AUDIOBOOK
About
Part memoir, part cultural manifesto, To You We Shall Return offers a comparison between Euro-American attitudes, policies, and history regarding the natural environment to that of ancient native North American beliefs and practices in relating to and living with that same environment. Speaking from the cultural viewpoint of the Lakota of the northern Plains, the author discusses the evolution of native cultures to fit within the environment and adapt to it, as opposed to changing it drastically or wholesale to fit human needs and comforts. He suggests that changing our contemporary thinking in relating to the earth in a less harmful way does not mean a drastic change in lifestyles, but that revisiting the methods of adaptation to and coexistence with the earth will foster a renewed respect which will ultimately benefit mankind as well.
Related Subjects
Reviews
"Soft-spoken, matter-of-fact, and firm in his delivery, the author Joseph M. Marshall III, a Lakota Sioux, chastises Euro-Americans (whites) for our degradation of Nature. Their land and its bounty of gifts have always been the focus of Native American lives from the frigid far north to the southwestern desert. He describes how a variety of Native American nations have successfully adapted to ever
SoundCommentary.com
"This work by the Lakota philosopher is a meditation on our connection to the land and an exhortation to respect it. Marshall combines personal history, tribal history, and metaphysics with modern analogies and commentary. His message is best captured by the Lakota ethos that the people belong to the land, not the other way round, and that the land is a resource like the air, that no one can own.
AudioFile