Puritan Vs. Native Americans Essay, Research Paper
A Comparison of Native American Religious Writing to Early Puritan Writings.
The Native Americans like every other civilisation in the known universe have creative activity narratives. These creative activity narratives fundamentally tell the beginnings of the universe as the they know it. For the Native Americans these narratives were passed down orally, they did non maintain written records of the narratives. These unwritten narratives are in some sense the Native American version of the bible. It was a manner of thought and comprehending the universe around them. It provided replies to why things happened the manner they did and it gave the Native American a sense of morality. Although Native Americans frequently participated in warfare, they did it with a sense of award and being non normally employed by their Caucasic opposite numbers. As a whole Native American civilization is a thing of beauty, observing non merely the physical universe around them but besides the religious. They did non believe in a individual divinity opinion over them, but alternatively used myths and instructions about the Great Spirit to explicate things. The Great Spirit was in kernel Mother Nature. It was kindred to the force in Star Wars in the sense that it was a portion of all of us, from the smallest insect to the mightiest war head. It was non a benevolent spirit nor was it a spirit of hatred. Rather it was a impersonal entity. Life and decease moved in the same circle.
When the pilgrims foremost landed at Plymouth Rock they saw a foreign land filled with ruddy skinned barbarians. These barbarians were of class the Native Americans. In general the pilgrims did non understand the Native Americans and deemed them heathens or Satans. How is it that a group of people so proud of nature and beautiful of spirit could be outcast and maligned by the Pilgrims? One reply might be that the Pilgrims were in a unknown land and had to close themselves off from the Native Americans. This might be true but I look to the Hagiographas and instructions of the spiritual leaders. The manner of God was the lone manner during these times. While some preached of a true God of love and justness, most preached of a freakish God who delighted in the agony of all those who were non of the Christian religion or of the Caucasic Race. This led to an continued intolerance of the Native Americans and finally take to the devastation of their proud and beautiful civilization. Even today the Native Americans are the individual most downtrodden minority in the United States.
The Hagiographas and instructions of Jonathan Edwards and Cotton Mather tend to bolster my statements. While both work forces strived for good it was the manner they went about interpretation and learning this goodness that was flawed. Cotton Mather for illustration played a manus in the Salem enchantress tests. Under the pretence of leting the cleaning of people who were associated with the Satan, he let legion people be put to decease under his ticker:
For my ain portion, I was non present at any of them ; nor of all time had I any personal bias at the individuals therefore brought upon the phase ; much less at the lasting dealingss of those individuals, with for whom I would be as hearty a griever as any adult male life in the universe: The Lord comfort them! ( Mather 376 )
While this sounds like a adult male strong of idea and moral strong belief Mather so goes on to reprobate people based on nil more than superstitious bunk and forced confessions. It is easy to turn a blind oculus to predicament of others and remain pious when you are blessed by the God. To exceed this off the undermentioned statement ends the Trial of Martha Carrier: Memo. This rampant beldam, Martha Carrier, was the individual of whom the confessions of the enchantresss, and of her ain kids among the remainder, agreed that the Satan had promised her she should be the Queen of the Hebrews ( Mather 379 ) . This is a blazing effort to tie in the Judaic people with devil worship and yet another illustration of the intolerance of the Christian religion.
This subject of intolerance is furthered by the authorship of Jonathan Edwards. Edwards was yet another adult male who thought he taught the true instructions of God. Purportedly this was a God of beauty and lovingness, the one being who created everything in the existence. So why is it that some of his most of import and affecting Hagiographas trade with the malice and hate of Gods towards his really ain creative activities? Edwards Sinners in the Han
Ds of an Angry God was a discourse delivered in the town of Enfield in the province of Connecticut on July 8, 1741 ( Norton Anthology 474 ) . It was a sermon prophesying the hatred and power of a vindictive and capricious God. In Gods ain words he explains what will go on to evildoers: I will step them in mine choler, and will tread them in my rage, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my rainment ( Edwards 482 ) . Make these sound like the words of a caring loving God? I do non believe so. Edwards goes on to state:
The God that holds you over the cavity of snake pit, much as one holds a spider or some nauseating insect over the fire, abhors you, and is awfully provoked: His wrath towards you burns like fire ; He looks upon you as a worthy of nil else but to be cast into the fire ; He is of purer eyes than to bear to hold you in His sight ; you are 10 thousand times more detestable in His eyes than the most hateful deadly snake is in ours. ( Edwards 480 )
This lone furthers my point about the religous Hagiographas of the clip. It sounds to me like this God is a far worse entity than Satan could of all time endeavor to be. What sort of God would handle his ain creative activities such? Jonathan Edwards even goes on to reprobate members of his ain fold ( Edwards 485 ) .
If you compare these Hagiographas to those of the Native Americans unwritten narrations you find a much different narrative. If you look at the assorted Trickster narratives of the Native Americans you will happen a much different manner of learning. The Native Americans teach non through the sermons of red region and blood, but through the usage of blithe narratives that tell us how things are. A good illustration of this is the narrative about the Coyote, or Trickster, making fishing tabu. The narrative starts off with Coyote spearing some silverside salmon. Subsequently on Coyote returns to happen that the silverside salmon have disappeared. Angered Coyote takes a crap and begins speaking to it!
He took a crap,
he said to his crap,
State me,
why have those silversides disappeared? ( N.A. 142 )
The crap so replies:
Oh, you have no sense,
you bandylegs!
When silversides are caught,
when they are first caught,
they must non be cut up. ( N.A 142 ) .
Can you conceive of if this scene took topographic point in the Bible? Imagine Daniel speaking to his ain crap in the king of beastss den.
Even when the Native Americans teach about apparently atrocious topics such as the Owlwoman and Coyote narrative, they are done in a mode that teaches. This is a far cery from the Christian mode of red region and native sulfur. While these sort of narratives could be one of the grounds that the Puritans of the New World thought the Native Americans to be barbarians it is interesting to observe that in many ways the Puritans and their family where much more barbarian and barbarian than any Native American. This intolerance of beliefs and ways of life different from their ain is one of the many grounds why I detest many signifiers of spiritual instructions and Hagiographas.
In comparing the spiritual authorship of the Native Americans and Puritans you find a really different mentality upon life. On one manus you have the Native American, free of spirit and belief. On the other you have the Hagiographas of hatred and snake pit by the Puritans. When reading these Hagiographas you realize that it was justified to kill and destruct in the name of God. But isn & # 8217 ; t it written in the Ten Commandments that Thou Shall Not Kill? I guess all is excused by utilizing the name of God as an alibi. It is easy to see why the Puritans of that clip looked upon anyone who was different from themselves as enchantresss or Satans who deserved to fire in snake pit with these sorts of people at the caputs of the daiss and communion tables.
I do admit that I am judging these people utilizing my ain criterions and beliefs, but todays Hagiographas and instructions of hatred, such as the KKK and the Nazi creed are descended from those really beliefs. Nowhere in the readings do you happen the Native Americans initiating these sorts of topics. This is why I take such a rough stance against the Puritan authors and their like.
Plants Cited
Michelson, Bruce, 5th erectile dysfunction. The Norton Anthology: American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton and Company,1998, 1994, 1989, 1985, 1979.
33f
