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Chapter One

Once Loved and Respected Nature

Many scholars acknowledge that there is a special connection between

indigenous people and Mother nature; “Native Americans have long had an

immediate relationship with their physical environment” (Lewis 423). In this chapter,

I will explore in specificity the intimate relationships of the Native Americans with

the environment in which they live. My argument is, there is a lot difference between

the ideology of the mainstream and indigenous culture. If we wish to achieve a

sustainable development, there is a lot we should learn from Native Americans

depicted in Hogan's People of the Whale. Many distinctions in perceptions and ways

of using natural resources between the western and native people are revealed in the

novel. Hogan, I'm trying to argue, shows her non-native readers what there are to

learn from the native people in her novel.

Unlike the Euro-Americans who are so anthropocentric as to consider themselves

standing out from the other creatures, to think they can dominate the “nature”1 and to

view animals merely commodities from which they can make profits, native people in

North America view human not only as part of the circle of lives, but also friends and

relatives to the living beings around them. In other words, indigenous people love and

respect the nature in their own unique way. Also, indigenous people has a profound

knowledge about their environment that can help preserve natural environment. As

Salmón puts it, “indigenous people in North America are aware that life in any

environment is viable only when humans view their surroundings as kin; that their

mutual roles are essential for their survival” (1327).

1 Although in the old days European ideology do see human society separate from nature, many non-native scholars nowadays advocate that human beings is actually part of the nature. See, for example, Timothy Morton's Ecology fWithout Nature and The Ecological Thought.

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The first part of this chapter will be devoted to discussing how tribal people

show their reverence and love to the nature in Hogan's People of the Whale. Then I

will indentify probable sources of indigenous people's attitudes toward the

environment. One of the reasons I will mention for their intimate relationship with the

nature is that they depend heavily on it. Hence, I will also investigate how the novel

exhibits Native American's dependence on the nature; both their culture and

livelihood. In the last part of this chapter, I will investigate the unique and intriguing

worldview of the Native people presented in the novel－their why of understanding

the universe through their surroundings and their viewing living beings as planets.

My argument, however, will not be generalized to include all different tribal

cultures in North America. I will narrow down and focus my discussion only on the

relationships between indigenous people and nature represented in certain works

because it is cautioned that “Generalized statement can be misleading” since “there

are significant differences among [aboriginal societies]” (Preece 164)2. To be more

specific, my research will target on Linda Hogan’s People of the Whale and Sightings

in which I observe that the traditional indigenous people depicted are tightly

connected to the ocean. Their lives and their well-being depend largely on the

creatures in the sea, especially the whales, as clearly suggested by the novel's title; I

will probe into this at length later toward the end of this chapter.

In People of the Whale, one of her most celebrated novel, Hogan depicts the

bond between Native Americans and the environment they live in. We can see the

attitude of the traditional indigenous people toward the ocean and all the living beings

in their surrounding; it is observable how Native Americans love the sea and the

oceanic creatures, notably the whales; “[t]he whales have always been loved and

2 Although the argument of my thesis is that Native people have a harmonious relationship with the nature environment, I'm aware of the proclamation that this harmony is only a illusion, in Rod Preece's Animals and Nature: Cultural myths, Cultural Realities, for example.

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watched” (Hogan, People 10). Also, Hogan displays how the tribal people show their

highest respect to all creatures on earth; "The [native] hunter reveres the animal, and

asks it to make a gift of itself so that humans can eat. Animals comply and give

themselves to the hunter who shows proper respect.” (qtd. in Preece 166). In the

following paragraphs I will examine how Hogan exemplifies native people’s

traditional attitudes toward the nature.

In the old days, as displayed in the novel, when the ideologies of the European

which “saw [the nature] as commodity rather than as cultural inheritance” (Lewis

425) and capitalism have not affected the Native Americans3, all the creatures are

loved by the tribal people to an extent that they are considered kin to the people. For

example, Ruth calls the seals gather resting the sun next to the wall Thomas builds his

kin and cousins (115). Furthermore, the animals are considered their ancestors; "The

seal is one of his [Thomas's] clan ancestors" (116). Naive people, in a sense, can love

and respect other creatures because they do not consider human beings so different a

species from other creatures living together.

