Freedom or Honor?

Excerpt from "Neither Wolf nor Dog" by Kent Nerburn

"This is something I've thought about for a long time. It's about white people and why they don't understand us. (Indians) I think I know why."

"I think it's because the most important thing for white people is freedom. The most important thing for Indian people is honor. This is why white people have listened to the black people more than to us Indians," he said. "The black people wanted freedom, too, just like the white people. And since the white people took freedom from the black people, the whites feel guilty about the blacks. You see what I'm saying?"

I nodded absently.

"But the Indian has always been free. We are free today. We have always been freer than the white man, even when he first came here. When you came to our shore your people wore clothes of chains. Our people wore nothing at all. Yet you tried to bring us freedom. The white world puts all the power at the top, Nerburn. When someone gets to the top, they have all the power to take your freedom. When your people first came to our land they were trying to get away from those people at the top. But they still thought the same, and soon there were new people at the top in a new country. It is just the way you were taught to think."

"In your churches there is someone at the top. In your schools, too. In your government. In your business. There is always someone at the top and that person has the right to say whether you are good or bad. They own you. No wonder Americans always worry about freedom. You have so damn little of it. If you don't protect it, someone will take it away from you. You have to guard it every second, like a dog guards a bone."

"When you came among us, you couldn't understand our way. You wanted to find the person at the top. You wanted to find the fences that bound us in-how far our land went, how far our government went. Your world was made of cages and you thought ours was, too. Even though you hated your cages you believed in them. They defined your world and you needed them to define ours. Our old people noticed this from the beginning. They said that the white man lived in a world of cages, and that if we didn't look out, they would make us live in a world of cages, too. So, we started noticing. Everything looked like cages. Your clothes fit like cages. Your houses looked like cages. You put fences around your yards so they looked like cages. Everything was a cage. You turned the land into cages. Little squares."

"Then after you had all these cages you made a govenment to protect these cages. And that government was all cages. All laws about what you couldn't do. The only freedom you had was inside your own cage. Then you wondered why you weren't happy and didn't feel free. You made all the cages, then you wondered why you didn't feel free."

"We Indians never thought that way. Everyone was free. We didn't make cages of laws or land. We believed in honor. To us the white man looked like a blind man walking. He knew he was on the wrong path when he bumped into the edge of one of the cages. Our guide was inside, not outside. It was honor. It was more important for us to know what was right than to know what was wrong."

"We looked at the animals and saw what was right. We saw how the deer would trick the more powerful animals and how the bear would make her children strong by running them without mercy. We saw how the buffalo would stand and watch until it understood. We saw how every animal had wisdom and we tried to learn that wisdom. We would look to them to see how they got along and how they raissed their young. Then we wouldcopy them. We did not look for what was wrong. Instead we always reached for what was right."

"It was this search that kept us on a good path, not rules and fences. We wanted honor for ourselves and our families. We wanted others to say, 'He is a good man. He is as brave as the bear' or 'as clean as the fox'. We had freedom so we did not seek it. We sought honor, and honor was duty. The man who sought freedom was just running from duty, so he was weak."

"The only time freedom is important is when others are trying to put you in chains. We had no chains so we needed no freedom."

Romans 2: 13-16

For not hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another; in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.