Message of the Elders: Perceptions on the Fate of the Earth

By José Barreiro

Talk at Ecological Perspectives of Different Faiths: Environment and Climate Change

B’nai Israel Congregation Rockville, Md. April 28, 2013

“Taino-ti, guatiaos,

daca Hatueyael

daca Jose Barreiro

daca taino-guajiro-camagüey

He ne, wakeyaya, wajuopia heh. Anhan Katu.”

        In the language of my ancestors, Taino-guajiro people of the Caribbean: “I greet you with noble sentiments of friendship, you are all luminous beings. Mother Earth - Father Sky are sacred together.”

        American Indian or American Indigenous spiritual and cultural traditions vary greatly, and yet they share overarching coherence. Indigenous cultures are largely ecosystemic, rooted in particular places. Among the cultures of 574 Native nations recognized by the federal government in the US, over 630 in Canada, over 800 in Latin America, there are more than a thousand languages and a wide range of ceremonial cycles, song and prayer rituals, sacred dances, deep orality. Native people occupy a wide range of eco-systems -- we are people of the mountain, of river valleys, coasts, the desert, the forest. *

        Appreciating the commonality within vast diversity, many widely shared spiritual perceptions can be found among the many cultures. Five general “convictions” clearly emerge, throughout all the traditions, through the agricultural, hunting and gathering ceremonial cycles and other Natural World activity of the broad range of Indigeneity, from the Sundance people of the Northern Great Plains, the eastern woodlands Indian confederacies, the pueblos and the Navajos of the southwest, to the forest shamanistic ceremonies of the Amazon, the Andean cordilleras and the Mapuche valleys of Chile and Argentina.

        Conviction One: is “World Alive.” The World is Alive, everything collects and reflects consciousness or spirit energy, connection, even cognizance. Anthropology calls this “animism.” It means, everything lives. Even in the personality of special spaces, sacred places. Nature responds to human sincerity, because, “We are all related,” as say the Lakota, in their language, Mitakuye Oyasin. Speaking to the deities, requesting permission for using their natural powers, is to acknowledge that they are alive, can hear and assist our intention. Among traditional indigenous, this is an easily shared perception.

        Conviction Two: Appreciation. The human beings should appreciate the Creation that sustains us. “Everything in the Universe wants to be appreciated,” an elder Seneca man once told me. A very ancient teaching, it informs all ceremony. Appreciation is in the ancient memory and in all ceremony. Some nations refer to this as an ancestral teaching: “The Original Instructions.” Human beings’ special responsibility, for having a reasoning mind, is to offer periodic “thanks” to all the elements of the Creation. The burning of tobacco is widespread, what the Haudenosaune (Iroquois), for example, call, “The Thanksgiving Address.” Among my Taino people in Cuba, Cacique Panchito offers cigar smoke in this fashion to the Four Directions, to give thanks to la Madre Tierra and other powers. “Ai, Madre Tierra, que tanto te debemos …” he says, directly. “Oh, Mother Earth, we owe you so much ... .”

        Conviction Three: Reciprocity. This is to give and to take in a continuous re-gifting. Reciprocity should guide in all relations. Recognition of the dualities of all life, the inherent symmetry in all of nature is in this principle. Human community is well-served by the values of reciprocity. This reflects in common work parties, mutual support; giving back to the earth, clans and families serving each other in times of need, births, marriages, funerals. “Payments to the Mother Earth,” or to the mountain deities is the ceremony of reciprocity.

        Conviction Four: Balance or the search for equilibrium. Health is defined in terms of finding and keeping balances in life. The balance of the dualities is crucial to contemplate; it ushers wisdom in all discussion. Nature has a balance that humans do well to understand and respect.

        Conviction Five: The Indigenous Way is a Thinking Tradition. Sustaining and enhancing a rational way of thinking about life and nature based on the first four principles, as foundational; the traditional instruction: is don’t lose that indigenous worldview, “Thinking in Indian,” Native philosopher Dr. John Mohawk called it, advising the generations. “Keep it going, keep it going.”

        Generally, Native life, still in many places, sustains practice within eco-systems; continues thinking and action that must observe nature systems and cycles; that pays attention to weather and climate, animal and plant migration, temperature and moisture. This is very strong tradition and inclination and conviction, even to the point of prophecy. The most documented American Indian prophetic traditions, and the ongoing spiritual messaging that comes through “the Dreamtime” world are gifted – rich and stark - in messages about the impact of modern human existence on the living earth, greeted and identified, truly, in many cultures, as mother, -- “Wakeya; Maka; Etanoha; Pachamama,” in just four languages. Mother Earth.

