The Powhatan-Renape-Lenape man Jack D. Forbes:
The life of Native American peoples revolves around the concept of sacredness, beauty, power, and relatedness of all forms of existence. In short the "ethics" or moral values of Native people are part and parcel of their cosmology or total world view.
Most Native languages have no word for "religion" and it may be true that a word for religion is never needed until a people no longer have "religion."
As Ohiyesa (Charles Eastman) said,
"Every act of his [the Indian's] life is, in a very real sense, a religious act."... "Religion," is, in reality, "living." Our "religion" is not what we profess, or what we say, or what we proclaim; our "religion" is what we do, what we desire, what we seek, what we dream about, what we fantasize, what we think - all of these things - twenty-four hours a day.
One's religion, then, is one's life, not merely the ideal life but the life as it is actually lived.... Religion is not a prayer, it is not a church, it is not "theistic," it is not "atheistic," it has little to do with what white people call "religion"
It is our every act. If we tromp on a bug, that is our religion. If we experiment on living animal, that is our religion: if we cheat at cards, that is our religion; if we dream of being famous, that is our religion; if we gossip maliciously, that is our religion; if we are rude and aggressive, that is our religion. All that we do, and are, is our religion. (pg. 154)
Try to make everything you do an expression of the "sacredness, beauty, power, and relatedness of all forms of existence"
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