By Richard M. Wheelock,
Fort Lewis College

Vine Deloria, Jr. would probably argue that his own understandings of tribal traditions about the relationships between specific peoples and specific homelands are a far cry from today’s “deep ecology” movement. His writings, though, reveal some of the most useful discussions of the intellectual and cultural dimensions of the human relationship to the natural world which might, if considered in our time of rapidly dwindling energy resources and global climate changes, yield a valuable conceptual framework for future policies, especially where indigenous peoples are themselves involved in development decisions.

A number of indigenous scholars have noted that much of the thinking in many fields of scholarship and even in the popular culture seems to slowly be moving closer to what many traditional peoples have believed about the universe all along. Some of the positions taken by environmentalists seem to reflect this paradigm shift in thought. Much of Deloria’s writing reveals his own belief that traditional tribal thought has been wrongly dismissed by the Western intellectual tradition, obviating tribal ideas from the discussion of many areas of human development, including current environmental affairs. As debates continue about the deteriorization of the world’s environmental health, Deloria’s views of tribal traditional “relatedness” to the many natural entities of a specific homeland can provide a powerful intellectual basis for development of viable alternatives to the present flawed global land ethic.

Deloria rarely wrote entire articles devoted solely to the tribal traditions concerning human relationships with nature. Most often, he mentioned those traditions as part of a larger discussion designed to extol the legitimacy and practicality of tribal traditions as a part of his critiques of modern science, religion or politics. In so doing, he often made rather sweeping statements about the sense of relatedness people of the tribes of North America feel or once felt for the sentient entities in their homelands. One of the recent collections of his writings provides many such cases. In the book Spirit and Reason, Deloria’s comments are characteristically direct as he says:

This idea that everything in the universe is alive, and that the universe itself is alive, is knowledge as useful as anything that Western science has discovered or hypothesized. When understood and made operative by serious and sensitive individuals, it is as reliable a means of making predictions as anything suggested by mathematical formulas or projected by computer programs. There are, however, substantial differences in the manner in which predictions are made. Because the universe is alive, there is choice for all things and the future is always indeterminate. Consequently, predictions are based on the knowledge of the “character” of an entity. Statements about how an entity will behave have almost the same probabilities as the educated speculations made at the subatomic level in physics.1

Deloria’s assertion that the universe is a living being, made up of many other living and sentient beings, parallels the concept of “deep ecology,” a relatively recent conceptual creation of Western science and philosophy, which has some roots in the consideration of tribal traditions, including pagan traditions of Europe, long ago dismissed in the religious, philosophical and scientific developments of today’s mass society. Deep ecology’s proponents champion a concept of “inherent value” in nature, beyond what value humans may otherwise ascribe to it. It is a revolutionary idea, bringing such thinkers as George Sessions and Arne Naess to the brink of acknowledging an animistic universe.

As these ecologists began to look for ways to improve the relationships between mass society and the natural world in the 1980’s, it quickly became clear that the worldview of most Americans and other people of the developed world provided few models upon which to base public policy initiatives, unless that policy was to be rapid exploitation. As environmental collapse loomed on a global scale, lifestyles of traditional indigenous peoples stood in stark contrast to those of the people of modern post-industrial nations. It seemed a natural development for thinkers and writers in the environmental movement to draw upon tribal models and to advocate selected portions of those life ways in the search for solutions to the seemingly overwhelming impacts of global corporate development.

A sense of human separation and dominance over nature emerged from the consideration of the development of Western religion and philosophy, a cultural orientation that leads to frequent disregard for impacts upon nature other than the possible economic disadvantages that might result.

Today, national and global development schemes, supported by a mentality of denial of many of these impacts, have forced environmentalists to reach for arguments that will reenergize their movement that was so compelling in public policy circles only a decade or two ago. As a result of the ruminations of people like Naess and Sessions, two radical strategies have been advocated by today’s ecologists: deep ecology and bioregionalism, each with strong parallels to the perceived values of traditional tribal peoples in North America. Though not all environmentalists adhere to the values of these two concepts, the philosophical framework for environmental policy-making has been greatly affected by both of them.

