into a tree and fell asleep.
While he was sleeping, the snow melted and there he was up in the tree. His tail and ears got caught in a branch so that his ears stretched and his tail was permanently stuck up there. Then he fell and hit his nose against a sharp object that split his face. That explains his split nose and his stretched-out ears, and why his tail comes out every spring in the pussy willows.
And so a lesson is learned about showing off.
Stories are meant to entertain as well as to teach. Ernest Benedict shares a story about two men competing in tending their gardens:
One man dug up a potato that was so big it filled a wheelbarrow. Another man, not to be outdone, said, "I got one so big that when I dug it up out of the garden, I hit it with a shovel and it sounded hollow. So I cut a hole and got down inside of it and found another garden in it with a potato field."
Stories have another function. They tell the history of a People and ensure that history will be passed from generation to generation. Richard Twiss, in an article entitled "The Bleeding Heart of Native American" in the April 1999 issue of Charisma and Chrisitan Life, asks readers to imagine the following situation:
Your country has been invaded by a foreign power that’s military is walking your streets. You are dealing with the harsh realities of hunger and poverty when this army comes to your door to say your children will be sent to boarding school. The army does not know when you will not see them again. The invaders have decided to teach your children their culture and values. Even if your children come home, they will be required to keep returning to the foreigners’ school until their education is complete. Mr. Twiss writes:
"Your children, will be forced to reject their native language. They will be taught their way of life is evil and will be forced to give it up. The foreigners will make your children their own by breaking their tender spirits and forcing unfamiliar ways upon them."
Mr. Twiss concludes:
"We know, of course, that America was not conquered by a foreign military power last year. But the foreigners I just mentioned are real. So are the schools. What I described is American history. It is the way the American Indian lived at the hands of the white church and the U.S. government."
Story versus fact
You don't need statistical or historical data in this story of relationships between Native Peoples and European invaders. The story helps listeners sense the pain and suffering that helps them discover clues to a story that must not be forgotten.
Mr. Twiss is a Native American. The story he shares is not often told from a Native-American perspective. Most often this story -- often called history -- is written and taught by the victor, not the victims. The story of the victor has led to stereotyping of Native Peoples and the unconscious attempt to keep them in the 19th century.
Mr. Twiss’ story, and the stories of the rabbit and the men with the potatoes, are shared here to give you a framework upon which to build an understanding of Native-American spirituality and Native-American sovereignty. Following is a four-session Bible study that draws on the power of each individual's story as it shares information on Native-American spirituality and how that spirituality impacts Native Americans’ response to life experiences. Through spiritual journeys, many Native Americans have come to understand that God has entrusted us with the self, families, creation and church.
The four sessions relate to four directions:
Each session is divided into two sections: Hearing the Bible and hearing the Native-American story. The focus of all the sessions is one question: How do we hear from each other with understanding?
Session 1: Caring for self
Read Deuteronomy 6:4:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord is Our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.
Discuss this text’s focus on total commitment of self. Consider the four elements of self: spiritual, physical, emotional and intellectual. Compare the message of this passage with the Sweat Lodge Ceremony and the Vision Quest, which entail listening for God, followed by total commitment of the self to the message of the Creator. For information on these Native-American spiritual practices, see .
Session 2: Caring for family
To understand the Native-American family, you must consider the children, youth, adults and elders. Elders are adults, but in the American-Indian community, elders are more specifically those who are recognized by the community as leaders, those who have achieved a level of wisdom that is hard to dispute.
Read Deuteronomy 6:7-9:
Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates.
Discuss this passage as it relates to caring for family. Then view the video "The Good Mind," which focuses on the Native-American family and the interface of Native-American culture and the Church. This video is available from .
Session 3: Caring for Creation
Native Americans are not only related to family, but to a Creation that is sacred. The four areas of concern in caring for Creation are air, water, earth and creatures.
Read Genesis 1_2:4 and Genesis 2:4_25:
The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness....These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created....then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground,...and the man became a living being....
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it....
These biblical passages can be compared to the "Creation Story of the Iroquois," found in , or the Yokuts Trickster tale, "The Beginning of the World," shared here:
Everything was water except a small piece of ground. On this ground were Eagle and Coyote. When the turtle swam to them, they sent it to dive for the earth at the bottom of the water. The turtle barely succeeded in reaching the bottom and touching it with his foot. When it came up again, all the earth seemed washed out.
Coyote looked closely at his nails. At last he found a grain of earth. Then he and Eagle took this earth and laid it down. From it they made the earth as large as it is. From the earth, they also made six women and six men. They sent these out in pairs in different directions.
After a time, Eagle and Coyote went to see what the People were doing. Coyote came back and said, "They are doing something bad. They are eating the earth. One side is already gone."
Eagle said, "This is bad. Let us make something for them to eat. Let us send the dove to find something."
The dove went out. It found a single grain of meal. Eagle and Coyote put this on the ground. Then the earth became covered with seeds and fruit. They told the People to eat these. When the seeds were dry and ripe, the People gathered them. Then the People increased and spread all over. But the water is still under the world.
The video entitled "Honorable Nations" can be shown. This is a public TV video on Native-American sovereignty and how the land is sacred to Native Americans. It is available from .
Discuss the video to help participants understand the Native-American concept of Creation and Native Peoples’ relation to Creation.
Session 4: Caring for the Church
Following the four-directions concept, the focus of church_care is on prayers, presence, gifts and service. These elements are part of the vow taken by those joining The United Methodist Church and are responses to the love of God.
Read Genesis 28:17b-22:
"How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."
So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He called that place Bethel; but the name of the city was Luz at the first. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house; and of all that you give me I will surely give one tenth to you."
You may also read Acts 2, which focuses on the power of the Holy Spirit. Compare this Scripture with Native-American views of Spirit as explained in Chief Joseph's statement:
"We were taught to believe that the Great Spirit sees and hears everything, and that he never forgets, that hereafter he will give man a spirit-home according to his desires: If he has been a good man, he will have a good home. If he has been a bad man, he will have a bad home. This I believe, and all my people believe the same."
Sharing stories
Close this Bible study with a time of sharing stories that reflect the spiritual journeys of the participants. Consider the following questions:
When we hear each others’ answers to these questions, we can begin to respect and protect each other’s right to experience the reality of God's presence through each person’s cultural and spiritual ways.
Ruby Dunstan, a Native-American woman from the Lytton band of the Nlaka'pamus People of British Columbia, Canada, shares a stirring story:
"I think the most important thing is the preservation of our spirituality -- what's left of it. Without spirituality, there isn't anything else. For me, spirituality means believing in who you are, what you are, and practicing everything that you've been taught by your elders -- how to fish, how to hunt, how to reserve those fish, how to pick the berries, how to use the berries and traditional foods. That's all part of spirituality, because if you don't have spirituality then you don't have those things....You are an empty shell."
The Rev. Marvin B. Abrams, M.Div., Seneca, is pastor of the Native American United Methodist Church of Southern California. He oversees gathering sites of Native American United Methodists in Oxnard, San Diego and downtown Los Angeles, and on the Torres Martinez Reservation.