2 - Hunter Moon

Susanna Suchak (October 23, 2005)

ego! (say it until they realize that it is a greeting to be returned) Sego ? a Haudenosaune word meaning the equivalent of Peace not the absence of conflict, but the embrace of wholeness and harmony with the entirety of Creation.

As this is the month in which we celebrate Thanksgiving, I'd like to share one version of the Iroquois Great Thanksgiving Prayer.

*****Read Canku Ota (Many Paths)-- a prayer of thanks.****1

This month (October) the Haudenosaunee People welcomed the Full Hunter Moon. Watching the moon grow and knowing that this was hunting season caused me to ponder on what hunting meant to me. I don't depend on the hunting skills of the men in my life for my very survival. Indeed, there is a droll bumper sticker claiming that "vegetarian" is an old Indian word for "lousy hunter". But I have been a hunter all my life, as have of you. I had thought that I was hunting for God that something that is larger than I can imagine, that someone who keeps everything in the universe just spinning around. What I was really hunting for was meaning, for purpose, a sense of belonging perhaps even rootedness.

When I was introduced to Longhouse ways, I can say truly that I found that ? in a way that no Church before had demonstrated to me. But my lifestyle prevents me from being in the Longhouse community 5 days of every "moon" to "practice my faith", so what to do? How do I connect with likeminded folks? How to worship? And seek "communion"?

I am reading a book called "Reading Rock Art" which discusses the spirituality evident in petroglyphs of the Ojibwa people. I was struck by a parallel with some literature of the Unitarian Church. Both stated quite emphatically something to the effect that we do not believe in a puppet master type of God, but both have a sense of connection to that interrelated web of life. And then I realized that although I cannot practice the Longhouse for many reasons, I can feel connected as just one part of Creation ? for in speaking of a Creator it follows that each of us are Creations with a place, and meaning, and purpose within Creation and from that simple thesis, I present for your consideration that it is from this perspective that respect for one another derives. Not One Creator God, but various Creators gathered under one Force of Creation called Gitche Manitou. And perhaps that is why I feel so comfortable within the Unitarian context. There are many parallels. We are all "hunters".

A sense of place helps us to develop our sense of belonging. Historically, geography shapes us, informs us and partly defines our sense of purposefulness. Meaning and purpose are only partly derived from geography. The other key player in this aspect of human development is the community into which we are born. Social expectations instruct us about how we fit into the BIG picture. The "pre-historical" picture. A kind of "God's eye view". A time-line that requires us to really wrap our heads around some concepts with "faith".

Consider something we might call Lithic phases (Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic). For our purposes let's think of Paleoliths as people in a nomadic hunting culture. Mesoliths as people in pastoral cultures and Neoliths members of settled farming cultures.

But first, a story2 which starts around 1200 of what is now called the "Common Era" in deference to our multi-faith multicultural reality of this millennium. It seems that around that time some Paleoliths showed up in the San Juan region of Northern New Mexico. Athapascans, they were, recently of Canada. Kanuks out on a walkabout. They were hunters. The hunted down and killed critters for a living. Well, they settled in and before you know it (about 1400CE) they were doing a little corn planting on the side. And again, before you knew it they had taken up herding (about 1800 CE) and quit hunting altogether.

So what's the deal? They went from Paleoliths to Mesoliths and on to Neoliths in about 600 years. They came in as hunters and before you could turn around they were farmers and ranchers.

When they were hunters coming down from the north their myths and power stories featured that Master hunter, that Trickster of legend and myth -- Coyote.

So far so good. Coyote was king, as he should be. But then the people started growing corn and stuff like that and Coyote became an annoyance. He was seen as lazy and irrelevant. Coyote didn't make a very good field hand.

