Killing without reverence

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I know that this is going to be a little off the beaten path for most of you, so I'll apologize in advance if I offend anyone with my beliefs, but I feel that the coincidences were too numerous and obvious to be just that.

Although I was raised in a semi-Christian, semi-agnostic environment, in the past few years, I've returned to the beliefs of my heritage, which is Cherokee and Celtic. Without going into detail, let me just point out that an overriding facet of Native American beliefs was the proper respect for everything, including yourself and your environment (both in a physical and spiritual sense). Of the stories told to teach the people the ways of right thinking, many contained the basic principle that you should remember that the earth is your mother and to harm the earth is akin to killing your own mother (a crime which, by the way, is happening more and more in the real world, with fewer and fewer people being suprised by it).

A major story in this vein is the tale of Little Deer, who is the embodied spirit of the deer and other animals. In this story, the Indians were hunting so much that the animals were being decimated. Finally, the animals were pushed beyond their limits of tolerannce and they called on their chief, Little Deer, to do something about it. This is what he did: "He went down into the world of man and he told the hunters " The killing of animals for food is the way of the world, and this shall not end. However, you are taking too much, more than you need, and this shall end. Forever more, when you kill an animal for food, you shall ask it's forgiveness for taking it's life and you shall show the proper respect for all animals, both by maintaining this reverence and by not taking more than you absolutely need. If you do not do this, I will track down the disrespectful hunters and make them ill and lame so that they may not ever hunt again," An so it was forever more that the Indians remembered to show their respect for both the living and the slain, and those that did not were struck lame and ill and never hunted again."

When I look around me today, I see that so much is being taken without the proper respect being shown, by both taking more than is needful and by taking without reverence. And I feel that Little Deer's punishment is all to obvious - for every cow kept in horrifying conditions and slaaaughtered inhuamnely, there is incidence of Mad Cow disease, heart disease, aand other food-related illness and lameness showing up in the human consumers (and by extention, abetters of this behavior). For every raped landscape from which more is taken out than is sustainable, people sicken and die from mineral poisonings and polluted air and waterways. For every time someone looks the other way while manufacturing is shoddily done, people die in accidents and from badly prepared foods. For every governmental meddling that further burdens the poor and the helpless, polititians shoot themselves in the foot by corrupting public trust and willingness to use the gvt for the good it can do, preferring instead to stage protests and riots that divide and polarize the nation against itself and weaken its ability to do what is truly neccessary.

Please consider the words of the elders (who just may have known a thing or two aboout human nature) - take only what you need, take it with gratitude and repect, and always give something back. The earth is a person, not a thing, and until we remember this, we will treat our mother with disrespect and will suffer for it.

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), December 26, 2000

Answers

Thank you for your post, Soni. My thinking runs along similar lines.

The earth certainly is our Mother in the respect that she is what supports our life. Without her atmosphere, her waters, the food she produces, we would not survive!

-- Joy Froelich (dragnfly@chorus.net), December 26, 2000.


Thank you for expressing very eloquently what I too believe.Words that escaped me,found you.

And that explains how a person becomes a slob hunter.They become lame(brained) from disrespecting their kill.

I too hunt... and then I give thanks.

-- sharon wt (wildflower@ekyol.com), December 26, 2000.


Soni-my grandfather was Iroquois, and though he died when I was small, I've heard the stories, and I agree with your story fully. I feel that hunters today are nothing more than trophy hunters, not caring about the animal itself, but rather on the size of the rack, etc. Then they have the nerve to mount the head, and display it on their wall, like a testiment of their manhood! I feel that it shows no respect for the animal that gave its life to you. And todays hunters do not use the hide, or most other parts...they just basically want the head, and if there is any meat, well, that is a bonus. The earth is the great equilizer...what comes around, goes around, and if you show no respect to all of her creations now, none willl be shown to you later on.

-- Joe (Threearrs@AOL.com), December 26, 2000.

Trophy hunters make me sick. I have nothing against someone killing for food, but killing to make one feel like a man (or woman) is just sick. This year I found 3 beautiful bucks dead on our property with their heads hacked off. I don't have the words to express how that made me feel. Doug

-- Doug in KY (toadshutes@yahoo.com), December 26, 2000.

Thanks for sharing these insights. We also need to thank the plants when we gather them for medicine or food. So often whole communities of plants are wiped out by "wildcrafters" with no respect for the lives they are taking. This upsets me so much.

-- Amy (acook@in4web.com), December 26, 2000.


This will be kinda long but also funny....

My father-in-law is one who flies around the world to"hunt", he goes to Alasks for bear,new mexico for deer and so on.When my husband and I were dating I made my view points on hunting clear,if you kill it you eat it and use every part of it,period no if's ands or but's. Well as time went on he never told me about his dads "hunting", I went his folks home and was asked by his dad if I wanted to see the "game"room,well I am thinking pool,pinball so on,He opened the doors to this masive room and I almost pucked,Deer,fox of all types,bears,beavers mountian lion,animals I had never seen all lined up on the walls mounted on the floor skinned and laid like rugs.Well i stood there unable to think of what to say and finially blurted out something along the lines of" do you hunt at those places where they throw the game at you and you pretend to hunt?" well open mouth insert foot....he is partners in 3 game farms all over the US. I think that was the point they started to really hate me. I then asked what bear tasted like and with his answer of I do not know I do not eat this sh--,That's when I started not to like them. By the way watch out New Mexico he is on his way w/ his buddies to get himself some of those pretty little deer,empty space on the wall.

-- renee oneill{md.} (oneillsr@home.com), December 27, 2000.


