Kaiak (Nov 2015)
La terra dove nulla scompare per sempre
Abstract
The traditional cultures of Native American tribes and populations have been humbled for a very long time by the WASP dominant vision of the US destiny. Through particular laws like the sadly well-known Indian Removal Act (1830), the colonization of North America went on through the entire 19th century, often forcing the Natives to move away from European-populated areas, towards Indian reservations or worse accommodations. Thanks to the attention of Franz Boas, George Hunt and many more, in the last years of the 19th century cultural anthropology started to study seriously the cultures of these Native tribes, and a new kind of relationship could has finally substituted the previous. Gradually, it appeared clear how many habits and beliefs were actually assimilated by the common american lifestyle from the Native American cultures, sometimes assuming Christian shapes, sometimes not. But this is totally in accordance with the deepest truth common to the most of Native American cultures, which believe firmly in the global unity of reality. The world of man dissolves into the world of animals and plants, the life on Earth is strictly connected to the life in the skies, spirits are everywhere and create bonds and connections with every single living being. The power of nature reveals itself in two different ways: visibility and invisibility, and the main rituals can have a dialogue with it in both cases. Three areas are examinated to show this argument: Indians of the Northeastern woodlands, Indians of the Plains and Indians of the Northwest coast. In native traditions no display of spiritual power can be irrevocably deleted or removed from the horizon of Being, and so the word ‘apocalypse’ has a very different meaning. That’s why this essay is entitled The Land where nothing vanishes forever.
