spirits. Each form of life, such as plants and animals, had a spirit. Earth and air
held spirits too. People were never alone. They shared their lives with the
spirits of nature.” Way is trying to show respect for Native American religion,
but it doesn’t work. Stated flatly like this, the beliefs seem like make-believe,
not the sophisticated theology of a higher civilization. Let us try a similarly
succinct summary of the beliefs of many Christians today: “These Americans
believed that one great male god ruled the world. Sometimes they divided him
into three parts, which they called father, son, and holy ghost. They ate
crackers and wine or grape juice, believing that they were eating the son’s
body and drinking his blood. If they believed strongly enough, they would live
on forever after they died.”
Textbooks never describe Christianity this way. It’s offensive. Believers
would immediately argue that such a depiction fails to convey the symbolic
meaning or the spiritual satisfaction of communion.
Textbooks could present American Indian religions from a perspective thattakes them seriously as attractive and persuasive belief systems.^64 The
anthropologist Frederick Turner has pointed out that when whites remark upon
the fact that Indians perceive a spirit in every animal or rock, they are
simultaneously admitting their own loss of a deep spiritual relationship with
the earth. Native Americans are “part of the total living universe,” wrote
Turner; “spiritual health is to be had only by accepting this condition and by
attempting to live in accordance with it.” Turner contends that this life view is
healthier than European alternatives: “Ours is a shockingly dead view of
creation. We ourselves are the only things in the universe to which we grant an
authentic vitality, and because of this we are not fully alive.”^65 Thus, Turner
shows that taking Native American religions seriously might require
reexamination of the Judeo-Christian tradition. No textbook would suggest
such a controversial idea.
Similarly, textbooks give readers no clue as to what the zone of contact was
like from the Native side. They emphasize Native Americans such as Squanto
and Pocahontas, who sided with the invaders. And they invert the terms,
picturing white aggressors as “settlers” and often showing Native settlers as
aggressors. “The United States Department of Interior had tried to give each
tribe both land and money,” says The American Way, describing the U.S.