Winona LaDuke

Including Winona LaDuke’s book Recovering the Sacred, in a religion and spirituality class did not make sense to me at first. It seemed more like a lesson in American history than a commentary on religion or spirituality. However I began to see a pattern in the relationship between Manifest Destiny, land seizure, and the theft of Native spirituality. Throughout this country’s history there has been an ever increasing pattern of consumption. As America began to grow in population (European settlement) more and more land was required and taken by force. Native people had not only their land, possessions, and lives taken away, but their remains as well. This pattern of consumption fulfilled the desires and mandates of the Christian faith, while it simultaneously destroyed another.
Native culture has been forced to take a back seat to that of Judeo-Christian faiths. It did not matter that Native peoples were here first, European settlers stole their land which was not only a life source, but spiritual source as well. The land was sacred and the sources of ancestral legends and yet the resources it contained were more important that maintaining Native grounds. This is not completely surprising in a world with a history of conquest and war, but what is surprising is what happened after the conquest. Within the U.S. we have built monuments and museums to our former conquests, which look back and try to help us remember what there once was. The museums like the Smithsonian and other keepers of historical artifacts have been revered and cherished within our society. I know that I myself have gone to several museums and even went to Washington D.C. just so I could venture through the Smithsonian, however I never thought of the repercussions. Going to a museum for me was merely taking a stroll through history. To be honest I often times found it dull or boring because I never once tried to comprehend what I was seeing or attribute any meaning.
LaDuke’s book really opened my eyes to what these museums contain. Yes in some ways parts of our history, but also someone’s ancestor or stolen heirlooms. Things that were taken as spoils of war and then put on display for all to see. The most disturbing of all of these is the remains of the deceased. Bodies taken from their loved ones in order to study, poke, prod, and display the dead. Many of these bodies had their brains and organs removed in order to study and prove that Native people were “inferior” to the white population. These studies were obviously biased and far from scientific and yet took place for many years. Not only that but now Native people are having to fight to get the remains of their ancestors back. Native Americans have been using the court system for years now to fight for access to their ancestors and the ability to lay them properly to rest. While this may seem silly or nothing to make a big deal over for some, the question that comes to my mind is how many European remains do we see on display? Were the tables turned wouldn’t the uproar and mobilization of the community be greater? The fact that these remains are only display sends two important messages, or has two lines of thinking for me. One is that to be displayed in museums like this means that these people are seen as backwards, primitive, and needing to be studied. The other is that so much has been taken from Native Americans, why is it that we cannot and will not admit our mistakes and return what is not ours?
It is because of our culture and upbringing that we justify these wrongs to ourselves. Our culture has been taught to look back and remember, but not to preserve and help thrive. We look and struggle to fix things only after they have become broken, only after near irreparable damage has been done. Both our history and our culture have taught us that it is purely acceptable to be this way and that in fact behaving in any other way is backwards or that of uncivilized people. In this way we are able to maintain and never break from our learned behaviors. If we are taught that it is right to behave this way, then we do not need to question or look for negative consequences.