Another reason for indigenous people's love of nature is that because they live so

close to the so called nature that they can fully appreciate its beauty. The female

protagonist of the novel, Ruth, Thomas's wife and a traditionalist, shows her love

toward the nature as well through her constant appreciation of its beauty. In a letter

Ruth writes to Thomas after he has gone to the war, she explicitly praises the salmons,

and in the letter we can see how Native Americans treasure live forms; “They are so

beautiful. I hate to kill even one. But I only sell what I need to.” (32). Also, after

Thomas returns to the ocean, he starts to appreciate the marvelous ocean that is

central to the lives of the tribal people; "he begins to see the beauty of the water, the

thickness of life” (160).

3 This issue will be discussed more at length in the second chapter of my thesis.

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The reverence and love of the tribal people toward the sea can be seen in their

songs and rituals; “The tribe has songs about the ocean, songs to the ocean” (Hogan,

People 9). Before the indigenous people go out to hunt, they have to sing to the

whales so that whales may come to them, “Mary sang to the whales, onio way no,

loving them enough that one of them might listen and offer itself to her people.” (21;

original italics). Furthermore, some of their songs shows how native people humble

themselves before the whales; "Oh whale, take pity on us. We are broken. We are

weak. We are small. We are hungry mere humans" (78; original italics). A lot of the

ideology of the traditional Native Americans, in fact, is revealed in the song quoted

below; not only their affection, reverence, and the bound, but also their belief, which I

will explore in more detail later.

"Oh brother, sister whale," he sang. "Grandmother whale, Grandfather

whale. If you come here to land we have beautiful leaves and trees. We

have warm places. We have babies to feed and we'll let your eyes gaze

upon them. We will let your soul become a child again. We will pray it

back into a body. It will enter our bodies. You will be part human. We'll

be part whale. Within our bodies, you will dance in warm rooms. create

light, make love. We will be strong in thought for you. We will

welcome you. We will treat you well. Then one day I will join you."

His wife sang with him (23).

Although whaling and fishing might seem cruel at the first glance, yet they are not

conducted without respect in the hearts of the indigenous people. In regards to

whaling, Native Americans are different from the Euro-Americans in that while

people of the main stream culture turn whaling into an profit-making industry,

traditional native people do not consider whales as commodity; they do not wish to

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make money from whaling. Ingenious people only kill what they have to in order to

feed themselves and survive; "He beckoned and pleaded when the people were

hungry. The rest of the time Witka [the last whaler] watched [the whale's] great

numbers passing by" (18). In every aspect of the tribal whale hunt, both before and

after, indigenous people display their awe towards the whales, their lives savior.

Before they go out hunting whales, Native people have to prepare themselves

mentally. Not only the hunters, but every tribal members have to be ready;

“[e]veryone had to be pure in heart and mind. By then the whale would be coming

gladly toward the village” (People of the Whale 22). From their preparation we can

infer how they respect the whales, and how seriously they take their hunting. Also,

during the whale hunt, they all have to hold reverence in their hearts; "he [Witka]

began in earnest a hunt for the whale. When Witka went into the ocean, everyone and

everything on land was still. The town stopped living. No one labored" (20).

After killing the whales, tribal people pray and apologize in order to show their

respect and gratitude toward the creature being killed. Preece proposes that “The

respectful prayer to the slain involves an apology for in principle unacceptable but in

practice unavoidable reality” (165). People have to eat to survive, and killing is

inevitable in food-acquiring. However, native people show their piety by praying and

apologizing to their prey after the kill. When Ruth kills salmons to make her living,

she, for instance, apologizes to the fish; "Ruth, as soft-hearted as she is, hits each

[salmon] at the back of the head in just the right place, praying, apologizing, then goes

to work as fast as she can" (229; emphasis added). Also, when the people come back

from the whale hunt, Thomas "apologized to the whale" and he was willing to "stay

there [with the whale on the beach] all night if that's what was required to do this job

right" (95).