Deep ecology is based upon the realization that nature has a value of its own, beyond the human, anthropocentric patterns of today’s mass society. Lovelock’s writings on the Gaia concept demonstrate that even in the early development of Western culture, spiritual connections with natural “beings” were once a crucial part of the heritage of many peoples. ¹ Today’s writers in this movement sometimes refer to that heritage and parallel it with the tribal traditions of the indigenous peoples of North America and elsewhere. The sense of connectedness that arises from this contemplation compels deep ecologists to recognize the essential spiritual demeanor demanded as humans interact with natural forces. The kind of spiritual solitude that comes from direct, intimate contemplation of nature’s wonders is an immediate and inherent experience that many ecologists feel only in what is called wilderness today. ² That sort of reasoning, combined with a certain irreverence towards Western innovations that have created a “mass society,” ³ are crucial to the emergence of deep ecology.

The “Deep Ecology Platform” was formulated by Arne Naess and George Sessions while camping in Death Valley in 1984. The simple, straight-forward statement reads like a creed:

1) The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: inherent worth; intrinsic value; inherent value). These values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.

2) Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these values and are also values in themselves.

3) Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs.

4) Present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening.

5) The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of the human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease.

6) Policies must therefore be changed. The changes in policies affect basic economic, technological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply different from the present.

7) The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality (dwelling in situations of inherent worth) rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between big and great.

8) Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly to participate in the attempt to implement the necessary changes.

-- Arne Naess and George Sessions -- ⁴

Naess and Sessions’ platform has become the basis of a major intellectual dialogue. Long treatises continue to appear elucidating or attacking each of the eight elements of the platform and continuing discussions of the implications of such a far-reaching intellectual and spiritual quest are certain. Yet it is often attacked as not only impractical, but anti-human in its implications, especially by those who are convinced by their faith or economic demands that humans are manifestly dominant over nature. For some, it is seen as an attack upon nearly all Western values. This crisis has brought deep ecologists into direct conflict with the religious right and corporate America in U.S. politics and has forced ecologists to carefully define their perception of the proper relationship with nature.

The continuing pubic debate has sometimes included the use of perceived tribal understandings, often inaccurately. Tribal traditions have been mischaracterized and even desecrated in a number of cases and non-Indian environmentalists have been accused of interference in tribal economic development and religious practices. Of course, those committed to unbridled development under corporate power have sometimes attacked the environmental movement by targeting what they perceive as inaccurate and romantic portrayals of tribal connectedness with the natural world. Apologists for Western intellectual development, like Shepard Krech, have targeted Deloria’s writings in poorly supported attacks on tribal traditions in a hostile attempt to discredit both tribal traditions and the modern ecology movement. ⁵ These unforeseen consequences of environmental advocacy have often stymied the possibility of coordinated actions on environmental degradation between today’s Native peoples and the mass society that surrounds them. Yet the development of concepts of deep ecology have revealed some powerful parallels with indigenous tribal traditions that warrant further consideration if the search for a more harmonious relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world is to be accomplished.

Tribal concepts in today’s public debate on the environment

At the extreme levels of the public debate over the environment, both sides of the controversy have had to rely upon a rather abstract set of notions about the human connection to nature. Right-wing pro-development advocates have been able to frighten voters with the specter of economic collapse and loss of private property while espousing a relationship with nature that relies upon their perception of biblical imperatives. ⁶ Deep ecologists have had to imagine and advocate a worldview far removed from the experiences of most Americans as they warn of imminent environmental catastrophe and are forced to find alternatives to present development models. ⁷ Both groups reach deeply into the psyche of the American public, into areas of faith, philosophy and worldview.

It is a public policy argument of epic proportions, of course, one in which tribal traditions are both championed and denigrated, even though tribal people themselves are rarely proponents in the debate. Nonetheless, Indian people have taken on some impressive environmental projects of their own, frequently outside the scrutiny of the raging public debate, as we shall see.

Deloria’s approach is to focus upon the concept of “relatedness.” Thus, he avoids the separation of humans from nature. Tribal traditions, especially those of the Teton Sioux he is familiar with, require humans to experience and interact with other entities in a very personal, subjective, experiential way. Human are not separated from the cosmos, he claims, but are essential participants in a network, a web, of interacting entities. He has gone so far as to examine the Western concepts of separation from and dominance of nature to their religious and philosophical roots as he tries to explain the distinction of tribal relatedness. As dedicated readers of his works know, Deloria has produced a legion of articles and chapters of books that deal with the distinctions between the basic orientations to the universe of Western and tribal conceptions. ⁸ Among the many areas of contention he has revealed, two are of great importance in the discussion of modern concepts of deep ecology.

