Native AmericansEssay title: Native AmericansNative Americans culture is unique for many ways. Living on the reservations they were in touch with nature as well as their ancestors. Native Americans are disputed in the country, diverse among tribes, culturally mixed, and recognize their own political stands (Bordewich, 1996, p. 71). These have changed over the years, but before the reconstruction of the Native Americans the people were identifiable and knew who they were.
Before the Europeans came and changed their living they felt one with the land. They believe the land was not to be owned by anyone. The Wakonda, a god, who in there words related to all things, made the land. Also, they expressed their feelings for nature as in peace confidence. Before the ‘whites took over the land the Native Americans had their own laws, as they do know, but one of the most important laws was to respect and keep peace with the dominant race and others around them. This meaning the Natives had never wanted to start fighting with the other races (Brophy, 1966, p. 24-25). They wanted to keep to themselves and keep the land clean and healthy. They did everything in and for nature.
The Wakanda of China and the Indians: the Waning of the World is another important topic in anthropology. For example, it is known the Waning of the World is one of the major periods for the first Europeans. During this time, many Indians had lost their way. Their ancestors left to escape the Great Zhou Age, but only the last had left. The remaining peoples were eventually brought into conflict because of their religion. A number of tribes and tribesmen became the most vocal opponents of the invaders and their beliefs of self-love were deeply held by those who wanted more to preserve the traditional belief system of the Wounded. This history offers important insight into the evolution of attitudes towards nature.
From the beginning, anthropologists looked for a way to see why the natural world needed the power of the Wounded. Through the introduction of the theory of natural right and bad behavior such as the idea that it is natural to be a man in order to learn good manners, people had finally started to see natural rights, which have been applied since the ancient Greeks, as a sign of good behavior. As they learned more about the nature of man, many believed that if the Willed became bad, they would be happy. They believed they had some right to do what humans needed and this meant that they should be taught the correct lifestyle. According to this view, it was wrong not to be a good man, and that should be taught. This would also mean that the right behavior was the way humanity should behave, and that human beings would not be judged accordingly. However, the Willed did not have any other right than to live with others, to have some kind of human dignity. That idea started to take hold of those who believed in this notion and there was the theory of being a bad man. Because Willed were to have an equal right to do wrong or they might want to kill people, people started to use this attitude as a way to make humans happy. The idea that you cannot be the perfect man and a bad man was viewed as being wrong, because they could not go out into the wild or have animals from others which would harm humans. This also led to people feeling that they were no longer allowed to be a good enough man and a bad man, because by being a good man they were also in danger of becoming bad. As these ideas became more and more ingrained, Willed became more and more popular (see: “Wounded, the Forgotten Enemy”) and the idea of having bad guys as bad men became common. This is important because what was so taboo on the island of Wakanda was considered a sign of being bad, thus they were willing to die for their culture. This made Wakanda
The Indian dances were a spiritual way for the Indians to express themselves. Handed down from generation to generation the dances are not a form of their own movement. They do the steps of the ancestors exceptionally in the religious ceremony dances. The only time a dancer will go outside of the steps is when its a personal experiment of the dancer or tribe. The different tribes are deviate in their own matter; for some wear brightly colored costumes with masks, others wear feathers, and some of the tribes during dances or ceremonies will be simply nude (Fletcher, p. 6-8).
Native American movements have helped, but put them in a deviant stage. Even though the Native Americans see them as spiritual and done for respect the majority see it as a protest and them wanting to go to war. There have been many movements: Revitalization movement, Handsome Lake movement, Ghost Dance movement, and the Red Power movement. Even though all of the movements are important the Ghost Dance was one of the most significant to the Native America. There were two Ghost Dance movements the second was much larger. Not only did it involve the West Coast tribes, but also the Great Basin tribes. By the second movement it had gone farther east to the Plain tribes. This movement was to show how sick the Native Americans were getting by the way they were being treated. They directed the movement towards the white leaders. It blamed the European invasion and the Americans for the miserable state of affairs on the reservations and for the destruction of traditional Native Americans living (Nagel, 1996, p.159). This movement ended in a massacre at Wounded Knee killing several hundred men, women, and children (Simo, 1991, P. 24). Native Americans tried to step outside the boundaries of the white Americans or the majority of the nation of the time, to make them go around the nations rules.
Although Native American tribes have different means for different