Typically, religious artifacts in Western religions are
utilized in situations that practitioners describe as "sacred".
This means that a time and perhaps a place has been set
aside for a special "religious" moment, when
everyone attending the activity takes on a certain sober
comportment towards what is being done. There are indeed
many such moments in Indigenous traditions, but neither the
time nor the place may have the same meaning as 'sacred' for
Westerners. The reason for this is that in the Indigenous
system there is no conceptual framework that limits 'holy' behaviour
from "unholy"; rather what occurs is a mixture of
activities that we might call sacred with activities that we
might call profane.
No such distinction exists in Nature's Law. Rather what
we find is that there are sacred moments and not-so-sacred
moments, all standing more or less together. Humour might
mix with pious demeanour. Hunting can be a very "sacred"
business for Indigenous people, yet few in Western religion
would see it so. This is because the sacred is only supposed
to exist in certain well-defined situations for the Western
practitioner. Westerners think that hunting is not a sacred
occasion.
In short, there are very few parallels between the
Nature's Law of Indigenous people and the religious system
of Westerners. Yet, there are clearly sacred moments, in
which Indigenous people encounter spiritual truths of a
profound kind. Consider the statement of Buck Navajo:
"Now to go back to when I was very young, to my earliest
recollections as a child. I remember all these prominent men
and leaders brought together and gathered in one place. And
this was at the hogan of my father. And I remember well the
masses of people who came to these gatherings. And their
main purpose was to renew and to keep alive these sacred
stories. And it happened during night time.
And I was in their midst, was lying in their midst, as
they were talking among themselves. And even though I was
young and little, I had an early interest in this (event of)
teaching one another the way of life. And I remember as if
it had (all) happened very recently. And this much I
remember, and this much I understood when I was young.
(Since then) I walked this sacred way. Again right now, as I
think about it, it is as if it happened recently.
We are left to conclude that the relationship between the
sacred and the profane cannot be predicted from the outside,
and that an act of religion may be taking place when it
appears that everyone is just participating in a social
gathering. Special moments have a range of interpretations,
even to the most ardent Indigenous person..
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