Native
American Prophecies: Examining the History, Wisdom and Starling
Predictions of Visionary Native Americans by Scott Peterson, Paragon
House, New York, 1990.
The
author of this book has an agenda, and at lease he admits this agenda
upfront in the preface. “I have also been keenly aware that many
important trends that have been building for generations appear to be
coming to a head during my lifetime. None of these are so critical to
our future than what we human beings are doing to the earth.” The
author is hoping to write about environmentalism, and put that inside a
book of Native American Prophecies. He further writes in the chapter
about the Mayans, “The most compelling evidence of Mayan influence,
however, is the shared belief among all Native Americans of the
sacredness of creation itself. NO other culture that ever existed on
earth has surpassed the native American reverence for nature.” Some
pretty bold statements. First the influence of the Mayan may not be so
prevalent, and the common beliefs could come from some other party;
perhaps predating the Mayan. And then to say no other culture. I am
sure he is not familiar with every culture that has ever lived.
The
book leads eventually to his talking about Sun Bear, and environmental
Native American prophet who has established a group of like minded
individuals, Native Americans and others, and fostered in it a religion
to “save the earth.” The author quotes one critic, Professor Ward
Churchill (wasn’t he cheering on the terrorists on 9-11) who said of Sun
Bear, “selling of ersatz sweat lodge and medicine wheel ceremonies to
anyone who wants to play Indian for a day and can afford the price of
admission.”
In
the end, my thoughts, are that this issue of environmentalism may be
over blown. I consider myself a conservationist. We must do our best
to conserve the planet, while also making way for people to live and
prosper. The author makes sure people’s opinions about President Reagan
and George Bush (1st) are known, in terms of environmental
issues. Al Gore and his mold have taken over this movement with the
purpose of making money off of the sacrifice of others. I am for
clean-up days and dong our best to making our planet habitable for all,
while at the same time making decisions to prosper us all as well. I
think we have gone a bit over the top at times.
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