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Olivia Heinze

Cooper and Whipple

AGS

May 24, 2017


Reflection Essay

I sat on a raft being carried swiftly down the Rio Grande. My guide, Alan, began telling

his story. He had been out hunting elk with his father, using a bow and arrow. His father, though

less skilled with the bow than Alan, had shot the elk, and it lay dying. Out of respect for the

animal, they waited until sundown to see if the elk would survive. As they hid among the brush,

the sun grew dimmer. Finally, the hunters had to consider going home. Suddenly, a hummingbird

flew down, and after looking both Alan and his father in their faces, perched on Alans shoulder.

It was a sign. They shot the elk, brought it home, fed their family with it, and put the other parts

to good use. After telling the story, Alan pulled down his shirt to reveal a tattoo of a

hummingbird on his shoulder to us. Native American interaction with the environment differs

greatly from Non-Native interaction with the environment, both in the past and in the present

day. From these differences, political, societal, and economic trends have emerged.

Firstly, political differences emerged due to differences in environmental interaction at

the very beginning of the relationship between Non-Natives and Natives. Conflicting views on

land ownership caused relations with Natives to sour quickly. Prior to the arrival of European

settlers, Native Americans had viewed the land as something that could not be owned, as its own

entity. However, as holistic as these beliefs are, they made it easy for colonists to take Native

land for next to nothing. In Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen Warriors novel, Like a

Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee, they discuss that present-day

Native Americans still feel the injustice over having their homelands taken from them through

trickery and violence, and how these feelings manifested into a nation-wide protest. Differing

views over land-ownership has been the primary divide between Natives and Non-Natives since

the 1500s.
Not only did differences in environmental interaction between Natives and Non-Natives

result in political trends that remain in our country to this day, but they also affected the way that

Non-Native and Native societies grew, and how they merged. While in New Mexico, I noticed

that the communities there were very different than my community in Austin, Texas, and were

truly different than any community Id seen throughout my time in this world. In New Mexico,

the societies were more tightly knit. Every building and house looked similar, a state uniformed

in shades of beige. The cities did not sprawl, and they werent filled with unnecessary parking

lots and strip malls. Those who built the cities of New Mexico integrated them into the

surrounding landscape, as opposed to changing their surroundings to fit the cities. This is due to

strong Native American influences on the culture of New Mexico. Santa Fe is a community built

around art, and the vast majority of that art is inspired by the environment, created either by

Native Americans or by those inspired by them. Native societies are far tighter knit than Non-

Native societies, and not only due to their small size. Its simply because they live in a far more

natural way, and are more in tune with their environment. Native Americans understand the true

value of land -and not monetary value- both because it is in their religions, and because its been

taken from them.

Thirdly, the difference in Natives interaction with the environment and Non-Natives

interaction created economic trends. Non-Natives overtook far more land in North America than

was needed, despite the rapidly growing population. Families were awarded free acres of land

simply for moving here. This Westward expansion, caused by greed, was what ultimately

displaced Native Americans and resulted in the creation of reservations. Colonists were quick to

take advantage of and use up the plentiful resources they found in the Americas, while Native

Americans had coexisted with the environment peacefully for centuries, taking and using only
what they needed. Native American tribes used methods of agriculture that allowed for

coexistence with the natural environment, rather than claiming giant plots of land and attempting

to uniformly grow a single crop. Settlers began growing cash crops in the South, logging,

fishing, shipbuilding, and fur trapping in the North. The West offered settlers tantalizing visions

of even greater wealth- who knew what riches were yet to be discovered beyond the Great

Frontier. Manifest Destiny led to railroads, which led to factories and the Industrial Revolution,

and capitalism and materialism began to mold the U.S. economy. The concept of land being

preserved simply for human enjoyment, rather than economic gain did not enter the U.S.

government until Roosevelt became president. Until that point land was seen simply as a

resource, a way to generate revenue. Even now, many corporations attempt to sidestep

environmental regulations in order to make a greater profit, at the cost of hurting the

environment.

Native Americans learned to cooperate with the environment, rather than alter it to fit

their needs. On my Light Side Dark Side Project, I painted a quote from Chief Seattle in which

he states, humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever

we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. On this

trip, I truly saw the difference in Natives interaction with the environment and Non-Natives.

They respect the land, and for one of the first times in my life, I saw truly wild, uninhabited,

seemingly untouched spaces. Hearing about the respect that my Rio Grande guide Alan had for

each animal that he hunted was amazing. Here in Texas, many people hunt, but not out of a

respect or a sense of interconnectedness with the land, but for sport, for nothing but a game.

When we visited the Acoma Pueblo, we met people living there with no running water or

energy, but a strong sense of community and a respect for their environment. They built their
homes on top of a plateau, a mind boggling concept for me, a person who has dwelled only in

cities built upon convenience. At one point, someone asked Steven, our Acoma guide, how his

people had persevered and preserved their culture, religion, and way of life, despite the Spanish

and every other hardship theyd faced. He answered simply, that some things are too precious to

lose. This is what stuck with me. Non-Native settlers did not view the land as precious, as

Native Americans did. Rather, they saw the land as expendable, as something that was meant to

serve their purposes and nothing more. In conclusion, Native American interaction with the

environment differs greatly from Non-Native interaction with the environment, and that

difference causes political conflict, weakened Non-Native societies, and a fierce, greed-based

economic climate.

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