The Way of the Earth: Native America and the Environment

From a master historian, folklorist, and anthropologist, a lucid, densely fact-filled argument for Native Americans' theories and practices of preserving the environment. To prove that they have a sophisticated system of ecology (rather than an expedient new gospel in aid of acquiring government funds), Bierhorst offers examples from both North and South American cultures and a sparkling array of parables and proverbs whose importance, he says, has been largely ignored. Chapters on personality, kinship, restraint, death, and renewal are broken into sections such as ``The Earth as Mother''; a rich stew of citations from a dozen or more tribal sources illumines each. The entwined lives of plants, animals, and humans are presented as dependent relationships with mythic overtones guiding the use of resources. A very fine book, but difficult: of most interest to adults. Forty pages of notes and bibliography. Index.

In this important book, the author uses native testimony and native texts to show how 'animal masters' and natural gardening protect the land from overuse, how living space is patterned, how human reproduction is controlled, and how the sun is viewed as the overlord of a closed energy system from which nothing may be removed without 'payment.'