First, Deloria has documented the tribal concepts of a living, sentient universe, one in which many entities strive together toward maturity and completeness. Though not all of these entities are in harmony with each other’s quest at all times, the shared processes involved are the main causal framework of the experiences they and we all have. Such an orientation requires mutual respect and an ethic of participation in the processes of the living universe. ⁹ He has characterized the human participation as “extreme subjectivity” as he contrasts the concept with the “extreme objectivity” of modern science. ¹⁰ Humans, then, are not separate from or dominant over nature. Instead, their responsibilities are in the area of the gift of conscious, purposeful efforts to maintain communication and even reciprocal spiritual relationships with other entities.

Secondly, Deloria reminds us that the tribal relationships with other living entities is personal and specific, sometimes not easily delineated from our relationships with other humans. His idea that humans and other entities actually create “covenants” in the visionary, spiritual realm helps to explain the destiny that the People share with other entities in the universe. ¹¹ In such a conception, it is hard to imagine the role of “stewardship” over nature for humans, a major part of the justification for environmental groups before the advent of deep ecology. In tribal traditions, though, stewardship plays a role in only the most mundane levels of interaction with natural forces. Humans communicate with other entities in the obvious direct ways provided by daily experience and through prayers, ceremony, vision, dreams and in insightful moments. These resulting relationships are evidenced in naming, spirit helpers and many other very direct, personal relationships. In that conception, humans and other natural entities intervene regularly in each other’s lives, creating a basis for continuing mutual interdependence that reaches far beyond the material needs of humans, even as material uses of other beings by humans are acknowledged and compensated.

As a result of just these two conceptual points, Deloria uncovers the vast differences in orientation to the universe between traditional tribal people and Western mass society. In writing about what Western thinkers call the natural world, Deloria says

It is a relationship of specific responsibilities, specific insights, specific knowledge, and a specific task in the world. It is never a community of human beings who go out and “embrace nature.” In this situation, what is nature? Nature is too generalized a concept to deal with. ¹²

In the same writing, he continues to place the challenge on Western thinkers, encouraging them to look back on the development of their cultural worldview:

“Why did people six thousand or seven thousand years ago determine that heaven is good and “down here” is bad? Why did they decide to go out and conquer things? Then why did the Greeks later make that other division between history and nature? And why, after Newton and Darwin, did you grab that one quadrant [the portion of experience that could be called “science”] and say that is what the world is about? ¹³

Deloria’s challenge to today’s environmentalists in these writings illustrate the difficulty of finding a new land ethic for the modern world. He points out that scientists fear a subjective relationship with the natural world, since they have the experience of repression of their discipline by Western religious dogmas which see science as a challenge to the biblical version of creation. Those same religious leaders fear the tribal viewpoints because they smack of paganism, which is heresy in their view. Since Western thought is so bound up in religious, philosophical and economic patterns that have emerged from its formative development, truly revolutionary processes would be necessary to change its conceptions of “nature.” Thus, crucial areas of divergence remain between the modern ecological thought and tribal traditions, too. Yet in its effort to acknowledge the intrinsic value of natural beings, as minor as that paradigm shift may appear, the deep ecology movement has come a long way toward the interrelated process of the universe that tribal traditions, like those Deloria describes, recognize.

When one considers the void between deep ecologists and the forces of development in mass society today, though, deep ecology seems the appropriate domain of philosophers and poets, not that of pragmatic policy-makers. Present global development schemes championed by the United States and funded by the World Bank clearly are headed in the opposite direction. Local bioregions, often considered the proper regional focus for deep ecology initiatives, are not a part of present global economics, which instead seem bent upon creating a single, vast marketplace where imports and exports are the only practical products. Any local sustainability in such an economy would depend on the ability of local planners to create products for that marketplace and would rely upon imports from elsewhere to meet even its own basic needs. In that mileau, the eight elements of the Deep Ecology Platform would seem increasingly obsolete as time passes.

