Relating to the original perception-philosophy of North America as known by just a few Blackfoot into modern times, it was Floyd HeavyRunner had stated to me on more than one occasion his opinion “the Aztecs got the Spaniards because they had strayed furthest from the true way.” Not that he thought the Blackfeet were in any respect lucky.
Another observation of Floyd’s was to relate a story of an anthropologist who’d visited one of his elder cousins to understand matters the old people by now realized the Europeans had no capacity to grasp. When inquiring of phenomena along the lines of what the Niitsitapi had known as ‘naaks’ (the consciousness possessed by ones surroundings in nature), Floyd’s ‘uncle’ had finally stated to the anthropologist “I could explain it to you until we’re both blue in the face and you’d never get it!” Now it’s my turn to try:
There is a theory had been postulated by Princeton Professor Julian Jaynes on ancient consciousness he labelled the ‘bi-carmel mind.’ He came close to the ancient mentality I have attempted to explain but he wasn’t spot on. He expected there was no sense of ‘I’ in the ancients. In a way this is correct but his first mistake was the assumption of no self-awareness. His second mistake was of audio and visual hallucinations which must be obeyed. It doesn’t work like that. I can understand the typical western mentality could struggle with the idea one could possess self awareness without ego, but in fact this is possible. The point of explaining about the ‘living clock’ had been to illustrate one can see oneself as integrated to a larger consciousness or as a cell in a greater organism attuned to purpose stemming from a mystery one can function within but never issue dictum. Here is examples of how it practically functions:
Your mind can search but none of this is necessarily meaningful or possessed of element of reality until the ‘clock’ confirms what it is you need to know, from one event to the next. Suppose you came to a fork in the trail in unfamiliar territory; your mind puts out a question .. ‘which path?’ A large bird of prey suddenly (in that precise moment of asking) drops out of a tree and flies down one of the forks and your direction is known. This (or similar experience) will be the consistent, accurate, observable phenomena for those who keep tuned to or live within the ‘timing.’
And yes, you could hear voices but unlike the western schizophrenic, there is no imperative other than a rational trust. For instance, in a potentially lethal circumstance you might have to make a split-second decision that would determine life or death when faced with a choice; and a ‘voice’ you both know and trust states clearly what you must do and it will have been precisely the correct decision to save one’s life.
These preceding are but two examples of the ancient mentality’s capability which also included long distance sight in real time (‘remote viewing’) with phenomenal accuracy and more. I’ve lived in this world, in community which experienced these things and I know it works.
Now, if the ancient model of understanding is correct; that is our ‘cosmos’ is possessed of its own unique awareness, is a sentient being in its own right, is possessed with powers of volition altogether independent of European cultural mentality concept; and this sentient awareness cares more for the whole of everything than any individual or individual species; then it stands to reason every manipulation attempted by modern civilization to prolong itself against the will of our cosmos will be frustrated; no clever trick will suffice, no computer model sustain, no remedy be adequate: to pursue any future that does not fall into line with our cosmos determination of the direction to be taken. In which case, we’ll be increasingly ‘erased’ until humanity decides to back off and quit piling on the pressure the current model or ‘sustained development’ demands of our environment.
I’m not going into the ancient concept of ‘linear time’ for the simple reason it just seems like too much to try and explain. I’ll simply note it would be really smart to stop digging things up, whether hydrocarbons or archaeology.
Fear and survival instinct are distinct things, fear attends only the western ego ‘I’ which senses it is not real. Got a heavy perspiration-body odor problem that isn’t physical labor related? You’ve got fear. This can be shut down with reorganizing the mind on ancient model.
It was likely the common cold had depopulated the native nations first, followed by measles and small pox. These initial depopulation events had preceded Coronado from the south and had run their course before New England was colonized. The legacy of this is the tipi rings anthropologists generally (mistakenly) believe are much older. Prior to adopting wooden stakes from the early trans-Appalachia traders tents, it had been the habit of the Plains Indians to stack the stones used to secure their tipis, when breaking camp. In cases where the stones had not been stacked, leaving tipi rings, it indicates de facto burial sites where the occupants had died. I chuckle at the anthropologists scratching their heads over clusters of cairns to which purpose they’ve no idea to assign, and subject to endless speculations; failing to understand it is little more than a case of ‘good housekeeping’ where the stones were neatly stacked when the tipis had been taken down and camp moved.
Most of Big Lake’s band of Small Robes had been destroyed by the Crow .. where a large remnant of surviving women and children were the base from which a Blackfoot speaking band of Crow Indians had sprung. After this event, Big Lake’s people, the Small Robes, vanish as a proper entity from the Blackfoot oral history. There were a few scattered Small Robes remnants assimilated by the other bands.
It was the Aputosi Pikuni were expelled for criminal behaviors following the Jesuits making inroads into that group. This fact earned them the sobriquet ‘Ski-ni’ Pikuni which is hard for me to translate but means something along the lines of ‘poor’ in a sense of who they’d become.
I have to shut this off somewhere and because we should never altogether exclude humor, I’ll close with this anecdote. It was Mike Little Dog had related a story to me of stark contrast of between the ancient man and the modern. According to Mike, when he’d returned from the Korean War, there was opportunity to make money as extras in a film. This was a generation of Blackfeet who knew hard physical work, and it was the strong young men of his generation were cast as warriors. To add authenticity, real bows belonging to their ancestors were brought out of a collection .. and the bows of their grandfathers were so strong .. they couldn’t pull them!
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Cosmos & Cosmology Cross-cultural encroachment (1)
Cosmos & Environment Cross-Cultural encroachment (2)
Cosmos & The Nation Cross-cultural encroachment (3)
Cosmos & The Clan Cross-cultural encroachment (4)
Cosmos & The Family Cross-cultural encroachment (5)
Cosmos & The Self Cross-cultural encroachment (6)
Cosmos & Consciousness Cross-cultural encroachment (7)
Cosmos & Consciousness (notes)
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^ The author (now in my 8th year of exile)
Ronald Thomas West 