Originally Published April 2008

A compilation of essays and talks by Indigenous leaders from First Nation cultures around the world, members of Bioneers who have spoken at recent conferences, this book presents 'How To' earth wisdom that should be at the forefront of global efforts to restore the planet. These activists, chiefs, elders, midwives and shamans use straight talk that strikes at the heart of mainstream misconceptions regarding political history, the environment, women's issues and ideological constructs offering positive alternatives with a spiritual worldview that respects all life. Descendants of generations that thrived in natural environments, they are recapturing first hand knowledge inherited through millennia of creating harmonious societies. On the verge of extinction after suffering from the genocidal tactics of colonizers and corporate mavericks still exploiting their territories, these speakers celebrate the recovery of indigenous languages, sacred stories and food gathering practices. When they identify themselves, their ' "I am" is "I am the land".
 
In his talk "A Democracy Based on Peace", Onondaga Chief Oren Lyons, tells how at one time, a great Peacemaker came among the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) who brought together leaders of the original five nations – Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas and helped them create a confederacy ruled by the Great Law of Peace. Few people know that when the colonizers declared independence from England, Onandagan methods of self-governance became their model. "All of those people who were out there on the frontiers loved to be free…in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1744 when several of the governors were arguing among themselves, one of the Onondaga leaders stood up and said to them, "You know you're never going to amount to anything until you quit arguing with one another. Why don't you make a union like ours, why don't you make a league of unity, peace and democracy." Benjamin Franklin agreed and in 1754 he called the Albany Plan of Union meeting that lead to the American Revolution.

Many of the speakers' native lands, food plants, marine life and general livelihoods have been destroyed when big business and government interests buy into their territories with false promises and leave toxic devastation in their wake. In her presentation "Powerful Like a River", Kati Cook, Wolf Clan Mohawk, who grew up swimming in the St. Lawrence River, states that when the St. Lawrence Seaway Project, spearheaded by Robert Moses, opened the Great Lakes to industrial development in the 1950's, contaminants from the riverbed were dredged up and dumped on reservation shores. As a mid-wife, one of the many health risks she evaluated was the high level of PCBs in native mother's breast milk. When she became a grass roots organizer in the environmental justice movement dealing with huge moneyed complicity and Federal law, she became instrumental in identifying crisis. She states, "As a community you can engage the research process as a process of empowerment, but we need to be very cautious in laying down the groundwork in negotiating our relationship with scientific institutions." 

With the best intentions, but only textbook knowledge, many 'green' initiatives are misguided. In the chapter "Restoring Indigenous History and Culture to Nature", speakers Dennis Martinez, Enrique Salmon and Mellisa K. Nelson discuss contrasts and areas of cooperation between native agricultural methods and the Western environmental movement. Dennis Martinez of O'odham/Chicano/Anglo heritage describes tribal relations with nature as kinetic. He comments, "Humans don't have the moral authority to extend ethics to the land community as the Leopold land ethic and deep ecology do… We are co-managers with animals and plants." He gives specific examples when interference with tribal practices that once successfully maintained a species, as well as improved its food harvesting, ended in destruction. The Coast Miwok of Marin County tended eleven clam beds, but after the California Department of Fish and Game stopped them to preserve the resource, only one bed remained. By moving the beds, the Indians had protected them from over-population and the spread of disease.  Andean, Julio Valladodid Rivera said, "I want to finish by saying that the agriculture of the future will resemble more the agriculture of the first peoples than commercial agriculture today. The conception of life must be reinvigorated because it is the guarantee of maintaining life on the planet."

In "She is Us: Thought Woman and the Sustainability of Worship" poet Paula Gunn Allen, who grew up in Pueblo culture, expounds on the Great Mother. With iconoclastic wit, she explains why it is difficult to translate native stories about Her that reflect a worldview filled with multiplicity and interaction. She believes that reverence for the feminine principle should be motivating and says, "She's not pretty, she's beautiful… She is one scary bitch." As nature She dwarfs our efforts and illusions. "We don't understand the supernaturals… What the tribal people all recognize is that those communities are absolutely real and have everything to do with us. What we've done in the West is walk away from them and say, Oh, superstition, Oh, devil. Oh, evil… We've put military bases on sacred spots… we've found the sacred places and we've bombed them. Not in war, we call it target practice."  In her way of thinking, "You can't change, fix, or solve anything. But you can live and learn and have gratitude and love."

In her introduction, Melissa K. Nelson, writes, "Unlike many classical Western and Eastern prophesies, Indigenous prophecies do not necessarily revolve around a prophet. Maybe a prophet brought the teaching, but the emphasis is on the message and the collective tribal body or community that holds the message, not the messenger."  Having given early warning of global warming for many years before public awareness, Hopi Indian Thomas Banyacya, finally addressed the General Assembly at the United Nations in 1998 sharing ancient prophecy with world delegates. Ironically, as he was predicting natural backlash, that day in New York City a rainstorm left more than 3 feet of water and the building was shut down.