At the present time, the consideration of deep ecology at the global policy-making level is clearly blocked by other values. Yet in tribal economics, some interesting alternatives have arisen that rely to greater or lesser degrees upon tribal traditions like those Deloria has described. In writings from a book he co-authored with Clifford Lytle entitled The Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty, Deloria urged tribes to

…develop programs that are perceived by the people as natural extension of the things they are already doing. A natural economy maximizes the use of the land in as constructive a manner as possible, almost becoming a modern version of hunting and gathering in the sense that people have the assurance that this kind of activity will always be available to them. ¹⁴

As tribes are forced to consider the finite resources on tribal lands, they have the opportunity to find sustainable economic devices that build upon their own values, adapting their plans to meet modern economic needs. Whether these adaptations violate the traditional values Deloria describes is, of course, a matter for those tribes to decide for themselves. Today’s demands for pragmatic consideration of strategies in a climate of desperate economic conditions have forced tribes in the past to follow very destructive corporate models or the always controversial strategy of gaming, making new models necessary for survival in an increasingly commodified economic environment.

Examples of tribal economic initiatives that build upon tribal traditional values

There are a number of economic strategies that tribes have discovered in their struggle to maintain what was once called “Fourth World” development strategies. If one remembers that the first two “worlds” are comprised of capitalism in its expressions of U.S. and its major allies; and socialism as expressed by the USSR and its allies, one will recall that the discussion of global economics was once couched in terms of the Cold War economic environment. When one recalls that the “Third World” referred to those countries being developed economically and militarily under the economic umbrella of one of the first two worlds, that Cold War analysis becomes clear.

The Fourth World, though, is a concept that lingers in discussions among those most involved in indigenous affairs in the global context, most visible in the Non-Governmental Organizations of the U.N’s International Labor Organization. The Draft Resolution on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples remains the most important recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights on the global stage. ¹⁵ For many, the global implications of the resolution is a bit disconcerting, since tribes themselves live in such intimate, local social environments. Nonetheless, the Fourth World concept provides a useful framework for tribally controlled, sustainable economic plans that rely mainly upon tribal traditions. While the deep ecology movement is presently stymied by present economic policies in the U.S., a remarkable number of tribal initiatives have relied upon the sovereign and aboriginal status of tribes in the U.S. and Canada as they develop culturally appropriate economic strategies.

One such strategy has evolved in Canada. Because so much of the public lands of that nation, the so-called “crown lands,” retain an unresolved aboriginal claim, some tribal groups have recently found ways to foster their own development strategies from some of the usual exploitive relationships of corporate and government development plans. Though tribes are not recognized in the same ways as U.S. tribes, with protections of sovereign status over specified reservation lands, the tribal interests in those unceded public lands have provided leverage for continuation of their long-standing economic uses there. Among some major tribal victories, including modern “treaties” and even the creation of the Province on Nunivat within some of the former Northwest Territories, the Barriere Lake Algonkins in northern Ontario and Quebec have nearly completed a trilateral agreement between the tribal peoples, the provinces and the Canadian government. Of greatest importance, from the tribal peoples’ perspective, is the preservation of a way of life based upon subsistence economics in the lands they have always relied upon. Their way of life is to be preserved in an integrated resource management plan that recognizes their subsistence economy. ¹⁶ Traditional relationships with the many entities in the region are specifically addressed in the agreement. Though recent political changes seem to threaten the Canadian government’s commitment to the agreement, Russell Diabo, one of the major technical advisors for the Algonquins, remains hopeful that the arrangement will eventually be fully implemented, since it shares management of the area among many groups who have interests there, yet preserves the most substantial of Algonquin traditional uses in ways that ensure their continued efficacy. ¹⁷

In the United States, another economic strategy has emerged, based upon the traditional understandings that Deloria advances. The White Earth Land Recovery Project, headed by Winona LaDuke, has provided an economic strategy for the tribe that is deeply linked to tribal traditions. It is a sustainable development project that features tribal tradition, yet makes use of the most modern marketing practices of the mass society. ¹⁸ The on-line website emphasizes the priority of regaining economic self-sufficiency for tribal peoples and regaining of control of wild rice resources in the region, while it helps market traditional arts and crafts of the White Earth Chippewas/Ojibwes. The amazing work of the director of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, Winona LaDuke, leaves no doubt about the ultimate “fourth world” approaches involved. ¹⁹ Her direction of the White Earth Land Recovery Project has already resulted in regaining crucial tribal lands on the reservation and the passage of tribal laws that forbid genetically modified organisms there. She has framed her work in the traditional tribal beliefs that recognize wild rice and other “entities” on Ojibwe lands as crucial to any economic plans.