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For the native people in the novel, moreover, they can only kill certain

"appropriate" whales. Because Native Americans think the whales being killed give

their lives willingly to sustain the tribal people, native people would not kill without

the whales’ permission. In the old days, it was Witka who goes into the ocean and

talks to the whale to ask them to come to the people, and it was he who announce,

"Yes, tomorrow. It is the right time for us to bring a whale back home" (22). Also, if

the whales are young or friendly, their lives must be spared. Marco, Thomas and

Ruth’s son, who has the old ways, “knew it was not a whale to kill, the time was not

right” (253). When the tribal people are killing the whale, he says to them “‘It was

friendly and it was too young to be killed…This is the wrong whale to kill’” (91).

All these reveal not only how native people honor the whales, but also how

indigenous people can in turn contribute to sustaining the ecosystem. Native people

undeniably benefit from the natural surroundings; their lives depend on the other

creatures. This is exactly why I contend that indigenous people, to some extent, also

assist in sustaining the environment. They have to ensure the sustainability of the

nature environment they so heavily rely on so that their lives, too, may be sustained. It

is said that “Over the last years, the elders had gauged and counted and made certain

that waters weren’t overfished” (Hogan, People 126). I will explore the possibility of

combining Native Americans' knowledge on maintaining the environment and

western technology, science, and environmental conservation to arrive at a balanced

development in the later part of this chapter.

In a sense, the traditional whaling of the Native Americans would never run the

whales to nearly extinction. Instead, they are part of the environment; they live

harmoniously with other creatures around them and "They used everything in their

power to save and free the whales" (82). Salmón, in fact, not only contends that

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“[i]ndigenous people are affected by and, in turn, affect the life around them” (1332),

he suggests that "indigenous people believe that the complex interactions that result

from this relationship enhance and preserve the ecosystem" (Salmón 1331). In the

novel, I would like to point out that, even though they failed because they are not

powerful enough, there are still those who endeavors to protect the whales by

protesting against the whale hunt－Ruth, Wilma , and Delphine; “[Ruth] wanted to

protect the whales. She was already speaking out against the men [who were going to

kill whales]” (60).

After establishing how ingenious people love and respect the nature, I will move

on to discuss possible reasons for their attitudes. I find that the whales, specifically,

are loved and honored; "the whale they love enough to watch pass by. They were

people of the whale. They worshiped the whales... The whales were their lives, their

comfort" (43). It is not only because the whales are the main source of food, which

make them crucial to the Native Americans, but also because they have a long history

with the tribal people. In addition, whales also provides native people with a lot of

things they need in their daily lives. The whales, moreover, are also the source of the

indigenous culture, as indicated by the stories and myths related to the amazing

creature.

One of the reasons why native people develop affection for whales is that, in

Hogan's words, "their people had lived there for thousands of years" (People 15).

Unlike the Euro-Americans "who are new and young on this continent” (Hogan,

Dwellings 11), native people have lived in the same area for such a long period and

“[t]he natural world, therefore, is not one of wonder [to indigenous people], but of

familiarity” (Salmón 1329), and their love of nature spring from this closeness.

Spending a long period of time in the same place, certainly, does not necessarily result

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in the love indigenous people have for their environment, yet it does significantly

increase the opportunities for this affection to occur. In other words, tribal people love

all the other living beings because their ancestors has spent years establishing intimate

relationships with other creatures, and the affection toward nature is passed down to

younger generations.

Another reason that may account for the awe and affection of the indigenous

people is their extremely heavy dependence on the whales. Native Americans depicted

in the novel rely on whales so heavily in their daily lives. They eat whale meat,

decorate their houses with whale bones (70-71), and they even "... make light with its

oil, [and] how to make baskets with its baleen" (88). We can see the every aspect of

native peoples' lives is tightly bounded with the whales. Like the familiarity

mentioned above, native people's dependence on the nature deepens generation to

generation. We can see that native people develop wisdom on how to use natural

resources effectively, and yet, the longer tribal people live in a place, the more their

lives are bounded to the environment4.

