whale & owl

Nature's Way ch.5-6

1. What can we learn from whales?

2. What is a Vision Quest, and what is most important in it? What transformation does it (like other native ceremonies) provoke?

3. Again: mitakuye oyasin means ___________.

4. What is a wotai? What does Eagle Man claim to know about it?

5. What errant attitude do "young white men" often adopt after participating in a Sun Dance ceremony?

6. "Will Creator invervene someday and save our world?" Does Eagle Man take this question seriously? Do you? Do you agree that "modern materialists" do not care about generations unborn?

7. What does Owl represent? When is he most active? Why is that significant? What is the source of his "truth"?

8. Do you agree that failure to honor Great Spirit necessarily results in selfishness?

9. "What you never see does not exist, according to the Sioux." (ch4, p.100) But, being "owl-like" enables us to "connect with what ordinary senses cannot perceive." (130) Do you find anything in these statements problematic?

10. What does Eagle Man mean when he says the Yuwipi ceremony can "bring ancestors of the past in to phenomenal, physical form"? Is he talking about resurrection, or just vividly imaginative memory? Are spirits internal or external to a person's "vision"?

11. Eagle Man says suburban High School seniors, in contrast to young native Sun Dancers, "show very little interest in organized religion." Why? In what way do "white people set themselves up as mini-gods"?