Then the Dine' (The People) even starting hanging out with sheep. Coyote couldn't believe it. Here were a once proud people reduced to living with sheep. And they smelled like it too! Now Coyote was considered dangerous. The People didn't have any need for him. He was thought of as evil and feared. What The People needed now was rain and the only way they knew to get rain was by trying to be good. And so reciprocity turned into retribution, the Shaman was replaced by a Priest. And rules and values changed along with this religious shift.

When you look closely at it ? Hunting is often trickery; good hunting is trickery done well -- outsmarting your opponent. For often it is an "eat or be eaten" world. Think of fishing lures, duck decoys, brush blinds, moose calls -- all of them to trick animals, in order to kill them. This quest of the hunter to become a better trickster is not an arrogant striving for self-realization; rather, it is an imitation of Coyote and other shamanic hunter heroes. For example, while shepherds frequently obtain glimpses of deity in form of a Great Shepherd, nothing less than a Great Trickster will signify to the traditional hunter the presence of divinity. He was capable, at any moment, of being adaptable, agile, daunting, but with a wily sense of humour.

Stories are told of Coyote's strange craving for watermelon. If there are watermelons growing in the neighborhood, Coyote will get his share. So if you are intelligent and also "farming" watermelons, you just make peace with that and grow enough for you and Coyote. That is if you are smart. And if you realize that all of us have a place and purpose for being here. We need to make peace with our neighbours ? including coyotes. Maybe even including squirrels. For us urban types perhaps that is an even harder test.

But we can learn a lot from coyote. Maybe we can learn a lot from squirrels -- that stands to be seen. Consider how successful coyote is. How well he adapts to humans encroaching on his hunting territory.

You see, Coyote has a simple, foolproof algorithm. And it works for most everything. You might want to write it down...that is if you want to be as successful a hunter as coyote is.

1. Get real clear about what you want.
   
2. Have enough sense and a wide vision to notice what works.
   
3. Keep trying something different, outrageous if necessary.
   
4. Remember and understand how you were finally successful.
   
5. Don't sweat the small stuff.

Hunter Moon designates this as a time for good hunting, in preparation for the still, cold, and sleeping earth. Hunters in the culture of a community don't go out to the cabin with the "boys" to drown their liver in spirits, NO; they are playing an integral role in caring for the whole community. Their mission is to bag enough meat to last the whole village for the whole winter.

The deer culls at the Provincial Parks, assigned to local Native Conservationists and Hunters, are carried out with the same reverence and ceremony as those hunting expeditions of old were. These are somewhat unnatural controls but we still must approach them as hunters of old ? with a sense of gratitude and equality between hunter and hunted.

Part of the ceremony is prayer. Prayers for success. Prayers for safe homecomings. Prayers of gratitude to the animals who would sacrifice their lives for the sake of their brothers and sisters, the human beings. Prayers of gratitude for being a part of a wider community, that we call Creation ? the Web of Life. Prayers that having once learned to kill we will not become blood hungry and turn on each other.

Prayer is a part of the reverence through which hunting was approached then. Gratitude and Humility were other components. Now some of you may feel uncomfortable with the word prayer; it may have negative connotations for you ? for it is true that words as symbols only have meaning within a cultural context and often they derive somewhat slanted meanings within that sub-cultural context as well. So perhaps it would be better if I framed it this way. Prayer as I have observed it in my brothers and sisters of the Longhouse is the duty and responsibility and the right of each of us to hold all the others within Creation in our thoughts and hearts, our words and our deeds. To hold them with gentleness and in a good way. When you remember the Thanksgiving Prayer response it will seem more familiar, Now we are One can translate into the Golden Rule rather nicely. Do unto others ... because what you do to them you do to yourself.

During public ceremonies, I have heard Dan Smoke explain, "we pray with our eyes open, so that you (Creator) might see us and into our hearts". When the original peoples gather in a circle of ceremony, we call it a gathering of the good minds. And we close with a great hug around the circle. Each person gets hugged twice so that they will leave embraced by every other person.

