STORIES FROM INDIGENOUS CULTURES 107
outdoor drama, The Anasazi. The story of the sunflower seeds was
told to us that evening. This story illustrates many aspects of Navajo
philosophy, showing the belief that all beings and the Earth herself
are alive. We were encouraged to write it down and to share it
with others.
In the stories we have heard in our experiences with the
indigenous cultures, all emphasize the importance of the imagination
and storytelling. All of these practices involve a restoration of the
sense of belonging to the greater story of the world. Tribal people
seek, by means of ceremony and story, to bring the individual into
harmony with the living whole of being and to remember the
mystery and majesty of all things (Allen 1986). Sharon French’s story
of the sunflower seeds and Annie Khan’s instruction to get up early
and “pray the sun up” are illustrative of this point.
4. Nature, art and creative process
The people of the indigenous cultures we have encountered see all
beings as part of the creative forces of the natural world. Humans
are participatory in these ongoing creative forces. Related to this
view is the belief and practice that art making in all of its forms
is a holy act. Whether offering prayers and gifts of tobacco when
gathering grasses for baskets or painting sacred symbols on clay pots,
all creative acts take on a dimension of the sacred. This includes a
recognition that humans are a part of forces, seen and unseen, larger
than the individual self. This larger-than-individual self, called by
contemporary writers such as Stoknes (2015) an ecological self, is
seen in all aspects of creative making. The kachina dolls of the Hopi,
the fetishes of the Zuni, the weavings of the Navajo and the basketry
of the Cherokee, as well as the jewelry and adornments of the all of
the groups we met, are examples of creative making done in sacred
ways, with the materials collected and treated with great care and
reverence. In all creative making the tribal person is finding his or her
place within an ongoing dynamic, creative and interactive process of
life (Brown 1992).