Not only do the everyday lives of Native Americans largely depend on whales,

but also their traditions. In People of the Whale, we can see how the tribal culture is

sustained by whale hunting. The most obvious example is that the stories told by the

tribal people are mostly about the whales; "All their stories clung like barnacles to the

great whale" (43). Native people entwine all their affection and their knowledge

accumulated by generations into fascinating stories, and these stories not only

attribute meanings to the environment they live in, but also become the source of their

culture. The culture of the A’atsika people can also be seen in their whale hunting

rituals including singing to and praising the whales, cleansing and purifying

themselves, scrubbing themselves with cedar and fasting (70-1), and after the hunt

4 This is, of course, before their way of life is changed by the contact with Euro-Americans. I will examine the changes more at length in chapter two.

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they have to cover the whale with eagle feathers (88).

Native peoples' love and awe toward other living beings and their environment

has developed into their extremely different worldview from the Euro-Americans. For

one thing, naive people do not see themselves as separated from the other creatures.

Unlike Western ideology, indigenous people do not see themselves as different from

other creatures on the planet “humankind is not separated from nature” (Hogan,

Dwellings 12). For another thing, Native Americans do not think they have dominance

over live forms. Instead, they consider other creatures equal to human beings. In a

sense, native people, consider themselves as part of the circle of lives; “[indigenous

people] view themselves as an integral part of the life and place within which they

live” (Salmón 1328). This distinction between western and indigenous perspective on

nature causes great differences on how they handle natural recourses. I will elaborate

on this in the later part of this chapter.

In People of the Whale, Hogan also shows the connectedness of human beings

with other creatures by giving certain characters animal features. For instance, Ruth's

reaction is described as that of an animal; "The back of her neck grew cold, the hair

starting to rise in the old animal way" (54; emphasis added). Also, Ruth and Marco

both have other creature's physical characteristics; Ruth is born with gills right in

front of her ear (27), and her son, Marco, does not only swim out of birth (33), but

also he has webbed feet (34). From these examples we can see that in the concept of

the indigenous people, human is no different from the other living beings. Human, in

other words, is nothing more than a kind of animal that is capable of walking on two

legs to native people.

Not only do the native people in the novel have the quality of animals, but also

the animals have human features. Such as the octopus that comes out when Thomas

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was born, which is capable of looking at the people around it; "the eye of it [the

octopus] looking at [the people around it]" (15). Also the whales that have intelligent

and ancient eyes that can gaze at the people; "The whale, with its barnacles and wise

old eye sees straight into human soul" (290). The whales and humans are alike in that

they both live on water and earth; "Like the whales who were dependent on land, in

many ways they [the A’atsika] lived in two elements" (34). Hogan's novel, in a sense,

as Joni Adamson articulates it, "reveal[s] the animality of humans and the humanity of

animals"(Whales 34). It is the idea that deeply influences the minds of the native

people.

Not only do the Native Americans see human as equivalent to other living

beings, they, as mentioned earlier, consider other creatures their relatives; "Indigenous

cultures of North America include human communities in their cultural equations of

nature. To indigenous people, humans are at an equal standing with the rest of the

natural world; they are kindred relations" (Salmón 1331; emphasis added). In People

of the Whale, Hogan demonstrates this belief via the words of several characters. For

example, Marco, the one who still has the old ways and the traditional belief, says to

his people when they are going to kill the whale, "'It's young. It's not the right one to

hunt. It is friendly. It just wants to see us. We are its relatives" (99; emphasis added).

Ruth, as mention earlier, also call other animal Thomas's relatives; "Those [the seals]

are your kin" (115).

In addition, natural environment is so crucial to the indigenous people that it is

said to be related to the wellbeing of the people; “[t]heir spiritual, physical, social, and

mental health depends on the ability to live harmoniously with the natural world”

(Salmón 1331). This is why when Thomas seems to be traumatized and suffer so

much mentally when he "turned his back on the sea" (Hogan, People 24). He had to

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build a fence and lock himself in because "The wretched man no longer wants to see

the face of water looking at him" (113) because the sight reminds him of what they

have done in the whale hunt he wrongly believed would bring back their tradition.