        “Mother Earth is hurting,” is the message heard among many elder traditions. This is not “New Age” thinking. This is from the Indigenous discourse. There have been warnings given by some of the ancient cultures, notably the Hopi, from Arizona, who sent runners out from the sacred kivas in the 1950s, warning humankind to be more humble, not to pillage and waste the productions of the mother earth. There has been a lot of this dialogue, among Native elders from many different nations, and with other peoples, around the world. If the human being does not restrain himself, the earth’s systems will be disrupted; she will purify herself. This is the Prophecy of the Purification, that Native elders have expressed, among other such messages.

        The messages come through nature, through the observations of daily and seasonal activity, through ceremonial connection, and through dreams. At this moment, the message is more noticeable, perhaps more intense.

        Everywhere, among elders, there is great concern.

        I personally have heard much testimony over three decades, with culture-bearing elders, from Caribbean, Meso-American (Maya); Haudenosaunee (Mohawk); Northern Great Plains (Lakota), and other cultures. People who live in primary relations with nature (arrogantly denigrated as “primitive”), including many indigenous people, very often comment on the serious changes they see in their eco-systems.

        From my own elder culture, I have documented the oral tradition, the spirituality, of the cacique don Panchito Ramirez, community of la Rancheria, in the mountains of Guantanamo, eastern Cuba.

        For over a decade, Cacique Panchito has dreamed the spirit of the Mother Earth. She tells him, he reports, that she is “troubled by her children,” but still calm, he says, “with the patience of a mother.” But she fears the heat of the Sun. “He almost burns me now,” she tells Panchito in her dream.

        In the summer Sundances held in the Lakota country, elders speak directly about their concern over drought, over the disrespect for the natural systems of the earth. Our relation there, Headwoman and Grandmother, Beatrice Long Visitor, who officiated a major Sundance in the Black Hills of South Dakota, that’s the message she always presented. “Protect the Earth; keep the land; protect the women.”

        We hear similar messaging from throughout the hemisphere. From the Arctic Circle, among Inuit and Yupik, and others. The Caribou people say it; the Northern Cree, the Anishinabe. “Seasons seem to slip,” they tell us. Animals and insects roam more widely, earlier in the seasons. There is serious and widespread drought in many parts – in the Midwest and Southwest, in the Caribbean and in Central America. The warming trend is noticeable everywhere. Most recently, in the Andes, the ancient mountain glaciers, natural dams that supply most of the needed water in that vast region; the glaciers are melting at alarming rates. Disappearing natural ice everywhere, from the Andes to the Arctic. As the white of the mountain ice recedes and the dark stone emerges from underneath, the mountains turn dark, and the Andean elders, the Quechua, say, “The earth is changing, and the mountains are dressed in dark; they must be in mourning.”

        Among the tribal colleges, among tribal governments, groups and coalitions are addressing, researching and mitigating against the impacts of climate change. There is great concern about clean water; about animal migrations and fertility – the people of the salmon want to save the salmon, the people of the sturgeon want to save the sturgeon; the people of the buffalo, in fact, have been bringing the buffalo back to the Great Plains, a great story, now affected by climate change as well; the corn farmers; people who pick herbal medicines, basket makers who depend on particular species of trees, they all notice changes, alarming changes. New beetle infestations wiping out important trees, like the black ash, crucial for basket making in many places. There are thousands of such examples, empirically gathered, increasingly logged and interpreted.

        Big changes; big impacts. The Native peoples notice, speak about it, respond. In prayer, in ceremonies of healing for the earth and the universe, “el Mundo,” ceremonies of appreciation, ceremonies that seek balance are held. In the midst of many social problems and historical traumas, the Native peoples respond to this issue most directly, from the heart, with the connectivity of spirit, in many forms and in many fronts.

        I am confident to represent to you here today, on the day Maya people in their calendar call, 5 Zkin, which is the day of the Corn and of birds, a day of abundance, that as we send our message to the universe, throughout the Americas, Native people from many cultures still speak to, with and for the Mother Earth. This can be over-romanticized, even made to look silly, but that is only simple ignorance. The Dream of the Earth is, in fact, part and parcel, core and heart, of American Indian / American Indigenous traditional spirituality.

Hahom. Thank you.

*  There are 826 different indigenous peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean, with an estimated population of 58 million people (ECLAC, 2014)