philosophy – Ptara

So many people fighting to claim they are indigenous. I thought it was interesting to see someone say “we are not indigenous.”

The YouTube channel, “Navajo Traditional Teachings” spoke about the variety of peoples in the American continent, and how the Navajo or Dineh are unique among them. The indigenous label lumps a lot of unrelated people together. People who may have things in common, but all people have things in common.

The video’s title is, “Not Indigenous… Don’t Lose Your Cultural Identity Navajo Teaching.”

“They will call you an indigenous person, and that is the loss of your identity,” the video tells us.

The word indigenous “was made up by some non dineh far away, who has never gnawed on a mutton head or eaten a sheep hoof.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuLg5nCftvY

If we see something, and we want to adopt it into our lives, if it is good, we take it and we improve on it. But the opposite also works. We can see that’s that are not good. And if we adopt that an improve on it then we become worse people.”

This seems to echo the wisdom of the English roundheads, a man named Owen who lived under the Republic, a quote I found about those who travel are not always improved, they are sometimes made worse. Owen did not wish to travel to all parts of the world, and so there are flaws in his writing.

However, Owen wrote a truth which cannot be hid, one that is repeated among other cultures throughout the globe, that we can learn good from each other, and improve, or learn bad from each other, and become worse. (I also say “speaks a truth.” Although the words seem dead on paper, when we read them, he speaks them to us again. We can choose to take the best of his words, or the worst of his words.)

The history of the Dineh, or Navajo, according to this video, is not exactly the same history of every tribe in the Americas. There were a people who asked the holy ones for a place to stay. They were given a place where they could live in peace. They called themselves Dineh. Many clans, perhaps hundreds, came and joined them, and asked to be Dineh.

“There are perhaps six hundred different tribes” in the United States and Canada that “have their own ways, their own language.” Each has it’s own language, and not everyone eats the same kind of food. There are different stories, different ceremonies.

There is a history of why the Dineh are called Navajo. The Dineh call themselves Dineh because they are the people, trying to live in peace. (In my interpretation, it is much like the Welsh call themselves Cymru.)

Then, a neighbouring tribe saw the way the Dineh raised their children, and called them something like NavaHOE. When the Spaniards asked, “What are those people over there,” they heard “Navajo.”

Another name given to the Dineh was the Utae. This name ended up being somehow given to the Ute Indians, and also the state of Utah.

But then, someone tried to divide people into classes. Maybe it was just an academic exercise, but dividing people, according to the Navajo Teachings, is very dangerous.

“There are some other names, in modern times, trying to sort out the race of people. And to diving people, which is very dangerous. and one of those words, of course, is indigenous. Indigenous people.”

How is it dangerous? Cultures have their own languages, their own ways, throughout the world. “Many times, they have their own features, that are physical. People are separated in that way in these times. But there was a time when that was not a thing that would determine a person’s value or a person’s intelligence of that of being. But in modern times, when words are made, and applied to people to divide them.”

A speech which often came from Alexander was; that he had discovered more with his eye than other kings did comprehend in their thoughts. And he spake of his Travel. For indeed, men can but guess at places by relation only.

There is no map like the view of the country. Experience is [the] best informer. And one journey will show a man more than any description can.

Some would not allow a man to move from the shell of his own country. And Claudian mentions it as a happiness, for birth, life and burial, to be all in a [single] Parish.

But surely, travel fulleth the Man; he hath lived but locked up in a larger Chest, which hath never seen but one land. A Kingom to the World is like a corporation to a kingdom, a man may live in it like an unbred man. He that searcheth foreign nations is becoming a gentleman of the world. One that is learned, honest and travelled is the best compound of man; and so corrects the vices of one country with the virtues of another, that like Mithridate, he grows a perfect mixture, and an antidote.

Italy, England, France and Spain are the court of the World; Germany, Denmark and China are the city. The rest are most of them country and barbarism: who has not seen the best of these is a little lame in knowledge.

Yet I think it not fit that every man should travel. It makes a wise man better and a fool worse. This gains nothing but the gay fights, vices, exotic gestures, and the Apery of a country. A travelling fool is the shame of all nations. He shames his own by his weakness abroad: he shames others by bringing their follies alone. They only blab about domestic vices, and import them that are transmarine.

That a man may better himself by travel, he ought to observe and comment: noticing as well the bad, to avoid it; as taking the good into use. And without registring these things by the pen, they will slide away unprofitably. A man would not think, how much the Characterizing of a thought in paper fastens it. Litera script a mane has a large sense. He, that does this, may, when he pleaseth rejourney all his voyage, in his closet.

Grave natures are the best proficients by travel: they are not too apt to take a soil: and they observe more: but then they must put on an outward freedom, with an Inquisition seemingly careless. It were an excellent thing in a state, to have a select number of youth, of the Nobility and Gentry; and at years of some maturity, to send abroad for education. Their parents could not better dispose of them, than to dedicate them to the Republick. They themselves could not be in a fairer way of preferment, and no question but they might prove mightily servicable to the state at home; when they shall return verified in the world, languaged and well read in men; which for policy and negotiation is much better than book learning, though never so deep and knowing.

Being abroad, the best is to converse with the best, and not to ch{oo}se by the eye, but by Fame. For the State instruction is to be had at the Court; for Traffic, among merchants. For Religious Rites, the Clergy; for Government, the Lawyers, and for Country and Rural knowledge, the Boors and Peasantry can best help you.

All rarities are to be seen, especially Antiquities, for these show us the ingenuity of elder times in Act; and are in one both example and precept. By these, comparing them with modern invention, we may see how the world thrives in ability and brain. But above all, see real men. There is no monument like a worthy man alive. We shall be sure to find something in him, to kindle our spirits, and inlarge our minds with a worthy emulation of his virtues. Parts of extraordinary note cannot so lie hid, but that they will shine forth through the tongue, and behavior, to the inlightening of the ravisht beholder. And because there is less in this, to take the sense of the eye, and things are more readily from a living pattern; the soul shall more easily draw in his excellencies, and improve itself with greater profit.

But unless a man has judgement to order them aright, in himself, at his return, all is in vain, and lost labor. Some men, by travel, will be changed in nothing; and some again, will change too much.

Indeed, the moral outside, whosoever we be, may seem best, when something fitted to the nation we are in: but wheresoever I should go, or stay, I would ever keep my God, and Friends, unchangeably. Howsoever he returns, he makes an ill voyage, that changeth his Faith with his Tongue and Garments.

Tag: philosophy

“We are not indigenous” and learning from other cultures, part 2

Of Travel (Resolves LXXXVII, Owen Feltman)