m the Cherokee, the Sioux from the Seminoles, the Apaches from the Inuit, the Kwakiutl from the Mandan, the Maya from the Pueblo, the Inca from the Aztec, as distinguish the French from the Uzbeks, the Welsh from the Norwegians , or the Serbs from the Croats. Also, as noted above, there is the problem of the stereotype of these peoples as "primitive." Certainly, many European explorers thought that Indians were primitive because they did not hold European ideas of the appropriate relations between human beings and land or natural resources -- ideas of dominion, ownership, and property. That view persisted well into the twentieth century. But the failure to hold European views or ideas does not imply an absence of one's own views or ideas. Whatever the range of differences among them, the Indian peoples had their own histories and cultures, their own understandings of how to live in the world, their own systems of governance and law. Not only are these understandings, at least, worthy of respectful study -- they often can prove enlightening in and of themselves: Indian religion recognized the unity of all living things and taught reverence for life and for the earth. But the exact nature of Indian religious beliefs is still a matter of historical and cultural controversy -- was it a simple pantheism (seeing gods everywhere in everything) or a more sophisticated and structured set of beliefs recognizing a hierarchy of tutelary spirits and a single, overarching creator or "Great Spirit?" Indian ideas about property are closely tied in certain key respects to their religion. For example, Indians believed for several reasons -- reverence for the earth, the equation of the earth with nature or air, and the tendency to think in communal rather than individualistic terms -- that it was silly or beside the point to talk of owning land. Exclusive possession of a given tract of land seemed outlandish to them, even though it was the core of the Eng...
