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Here is my own perspective
about this book...
When I read the book, I was immediately repelled by it. I found it to
be the most offensive book towards native/indigenous people that I
have ever read.
People are very needy for Earth-based spirituality. In this
society we are so very very far removed from the Earth, that we will be
drawn like moths to a flame to anything that even hints at a more
fundamental, more spiritual-based & Earth-based way. This book
outlines a utopian society, very spiritually advanced and close to
the Earth -- so it draws us in.
I have spent considerable time with "Native" people, so I am no
stranger to Native ways and the Native way of being (although
Native cultures vary widely around the world, there are threads
that are common to all of them). Perhaps
this is why I found the book so offensive - I know them and their ways
fairly well, and not from an intellectual point of view, but from a human,
living perspective. And, generally speaking, the picture that the book shows
of native people is so very very far from who and what they really are,
that it actually degrades them. In my opinion, it pauperizes Native people
all over the world into
new-age "touchy-feely" noble enlightened beings. And they have
little enough dignity left as it is!
So, I was determined to place this information on the
website so that others could be exposed to the other side of
this book.
-- Walter Muma |