Initiatives among Northwest fishing and maritime tribes, like the Lummi and Makah of Washington; Western and Plains tribes who continue their traditions in their plans for economies partially based upon their relationships with buffalo; and continued agricultural plans among tribes as disparate in traditions as the Oneidas of Wisconsin and the pueblo groups of the Southwest all reveal a commitment to traditional beliefs in the modern economic plans of tribes. It is a “growth industry,” one that recognizes the kinds of values Vine Deloria has expressed in his philosophical discussions of tribal traditions of “relatedness.”

Those of the deep ecology movement should be watching closely as their own ideas about bioregionalism and spiritual value in natural entities is demonstrated daily across Indian country. Though those tribally appropriate development projects still face many challenges, their concern with maintaining the traditions of interaction and interdependence with the other entities in the universe are immensely instructive. It can be hoped that deep ecologists will feel encouraged in their efforts to transform the economies of destruction that have so long characterized Western mass society. Without a massive cultural change in today’s global economics, though, no initiatives in Indian country are likely to be enough to stem the tide of environmental collapse augured by present global corporate development. It may seem unlikely at this moment that any environmental movement can establish massive change in the underpinnings of the worldview of developers, but that is exactly what deep ecologists propose to do. With great good luck, perhaps alliances between traditional Indians and the deep ecology movement will yet be forged.

Deloria would be surprised!

Footnotes

1. Lovelock, James. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. Lovelock’s conception of a self-regulating, living earth is considered crucial to the deep ecology movement.

2. For what was a revolutionary call for a land ethic and wilderness designations at the time, see Leopold, Aldo. Sand County Almanac. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1949.

3. See Alan Casty. Mass Media and Mass Man, 2^nd ed. (New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1973). For a more focused discussion of elements of a mass society in contrast with tribal cultures, see Wheelock, Rick. "The Value of the Concepts of 'Tribalism' and 'Mass Society' in Tribal Communications Research." In A Good Cherokee, A Good Anthropologist: Papers in Honor of Robert K. Thomas, ed. Steve Pavlik. American Indian Studies Center, UCLA, 1998.

4. “Deep Ecology Platform,” Foundation for Deep Ecology, 16 April, 2006. <http:www.deepecology.org/deepplatform.html>

5. Shepard Krech, III, Myth and History: The Ecological Indian. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1999.

6. For a critique of religious right actions in environmental affairs, see Scherer, Glen “The Godly Must be Crazy: Christian-Right Views are Swaying Politicians and Threatening the Environment” Grist Magazine. 27 Oct. 2004. <http:www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/27/scherer-christian/> For more information on the actions of Wise Use, another anti-environmentalist organization, see Burke, William Kevin “The Wise Use Movement: Right-Wing Environmentalism.” PublicEye.Org. 17 July 2005. <http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v07n2/wiseuse.html>

7. For a rather complete statement of the deep ecology movement’s tenets, see Foundation for Deep Ecology. 6 March 2005 lt;http:www.deepecology.org./mission.html>. The edited book is also instructive. Sessions, George, ed. Deep Ecology for the 21^st Century: Readings on the Philosophy and Practice of the New Environmentalism. Boston and London: Shambhala, 1995

8. Deloria, Vine, Jr. “Kinship With the World,” Spirit and Reason, p. 225. Deloria’s discussion of the Greek philosophy that divided the world into the cosmos and the ecumeni is one portion of his work in this area.

9. Deloria, “If you Think About It, You Will See That It is True,” Spirit and Reason, p, 50.

10. Ibid, p. 47.

11. Ibid., p. 51.

12. Deloria, “Kinship With the World,” p. 228.

13. Ibid., p. 229.

14. Deloria, Vine, Jr and Clifford Lytle, The Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty. New York: Pantheon, 1984, p. 259.

15. The “Draft Resolution on the Rights of Indigenous People” can be found easily with a web-search using that search term. The 1994-5 draft resolution is the basis of a unique pattern of political, cultural, social, and, for the purposes of this paper, economic reality among indigenous peoples of the world.

16. Claudia Notzke, “The Barriere Lake Trilateral Agreement”, University of Lethbridge, Nov. 1993, p. 5.

17. Russell Diabo, personal interview conducted during the “Indigenous People’s Convening on Bio-Piracy,” Sandia Resort, 18 February, 2006.

18. “White Earth Land Recovery Project and Native Harvest Online Catalog,” April 17, 2006. http://www.nativeharvest.com/index1.asp.

19. The writings and accomplishments of Winona LaDuke can easily be viewed on line or with a quick library search. Her of her impressive story as a leader in Indian country.