Thomas seems to recover and become whole again when he starts connecting himself

to the ocean again toward the end of the novel5.

Also, in the novel we can also see Native Americans' unique naming of the

constellations. The way they understand the cosmos is very different from the white

settlers. Whereas Europeans name the constellations by imaginative creatures and

invented words, native people name the stars by what they are most familiar with－

the creatures around them; "[they name] the constellations: Whale. Sea Lion.

Octopus" (17). We can see from this naming how native people understand the

universe through animals in their surroundings and how other living beings are crucial

to their way of thinking, and from their perception of the universe we can also see

how close native people are to other animals around them; “After the whale, the

octopus in all its intelligence was next in the line of creation, then the salmon, Ruth’s

clan; a spiral, and then the other constellations” (278).

In her article, "Whales as Cosmos," Adamson points out that Native Americans

in People of the Whale see the whales as planets (40). A whales, for the indigenous

people, is like a planet the sustain bountiful of lives－the numerous barnacles that live

on the whale; “He [Thomas] recalls the whales. It was beautiful in its, gray barnacles

on it, sea lice, as if it supported an entire planet” (112; emphasis added).Therefore,

whereas Euro-Americans see a whale as merely an animal and killing it means

nothing more than ending a single life, native people consider terminating a whale

destroying a whole planet. In a sense, what is merely a single life to Euro-Americans

means so much more to indigenous people, this explains why lives are much more

5 For further discussions on Thomas's trauma and recovery, see Chiang Lin Chien-yi's thesis, History, Trauma and Healing in Linda Hogan's People of the Whale.

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precious to them than to white Americans.

Adamson also observes that this concept apply not just to whales, but also other

living beings. Humans, too, can be seen as a "planet in its universe" (Hogan, People

267). Thomas, for example, is viewed as a planet due to "the molecules of oxygen

[he] must control to stay under the water" and to "the pulmonary system he must

expand to stay alive" (Adamson, Whales 42). For indigenous people, human beings

living alongside with other beings are like planets existing and orbiting together;

"multiple species functioning together in a complex cosmos of relations" (Adamson,

"Whales" 39). The world, in other word, is not just a universe to the tribal people, but

a cosmos of worlds teeming with life spanning multiple scales(42), and the cosmos is

"a dynamic space that includes humans and the whole community of beings that exists

in the world" (39).

Native Americans, undeniably, hold the deepest knowledge of their environment

which cannot be acquired by any western scientific method that is only recently

brought to this land; it is the result of “years of accumulated wisdom－the

[indigenous people's] trial and error of previous generations” (Lewis 423). Indigenous

knowledge, in the language of Madhav Gadgll, is “a cumulative body of knowledge

and beliefs handed down through generations by cultural transmission about the

relationship of living beings (including humans) with one another and with their

environment" (151). Indigenous knowledge, that is to say, is the acquired, gathered,

and passed down through generations. Moreover, not only do the native people

"clearly possessed vast knowledge of their environment" (Krech 103), but they also

"understood relationships among living things in the environment" (212), as discussed

above.

After establishing native people's attitude toward the nature world, their belief, I

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will move on explore their vast knowledge about the environment in which they live

and investigate how their knowledge can combine with western science and

technology to create a sustainable development. Indigenous knowledge can be

discussed from two aspects. One is the practical part of the knowledge which can

provide us with practical ways to improve our environment. The other one is

concerned with indigenous belief that can modify our ways to manipulate nature if we

incorporate it into our thinking . To be more specific, native people has a profound

understanding of their environment, and their knowledge and usage of the natural

resources is closely related to the perceptions of the native people, because "[m]odels

of how the natural world functions as well as prescriptions on how to manipulate it

are inevitably liked to any society's world view" (Gadgll 151).

From the practical perspective, Gadgll proposes that it is of great significance to

learn from the native people in order to preserve natural environment because

indigenous people have developed sustainable ways to use the natural resources since

their survival relies heavily on their surroundings. Sometimes, ways to enrich the

natural environment may even evolve in tribes; "Where indigenous peoples have

depended for long periods of time, on local environments for the provision of a

variety of resources, they have developed a stake in conserving, and in some cases,

enhancing biodiversity" (151). In other words, native people has developed a way to

sustain and enrich their homeland in order to secure their lives. If we can learn from

native people the technique to increase biodiversity on their particular land, I believe

it would greatly benefit the enrichment and maintenance of the eco-system of other

places.

