During last year’s pauwau, my father and I were sitting in the Tribal Office discussing the ‘passing the bonnet ceremony’ and the mechanics of how we wanted it to unfold. This ceremony was his retirement, and since a Chief had never retired from our Tribe, he wanted to start the tradition in a way he felt was spiritually appropriate. As we were talking about the nuance of how people would enter the circle and leave it, a lady interrupted us and asked if she could have the chief’s ear for a moment.
Dad smiled and stood up, and told her he was retiring, that Chief Tubby was outside if she wanted to talk about official business. The lady smiled at him, and said "No, you’re my chief. I came to talk to you."
Dad thanked her, and asked her to sit down. She motioned for her daughter to step in, and they both had a seat. Her daughter was a beautiful girl, probably not much older than 17, clearly still in High School. She looked shy, but you could tell that she revered my father. Anyone who knows him well enough to want an audience with him looks at him as a leader of a very spiritual community.
He asked what was on her mind, and the girl said, with a voice straining for coherency, that she wanted him to name her. You see, most Native Americans around here believe that your "Indian Name" is a name that describes you, a name that fits your life and could even guide you to personal fulfillment by giving yourself a definition. Never mind the fact that somebody a few dozen years ago probably made that line of reasoning up for a TV drama, but it’s generally accepted and she was one of the people who believed it.
My father, very humbly, accepted the role and started to interview the youth. He asked her name, and why she felt now was the time to be named. What I heard during that conversation really touched me. She told a story of depression, how she felt like an outcast and how she tried to kill herself a few weeks ago. Dad sat and listened to her, talked to her, and he didn’t judge her at all. I sat there, silently, and took the conversation in – Him and I listened to this girl go on about her life, emphasizing with her, feeling honored that she would bare her soul to us.
She finally said that she wanted her life to be one of meaning, she had started to go back to church, and she hoped that he would give her his blessing, and make her a part of our family. Not in those words, of course, but that’s exactly what she was saying.
It was a very powerful experience, not because I figured the girl was resolute to become a priest or find herself spiritually, I was her age before and I know how that kind of thing usually works out. It touched me because I knew that this girl felt like she went through hell, and I witnessed her first step towards absolution.
Now, this girl probably didn’t know that my dad isn’t a Christian, nor is he particularly religious, but that’s sorta the point. She believed he was this spiritual leader, someone you could confide in, somebody who could give your life meaning… somebody fit to define her for the rest of her life. My father knew that his position, as the Chief of the Waccamaw Indian People was purely a political position, but he felt a responsibility to his people, and he always tried to help them gain a sense of fulfillment.
Now, most people do the same thing that girl did – be it they do it through a church, or their local tribe, or through a Star Trek: DS9 DVD collection. Everybody wants to feel that they have a higher purpose than to live, breathe and make love. This instinct is unique in humans, and it’s uniquely human – it’s what defines us as a species. It’s the reason we were emancipated from the food-chain, and it’s the reason I believe our species will probably never die out. It’s a powerful notion, when you think about it – our highest purpose isn’t self-preservation, like other species on the planet. Ours is self-fulfillment, self-exploration.
I’m sure the first inklings of the first local religion came along ten minutes after the first verbal conversation. One cave-man was grunting to another trying to decide what they were going to do with the food they just killed. The bigger cave-man wanted to eat it right there, but the smaller one wanted to bring the food back to the camp so everybody could eat. The bigger caveman grunted and pounded his chest, and the smaller caveman grabbed the animals hind leg and started dragging it back, effectively telling the bigger caveman ‘screw you, I’m doing this anyways’.
The bigger caveman started walking with the smaller one, but saw a rock up the road. By this time, the smaller cave-man felt pretty secure in the fact that the larger one agreed with him, however he didn’t get far – that rock intruded is skull and he laid their compulsing while the bigger one ate his food.
The concept of ‘sharing food’ was long for this world, however, and the larger one decided after eating what he wanted, that he would lie to the group, tell them that his companion died because he was eating the food and didn’t want to share with the others. Sure, some of the cave-folk weren’t happy, but a few of them sort of understood what happened… everybody must eat, so therefore any food should be shared. Then, the first law came about – share your food. Then, the first legal punishment – an ass whippin’ for not sharing.
Before long, our group’s children started to ask ‘why are we sharing food with everyone?’ and since cave-men are dumb, they didn’t question the original lie they were told to justify the initial murder. So, they went with the explanation, more or less, as it was relayed to them. When the children asked why in the hell those two cave-men were so special, the first religious answer was uttered: Because bigger cave-man was special, and that’s all there is to it.
It didn’t take long for our cave-men to realize that special doesn’t mean much without a reason why, and then it happened – our cave-dad pointed up to the moon, or a tree, or whatever object he saw that seemed pretty intimidating and authoritive, and said ‘because that thing over yander created all of this, and he created him special, and it’s not our place to argue with it! Now come on, help me drag this carcass over to the fire.’
