This section explores the cultural role of "the sacred" and
shows the inter-connectedness of all things. It expands the
notion of what is "religious" in western thought to include all
cosmic reality.
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Introduction:
The Sacred
Our life reminds us of a flower that is
put on this earth, in a special place. That place where the
flower is standing is its home. Nature has provided everything
for it to survive. The sun comes up and it is warm; its petal
open up and reveals itself as best as it can be. It’s a
comfortable place and it has a right to be there, just like
us. It reminds us that we, too, like to be comfortable in this
world, have wood for our fires, a home, food on our tables.
The Yedariye gave us all these things to survive. (Harvey Scanie, Dene Elder,
InKonze, 61).
Nature’s Law in Aboriginal thought
is directly connected to the cultural role of "the sacred," a
concept that speaks to us of spiritual realms and metaphysical
understandings, but also includes such ordinary things as tying
a piece of grass in a certain knot to guarantee a successful
hunt. As Wayne Roan, Mountain Cree ceremonialist puts it, "All
God’s creation is a natural element, and the Indian is the
interpreter of God’s law. We teach that humans are a part of
this law but many have separated themselves from nature and
being a part of the world. The Indian knows he is one of God’s
many creations and he is not a separate thing from nature."
In effect, the understanding of what is
"religious" in Western thought must be broadened and deepened to
accommodate a system that sees the category as the foundation
for all cosmic reality. Obviously such a category of
experience does not translate well into Western conceptual
criteria. As a result, we can only point towards some of the
more obvious examples and meanings that the word connotes.
If we consider a few of the words related to the sacred, we
quickly see how complex the category was understood to be.
Blackfoot thought can be quickly gleaned from the root tapai:
it signals power of a greater-than-human sort, i.e., the sacred.
Thus we find—then he was given by him the power (of the
beaver-bundles), otápaipummòkaie; or then he was
given by him the sacred energy (belonging to each thing that was
given to him), ki otsítapaipùkaie; (Uhlenbeck
162). Or, in the Athapaskan languages of the Chipewyan/Deneis the
complicated word inkonze . It means sacred power,
special insight, greater-than human knowledge, medicine
understanding or basically to know something a little. (Smith,
75); In Cree a wide variety of
words refer to this are of human experience: soki; sohkahâc; a spirit power, mamahtâwisiwin;
an object embodying sacred or spirit power, manitohkân;
s/he makes him a spirit power, manitohkew; to see
in a concrete form sacred power, manitohkewin; it
is the expression of spirit power, manitowan; it
has spirit power or it is sacred, manitowâtan;
s/he has medicine power or sacred power, manitowiw;
the act of expressing sacred power or divinity,
manitoeiein (Waugh 387).
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