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(excerpt from book: The American Pageant, c. 1998)
Benjamin Franklin in a 1753 letter to Peter Collinson commented on the attractiveness of Indian life to Europeans: "When an Indian child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and make one Indian ramble with them, there is no persuading him ever to return. [But] when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners by the Indians, and lived awhile among them, though ransomed by their friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good opportunity of escaping again into the woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them."
photo from http://www.cymbria.ca/reeds.jpg
1 comment:
Great Blog, artist! I've been going for sacred fire rituals conducted by me librarian over the past few weeks. It's a precious, ceremony of bonding and intense awareness traditionally conducted by Lakota Indians. Fire - so powerful, moving and spiritually awakening. Embodying birth and death, creation and destruction and all that lies between. I'm completely mesmerized and awed by its potential. We are officially declared dead when the heat/ fire leaves our body. Fire- an essential element of this mind, body, planet and universe. wonderful.
Yesterday I was walking through the woods in Wachusetts. Ecstasy (not the drug ;-). No wonder the "English" Indians escaped in to the woods, never to return. I would too... Got some hiking boots today. Plan to spend most of my summer in the woods/ outdoors, reveling and rejoicing in the beauty of a blade of grass. ahhh bliss. You are always, ALWAYS welcome to join me in my internal adventures and pilgrimages.
Really want to go to this Native American retreat in upstate NY this June, but can't afford it... oh well. Perhaps some other time. Keep on sharing your beautiful thoughts/ discoveries with us all. I truly value and treasure such wisdom.
While reading your post, fragments of a speech which I studied in middle school flashed through my mind. It was supposedly made by Chief Seattle in the 1800s according to our English teacher. Not exactly accurate in retrospect. Nevertheless, really worth checking it out if you haven't already. Here's the link:
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/seattle.htm
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