I found Mr. Highwaters opinionated perspective on our culture and Native American culture to be rather thought provoking. Some of the most obvious points that I, on my own, would have never thought of consisted of his views on the two languages, nature/wilderness, and concept of time. I’ve heard of names such as pink footed bird, as quoted in the movie, but I never would have thought of the english language to be lacking in descriptiveness by using the word duck instead. I see how just calling a duck, a “duck”, could lack some description, but the simplicity of the primal language is where the lack of description actually comes into play.
I also found it interesting that he could not appreciate the meaning of the word wilderness. This coming from a man that was supposedly raised as a boy in a primal family makes total sense though. While he views the wilderness as a calm place that he can call home and be able to live off the land, city folk may very well be afraid of the wilderness. Interestingly enough, he seemed to be afraid, and find more meaning in the word wilderness, when he moved to New York City.
It almost seemed comical to me when he said that us Native Americans have no concept of seconds or minutes and even months, just moons and seasons. This seems funny to me only because I’ve been around this concept all of my life and only know how I was taught; while Mr. Highwater has experienced both based on his claims of Native American origin.
All points proved to be interesting to me, but their validity may be questioned by you or others…even by people of his supposed Native American origin.
February 5, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Thank you for accepting my challenge to invesitgate Mr. Highwater’s background. But, I am even more pleased that knowing some of biographical claims are murky at best, that you can still find his message thought provoking. Even if everything Mr. Highwater said about himself was false, his points were worth considering.