I once had a friend that explained to me that we all use each other. Now, to call another human being a user is incendiary nowadays, but we do use each other. Hunters use the animals to feed their families. What we must forever be cautious about is not to MISuse or ABuse. I used to explain to the parents in my groups that we spoil children the same way we spoil fruit. We either neglect it (and let it rot) or we hold it overtight or roughly (and consequently bruise it). It occurs to me that holds in all our relationships. If we get too busy with trivialities and forget to touch base with friends or family the relationship will suffer. If we try to force our friends into a lifestyle, thinking pattern or philosophy we will lose them sure as holding the reins too tight will cause a horse to bolt.

Another part of the reverence of the hunting tradition is that of meticulous use of the entire being which is sacrificed for your well-being, your very life. If you are to ask another to give their life for you, you owe it to them not to be wasteful of that gift. For it is a gift just as surely as life is a gift to be treasured and measured and reciprocated -- for that is how we demonstrate our respect for others.

Each part of the animal is used. The gut is used for sewing; the hide is used for clothing, for drumheads, for shelters; the bones are used to make rattles, tools, and embellishments for fancy dress. Another measure of wastefulness is to only take what you NEED, not what you GREED.

Though the Hunter must take the materiality of brother deer, or rabbit or goose, they are reverently sparing of the soul. Now in Sacred Earth by Arthur Versluis he explains that the word soul or sacred roughly equates with the Lakota term wakan, in Iroquois orenda and the Algonquian Manitou. There are few "more ambiguous" terms than "soul" because it has been submerged in a dichotomous "soul and body". However, among the original peoples we mentioned, the meaning of wakan, orenda and Manitou gets lost in translation. Perhaps, if you have discovered "ch'i" through your studies or body, mind, spirit programs like yoga or ch'i gung the concept will be easier to grasp. Perhaps the term prana from Sanskrit meaning "breath of life" brings another step closer to truly understanding. For within the spiritual cosmology of these original peoples "soul" means something much more subtle, indeed it could be translated "subtle energy". Again as Versluis explains, "rock is not mere matter that acts as an abode for a spirit, as we might try to conceive of it; rather, the rock is a manifestation of its transcendent origin, of its spiritual archetype, and that archetype reveals a truth to the hunter? All things in nature can act as spiritual revelation." And then too, "a holy man" can say that "everything has a spirit" a prairie dog has two spirits: a spirit like a tree, and a spirit like the breath of life." By this he means that an animal is a spiritual archetype as well as the subtle energy that bodies forth that archetype."

And so hunters thank the four-leggeds or the flying brothers and sisters for their sacrifice of their "soul" ? their "cosmic meaning" and they respect that breath of life spirit is something that we all share. While we might never kill another human being, we can surely kill their soul, their spirit, with our neglect, our domination or our cruel disregard for their divinity and worth as fellow Creations. Our greed too can consume much more than our need requires. Reverence and respect also implies that we must live simply so that others may simply live. In our consumer society, it is hard to practice this reverence, respect, and thrift. All around we are encouraged to consume, consume, consume and to use, use, use. Even our relationships and communities have been debased to something of a crass economic system, where our worth is only measured by our possessions.

In the Hunter Society, your wealth is measured by what you give away. What you share with others demonstrates your worth. It is not easy to be a Hunter in this age. It is not easy, but it is worth it. You are worth it.

Live with reverence for all the parts of Creation because you are one and what you do to any of these brothers and sisters, you do to your self. If you would learn the lessons of the Longhouse, I propose that it is to live respectfully toward all your fellow beings. It does not require great wealth, or grandiose gestures. It only requires that you bless them for their unique gifts with reverence.

Mitayouke Oaysin. It means All My Relations. It is the highest blessing Haudenosaunee persons will bestow upon you. It says, I recognize you as my sibling and my equal; I respect your life and your lessons. You are precious in my sight, because we are one. It is akin to the greeting, Namaste wherein we acknowledge that the divine resides within each of us. As above, so below. Now we are One. Aho!