Literal story? No, I just made it up. However, I think it illustrates my point pretty well. Religion isn’t real, not in the sense of it actually happening the way it was told to you. We all know that Jesus didn’t really walk on water, and we all know that it would be kind of dumb for god to act the way he did when we were building the Tower of Babel. Certainly, you must figure, god knew that people could only go so far up until they couldn’t breathe, and it wouldn’t be near high enough for us to intrude on his domain. There’s no point in making everyone speak a different language so we couldn’t communicate, because the plan was fundamentally flawed and had no chance of success.
Religion is a mental frame-work, Religion gives you the ability to relate grandiose concepts to everyday life… it answers the unanswerable questions about how we got here, why are we here, and what are we suppose to do; and as it’s generally accepted, people are free to think about things that really matter – like how to eat, or how they should punish their kids, or rather or not to buy a Mac.
I’m asked all the time why I don’t believe in anything… and I’m always tempted to ask them ‘why do you believe? It doesn’t make any sense when you think about it.’ But I always resist the urge. I do this because it does make sense, it’s my way that doesn’t.
My way requires that I take the position that understanding the universe is a pursuit best left up to Science, and understanding myself and my moral center is a pursuit best left up to me. I like it that way, because I like to think – I love to figure on what morality is, and what it means to me. Most people, on the other hand, would find those lines of thought pretty pointless and time consuming, and they’d rather be off doing something else – so they leave that kind of work to people who gladly accept the task, generally those who work for the church or for the community. These community leaders, in turn, put a lot of thought in to it – generally using whatever religion they confess as a medium to explain their philosophy. All these people ‘believe’ it… but then again, I’m willing to accept that my definition of belief varies wildly from most everybody else’s.
Now, I’ve often asked myself why I don’t just join a church – It’s clear to me that if I were to put my mind to use trying to better a church, I would probably be very happy, and pretty good at it. But, therein lies the problem… which church do I join? A Christian church?! Well, I like Christianity, I really do… I think Christianity is a fine religion, but I don’t really think my point of view is compatible with it.
I have no problem, once so ever, with homosexuality; and I have some major problems with some of the ideas the bible tries to pass off as absolute maxims. I believe that a woman is every bit my equal, I don’t think Jesus was the son of god (a belief that Jesus himself held and ultimately died for) and I don’t think there’s any such thing as pure evil, heaven or hell, or any of that. I don’t believe this stuff because it doesn’t make sense to me – if I were to try and find a religion I was happy with, I would want to find one that sort of adhered to my world view. Christianity is a European religion, those folks were different… I’m a native American, and I don’t see the world the way they do. Sorry, I just don’t think Christianity is a good choice.
So, you’d probably think I believe in the Native American religions… Well, sadly, those don’t really exist – they did at one time, and I’m sure they were every bit as popular as Christianity was in Europe during it’s hay-day, but those Christians came over here and destroyed our culture, and our religion is lost forever. Sure, you think we have a very deep and spiritual culture… and we do, until you realize that we’re making most of it up as we go along.
Which, don’t feel too short-changed, y’all did the exact same thing we are. You just get to witness it as it’s happening… and for added fun, most of our people are Christian anyways, so there’s no reason to explain anything with our religion… we just talk about birds and trees for a few minutes, praise our grandfather, and feel like we did something special. Most of it’s ceremony, none of it’s religious. It’s definitely spiritual, but spiritual doesn’t give life meaning, does it?
The less astute amongst you are probably thinking ‘but that’s the same thing, right?’ Well, no – not by a long shot. Think about Christianity for a moment – really try to take in it’s true utility. What does it do for humanity that is so powerful that people live and die by it? What’s the one thing Christianity does that nobody would deny, that anyone with any sense should respect it for?
It gives us a glimpse in to the soul of humanity. It’s a book that shows us why people are the way they are, how one is suppose to act in the face of oppression, in the wake of tragedy, and at the feet of the divine. I can see why people buy in to it – it’s such a powerful idea. It’s not technically true, but that doesn’t matter… because it was written by people, people who saw the world in the same light, people who wrote the stories down, people who continued to develop and study them for millennia. Christianity is most definitely an infrastructure to be respected, but it’s not mine. Nobody who saw the world through my people’s eyes had any say in it… and to dive in to Christianity and be assimilated by it’s beliefs is to ignore something very fundamental that I know to be true.
I don’t see the world the same way Christians do. We share common ground, and we are natural friends, but our world views are different. I, for one, will not dismiss mine to blindly follow yours; just as you wouldn’t dismiss yours to follow mine. I stand as an island, destined to figure it out for myself. I’d hope if you were in the same boat, you’d be doing the exact same thing.
