Native American
I would like to alert you to a NEW BOOK I have added to our booklist: Biodiversity and Native America edited by Paul Minnis and Wayne Elisens
As our Summer growing season comes close to an end and we are moving closer to September, it is good to take a break and sit down in our fields and be grateful for another year of the earth’s abundance. That is why I thought this book to be a good one to read for this time of year. Let me warn you that it is a scholarly manuscript with a number of contributing authors, but nevertheless quite intriguing to read.
And why would I recommend this book on Coyote’s website? Well, as I have so ofen said, Coyote is about many things! So this book is about how our Native people related to the landscape, how they used the land, how they grew their food, and how they related to the animals. It gives us a broader view of our humanity …how our human species has lived in the New World for the past 12,000 years….how they evolved in their relationship to the land and how they saw themselves in relationship to the land.
Author, Enrique Salmon, writes “Cultural Models” suggest and determine how a culture and individuals from that culture, will interact with the natural world. These models influence culturally shared thought, reactions, actions, and understandings.” So our native peoples had a rich cultural model that greatly affected their actions toward the natural world. So what is our Cultural Model…what way of seeing our world guides us? Does this not heavily influence our behaviors and relationships with other life…and here in Maine…Coyote?