Hogan show the potential of indigenous knowledge in the People of the Whale as

well. For instance, the most famous whaler of the A’atsika, Witka, is said to "ha[ve] a

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great deal of knowledge about the ocean and all sea life" (18). In fact, "His knowledge

of the ocean was so great that scientists came to question him" (19). In addition, it is

actually observed in the real world that some"... aborigines possessed detailed

technical knowledge of fire" (Madhav Gadgll 153). In the novel, we can see that Ruth

still has the knowledge of using fire to increase the harvest; "The women make small

burns in order to grow their grasses for weaving" (138). In her novel, Hogan does

show her non-native readers that there is a lot we can learn from the indigenous

people.

Technique is easy to learn, yet a more important thing we can learn from tribal

people is the belief behind their knowledge and their handling of the Mather Nature.

The knowledge of the native people comes from the experiences of generations, and

their sustainable usage of the natural resources is the result of their perception on the

nature; "Their practices for the conservation of biodiversity were grounded in a series

of rules of thumb which are apparently arrived at through a trial and error process

over a long historical time period. This implies that their knowledge base is indefinite

and their implementation involves an intimate relationship with their belief system"

(Gadgll 151). It is, as a result, more important to learn native people's perceptions on

the nature than to learn their methods of enhancing and preserving natural resources if

we hope to reach the goal of sustainable development. That is, to maintain

sustainability, we need to change our heart first; it is crucial for us to learn to respect

and love the nature like native people, and note that "humans [is only] a small group

of lives beside a big ocean" (Hogan, People 16).

Unlike native people, modernized people are inclined to segregate nature from

themselves. Nature may merely be a study subject to them, and they tend to simplify

the complexities in the ecosystem. In Gadgill's words, "Modern scientific knowledge,

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with its accompanying world view of humans as being apart from and above the

natural world, has been extraordinarily successful in furthering human understanding

and manipulation of simpler system" but "[s]cience-based societies have tended to

overuse and simplify such complex ecological systems, resulting in a whole series of

problems of resources exhaustion and environmental degradation." (151). If the main

stream culture really realizes, as Native Americans do, that “[w]e are all related to,

and play a role in, the complexity of life” (Salmón 1328), I believe it is possible for

humans to stop plundering nature and solve some environmental problems.

In conclusion, Native Americans not only has love and respect toward nature,

they also hold the deepest knowledge about the environment in which they live. Also,

native people believe that they are a part of the nature instead; "For indigenous

peoples, "earth-beings" have never been separated from "nature" and have always

interacted with humans" (Adamson, Whales 35). Hogan reveals the attitudes and the

belief of native people in People of the Whale so that many non-native readers are

exposed to the ideas that can help improve the way we interact with the nature and in

turn help deceleration our deprivation of our Mother Nature; we learn that for

aboriginal people“[a]nimals are necessary to support human life. The animal world is

seen as equal to, if not more powerful than the human one—both on a spiritual level

and in the physical world. (qtd. in Preece 166). In a sense, Hogan inspires her readers

to rethink about their perceptions on the nature and urges them to take action to

protect the complicate and delicate ecosystem, because "The ocean is a landlord here.

Everyone pays the sea" (People 260).

There is, indeed, a lot we ought to learn from the native people, and Hogan

demonstrates what are there for us to learn in her novel. Yet, she unearths more than

that; she shows us also the crisis native people are facing. For example, Native

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Americans are losing their belief and knowledge, and the whales are endangered. We

can even see that even the traditions of the native people are fading away from them.

That is, in People of the Whale we also see that although the elders and a handful of

traditionalists in the tribe still remember the old ways and remain loving and

respectful toward the lives that surround them, most of the younger generation has

been influenced by the ideology of Euro-American and starts to kill whales for

money. I will discuss this in more detail in the second chapter.