Bioneers, which have held annual conferences for over 18 years, is an educational non-profit whose mission is to foster "solutions grounded in four billion years of evolutionary intelligence." With candidates today demanding 'Change', perhaps the next president should place a Bioneer in the cabinet who would lead America to 'Recovery'. By purchasing this book you become part of the solution by supporting the Hacienda Rio Cote Project reforesting lands in Costa Rica. 

Original Instructions
Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future
Edited by Melissa K. Nelson
Contributions by John Mohawk, Winona LaDuke, John Trudell, and others
Published by Bear & Company 2008
Available at: www.innertraditions.com

Griselda Steiner

Originally Published October 2008

Inherent in the title of Seth Kantner's second book "Shopping for Porcupine" is a subtle irony. If it were "Hunting for Porcupine" the meaning would be clear, but politically incorrect. Seth writes, "Hunting was once the thread in every stitch of my life, before technology and dollars unraveled me to a point where I could not eat, wear or justify all I could hunt."

Having grown up in a sod Igloo in Northern Alaska and raised by parents who gave up the conveniences of middle class American life, Seth learned skills similar to those used for centuries by native Inupiaq. In my 2004 review of his stunning debut novel, "ORDINARY WOLVES", I wrote, "The book offers vivid descriptions of his unique experience living off the land, hunting caribou, clashing and reconciling with local Eskimos and traveling a vast landscape threatened by exploitation. Without addressing eco-political issues directly, the book champions conservation by simply sharing the author's intimate tale of survival and reverence." In this nonfiction book, Seth's critique on the effects of modernization, global warming and misguided Federal policies is to the point. His romantic view of his people and landscape gives way to a clear vision of the devastating changes that have taken place in the span of four decades.

In his beginning essays, "the candy store" and "non-dairy creamer", Seth tells stories of his father Howard's youth, marriage to his mother Erna and decision to live off the land. In "counting fish" and "brothers on the trapline", he describes the primitive hunting, trapping, fishing and food storage techniques he and his older brother Kole imitate and innovate as well as long winter nights spent with only icy winds, mice and home schooling books as companions.

As Seth grows older, his essays include character studies of old timers and their unique perspectives. He tells how, even after he finds a wife who shares his wilderness lifestyle who gives him a daughter and his writing career takes off, the beauty and challenge of the tundra fuels his inner drive to 'camp'. When he goes out on his snowmobile, a machine that replaces the homemade dog and sled team of his youth, he observes in detail animal tracks, direction and quality of wind, condition of water, snow and ice and distant sounds turning his lonely treks into fantastic journeys.

Disgusted by the indifference of tourist trophy hunters, Seth gives up using his gun for a camera. His double page photographs of caribou crossings in changing seasons, musk oxen in snow drifts, the Jade Mountains silhouetted by night skies on the horizon, lone wolf chased by ravens, porcupine strolling on the river shore, grizzly guarding a kill, bring his text to life.  His innate understanding of nature is made more poignant when he writes about the fate of his dear friend, a naturalist photographer who is killed by a bear.

The issues Seth raises are multi-dimensional.  In terms of global warming, Seth writes, "Ironically, warmth, on the surface at least, is not hard to accept. Especially in the Arctic. With it, I'm afraid we may have to accept many other things; funerals not just for people but also for whole species and food and familiar ways we love – such as traveling on the ice." In matching photographs of open tundra taken in 1965 and 2007 the amount of new vegetation due to climate change makes a stark comparison.

Seth discusses the history of native rights legislation in his essay 'once upon a frontier'. Bogged down in conflicting interests and value systems, some questions seem to have never been resolved. According to Seth, "National parks surround this place, begging for tourist statistics and appropriations, the native corporation dreams strip mines and jobs and somehow subsistence hunting; the state schemes road corridors and petroleum. The oil companies have leapfrogged us too and are galloping across the North slope, encircling us too, up the Chukchi coast. The bureaucrats have plans, big plans."

Sarah Palin, running as VP on the Republican ticket, puts Alaska's ecological issues center stage on the national scene. Rather than call for restoration and protection of natural resources and wildlife, she is for more drilling in her state, specifically in Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Coast of the northern terrain Seth has marked on his map. Perhaps Red and Blue designated states will turn Green and Black as voters have a choice between a party promoting alternate energy fuels and the other continued destruction of Mother earth.

"I'm thinking that here, as in the Old West, it is what we've lost that marks who we are much more than these things we've gained." Here, Seth implies what shouldn't have to be put into words - that certain places should be left alone, their purpose solely 'to be' and like some deep reservoir in the subconscious mind, preserved as an everlasting source of sacred space.

Seth Kantner is also the author of ORDINARY WOLVES
Winner of the Milkweed National Fiction Prize,
the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and the Whiting Award.