Renee, my husbands favorite story about my Dad is walking around Sea World with him, while he pointed to this fish, shark, dolphin, crustacean, some of them endangered spieces, that he had eaten before in his travels. "Eaten that, eaten that" My Dad was an avid fisherman, and though we did eat what we caught most of the pleasure was the catch, and most of the catch went to the locals. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), December 27, 2000.

Soni,

Thank you for your story. I think it may help me come to grips a bit more with killing animals. (I doubt anything will ever enable me to handle it with peace in my heart.) I have always thanked animals for their sacrifice and the nourishment they bring, but it has always seemed strange to thank an entity for a sacrifice it did not willingly make, without offering something else - perhaps some sacrifice of my own.

Usually when I ask to be forgiven for some wrong I have committed, my request is accompanied by a promise to do everything in my power not to repeat the same offense. With animals, I know I will repeat the offense, because I believe it is right for us to use animal products. Just the same, asking the animal's forgivenness does seem quite appropriate, in addition to thanking the animal and doing as much as I can to reduce the stress of its transition. Thank you for pointing that out. --Laura

-- Laura Jensen (lrjensen@nwlink.com), December 27, 2000.


I told myself I was going to stay out of this thread. "Forgiveness" is a christian idea, you thank the Creator for providing and the animal's spirit for its earthy bounty.

-- JLS in NW AZ (stalkingbull007@AOL.com), December 28, 2000.

"Forgiveness" is a christian idea, you thank the Creator for providing and the animal's spirit for its earthy bounty. ***************************************************** Well, not quite, JLS. Christians don't have the patent on forgiveness. Although the idea is eloquently stated in the scriptures, you can also find the concept within the sacred writings of all the major religions, including those that predate Christianity by many hundreds of years. Also, the oral traditions of the Native American tribes and other indigenous groups throughout the world. Forgiveness is a universal gift, bestowed on humans to be passed on, generation by generation in hundreds of languages, using rituals, ceremonies and just plain, "I'm sorry". You don't have to be Christian to seek forgivness or grant it. Just human. Part of the package deal.

(:raig

-- Craig Miller (CMiller@ssd.com), December 28, 2000.



Soni- Thank you for saying exactly what I also feel. I'm about 98% vegetarian, but when I do eat meat I think about the life and death of the animal, and also give thanks for it. Humans are not the only life that matters. I wish we could collectivly "get over" ourselves. We're not that great.

Imagine if you will, what this country would look like if white people had never showed up. It would still be the beautiful paradise it was when Native Americans had it. What a wonderful thought.

By the way, I'm half Cherokee on my mother's side. It's nice to meet another half breed.

-- debra in ks (solid-dkn@msn.com), December 28, 2000.


Craig, I agree "Christians don't have the patent on forgiveness". In fact they don't have a patent on anything - everything in their myths has been borrowed from someone else.

The American Indian shamanistic spiritual concepts have very little in common with western religious thought. They are closer to some of the eastern philosophies, but really differ from those also. The Indians in the USA borders have lost much of their traditions. You have to go to Mexico or South America to study the shamanistic traditions.

-- JLS in NW AZ (stalkingbull007@AOL.com), December 28, 2000.


Amen, Soni. Little Deer has a lot of work to do in my neck of the woods. Seems to me that what the world needs now is respect just as much as love in everything we do. Seems I've heard of a northern tribe that used the image of a hand with a hole in the palm in their art to signify that we should never take it all, but always let some slip through and remain. Anybody know anything about that?

-- Sam in W.Va. (turnip55a@yahoo.com), December 29, 2000.

It always appealed to me--the idea of no waste. It was practiced heavily by the Native American. They used every part of the kill for food, clothing, tooling and shelter. They even found ways to use the intestinal organs.

I guess I disagree with JLS. The only thing lost or forgotton is what you CHOOSE to lose or forget. I think Homesteading is in part chooses to remember the old ways. My personal views are that, I kill what I need, use all I am able to, and look for better ways to use what I have. That viewpont is largely taken from the first book of the bible where God gave Adam dominion over the animals and every green thing on the earth. As I have read many teachings, I have come to the conclusion that --the "Great Spirit" and "the one true living God" are one and the same !

-- Joel Rosen (Joel681@webtv.net), December 30, 2000.


Choose to loose? Come on Joel.We all know what was done,now. Not what was taught in our High School History books.

Native Americans did not choose to loose their culture.It was beaten out of them. Kids were taken and forced to be "white".

What does amaze me is how much of it is still left,despite the white man's best efforts to expunge them and their culture,from the face of our country.Can you say genocide.

-- sharon wt (wildflower@ekyol.com), December 30, 2000.



soni: a very provacative subject. people are very passionate with their responses however, as a man who loves the land and his animals and who also, happens to hunt, i must disagree with most. most of us hunt for what we can consume not display on the wall.. we men and women are the dominent species and i believe should not regret that one bit.. we (i), respect nature and what it brings us. (take only what you need, do not waste any life). as i too live alone (with my dogs), perhaps i have lost my perspective but i don't think so. please feel free to correct me if, you think i amy off base.. bob M.

-- bob mccaffrey (bobmccaffrey1@netscape.net), December 30, 2000.

Hi Bob, I don't think anyone was talking about having problems with hunters who take only what they need and show respect by using what they kill. It's the trophy hunters who leave headless bucks lying around that offend folks. I am offended by trophy hunters for the additional reason that they go after the biggest racks, which coincidentally are carried by the biggest and strongest animals. Effectively, they are culling the size and strength out of the species they hunt. Not too bright.

-- Laura Jensen (lrjensen@nwlink.com), December 31, 2000.

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