Monday, February 9, 2009

Our Landscape of Language

As we’ve studied shamanism among the indigenous tribes, there is one word that lurks in the back of my head: primitive. Though I respect the beliefs of the Kogi, the Australian Aborigines, and the Navajo, I must admit that at times I’ve felt a sense of superiority. I’ve felt that my beliefs and my lifestyle have reached a higher condition of evolution, a more civilized state. And yet, the more I read in The Spell of the Sensuous, the more I realize the connection between their ideals and actions and mine. According to Abram in Spell of the Sensuous, Western civilization “lost all sense of reciprocity and relationship with the animate natural world”. He argues that where once the hills and grasses spoke to our senses, the letters and marks of the alphabet have now replaced the natural world, and our senses are coupled to the written word. I agree with Abram in that we have lost much of our ability to understand the sensuous world around us. However, I believe that we still use our limited ability to commune with the surrounding world. We just do not recognize what we are doing.
As I read the chapter In the Landscape of Language, I saw multiple parallels between my life and the cultures described within. The Australian Aborigines tradition of Dreamtime was fascinating. The Dreamtime was (and still is) a time where “the earth itself was still in a malleable, half-awake state”. It is the time when the spirits of the world, or the Ancestors, first became oriented and took on a physical form. The Ancestors would travel across the world, leaving marks of their trail behind, before finally settling down and becoming a physical feature. The Aborigines remember this trail through song, and by singing the song, relive the landscape through which the Ancestor traveled.
Though I do not sing, I remember, and the remembering relives the landscapes around me and my ancestors. I am the fifth generation of my family to live in my town. It’s a small town where you can walk from one side to the other in half an hour. At times, I like to walk past certain areas and think of the memories attached to them. I walk past our first house, the house where I spent my childhood in, and I remember time spent climbing trees, building forts, hiding in the garden. I walk past the theatre and remember the story of how my grandma and grandpa met. I ride my bike out past the old family farm, and I can hear the voice of my great-uncle explaining how to herd the sheep. I past the hill scarred with motocross trails towards the cemetery, and memories of my uncle, brother, and grandpa flood in. Each of these memories has a location, a landscape associated with it, and even now as I write this I’m traveling through my town.
There are even more memories of landscapes that I have never seen. I think of my ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War, who crossed the oceans from green England to this unknown continent, who lived here before the Europeans arrived, and I feel like I can see their travel, their views, and their land. Perhaps this makes me primitive. Or perhaps the beliefs of indigenous tribes aren’t “primitive”. They are a basic part of human nature. I’m not absolutely sure, but after reading more, I’m leaning towards the latter.

9 comments:

  1. I think that if we really took the time to search through the dictionary for the right word, we would still settle on this one word: truth. Perhaps somethings are considered "primitive" or old fashioned because they are. Maybe, just maybe, there is an essential truth that underlies many of these old traditions and views. For truth to really be eternal it must be old. Therefore, perhaps it is simply how we, as individuals, accept and view this truth that gives it the label of "primitive" or "responsible" or "Christian" etc.

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  2. I think we all do the same thing. This last Christmas I took my husband to the city where I grew up and showed him around. If anything it made more of an impression on me then on him. I remembered parts of my childhood and school age years. I feel connected to that part of the land, it is familiar to me. I believe that is how the Aborigines feel, and I understand what they are saying more than ever.

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  3. I like how you've reconciled the world of today with the past. It's a good way to remember that though society may not follow exactly in the footsteps of our ancestors that we still at least walk alonside them. We shouldn't abandon our past, we should embrace it in the future, and I believe you captured that sentiment perfectly.

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  4. I had a great discussion with my dad a while back about the earth and evolution and the past and this blog made me reflect on what was said and felt. I think one of my biggest fears is not being able to give my son the same experience that my father provided me with growing up. The experience I refer to are the nights camping at the beach or hiking in Yosemite and many other experiences in nature. Going to dental school and becoming a dentist is all have thought about the last two years and the more I think about what will happen after the four years of dental school makes me really nervous about my time with my family. I hope that I can connect the two and give my son the same opportunities that my father gave me.

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  5. Sometimes I wonder if I am losing touch with nature because I am on campus half the time, reading words from books, staring at a computer screen, or getting lectured. The other half of my life is spent sleeping, eating, and doing meaningless activities. Although I occupy much of my time experiencing the city life, I do take the opportunity to get out and dive into nature. Snowboarding is a great example. When I spend five minutes at the top of the highest snow crested peek and glance across the marvelous horizon, I breathe in nature and understand its purpose. The small flickers of nature that I absorb totally put my life in balance.

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  6. The human mind is truly fascinating to me. It is amazing to me how being in a certain place can not only bring back various memories that we can "see" but also the smells and feelings attached. For example, every time I drive through a certain canyon in Colorado, I remember what song I was listening to the first time I looked up and saw the biggest waterfall of my six year old existence. Being that the indigenous tribes don't have so many other technological preoccupations, it is not hard to understand why every place and event would place a solid memory in the person's mind. It's how we were "wired" to be.

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  7. i find it ironic that as you were watching the kogi you were thinking "primitive" while the entire time i was thinking "so advanced." both statements are true. their practices were undoubtedly primitive but at the same time their social and moral principals actions were so much more advanced than us. we are commanded to love our neighbors and be nice and that is a daunting task that we frequently justify. the simple basic way they interacted shows a great maturity in them as a society. they knew respect!

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  8. I agree that using the word primative is misleading at best and flat-out wrong at worst. Calling something "primative" neccessitates something else to be "advanced". Both are very relative terms and don't do much to describe a tradition or religion.

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  9. I felt the same way when I watched the movie. I thought there lifestyle was primitive and wondered what was it that they were doing that was so great that they had to give a message to little brother.

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