THE WAY OF PEACE 500 YEARS : AN INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVE Part III Carleen Elliott is an Anishinabequa who belongs to the Saugeen-Ojibway Band on the Bruce Peninsula. She is a long- time Native rights activist, and is currently Project Consultant for the Native Programming Project attached to CKWR 98.7 FM Community Radio.

North American aboriginal groups are referred to as a "culture", and that particular reference is political in nature. The cultural reality is that there are as many cultures as there are groups of aboriginal people. There are basic philosophical beliefs and practices across the continent, but the expression of culture is exclusive to each group. There are also cultural similarities between groups whose traditional territories abutted each other. With that in mind, the following is from the cultural history of the people of the Great Lakes.

Turtle Island is the name by which North America is known to the aboriginal people of the Great Lakes. The term "Turtle Island" is derived from a latter part of the Great Lakes aboriginal creation story; the first part of which is similar to the Christian Book of Genesis. The connection to the land is a source of spiritual practice which enables a consciousness about the precious nature of the land. In that context, the connection is felt for the entire land/continent and not just for pieces of it: a sense of ownership is foreign to this sense of consciousness.

When a connection is felt to Turtle Island, then responsibility for the well-being of the earth is felt - which provides a process for the decisions that are made about what happens to the earth, and then extends to all other living creatures on the earth, including other people. No one person or thing holds all the responsibility; and that is where individual awareness of personal responsibility is incorporated into aboriginal societies. That awareness is one of the reasons that hundreds of autonomous groups of people were able to live side by side, in peace, in pre-Columbian history.

The cultures of the indigenous people of North America all share a common basis: that basis is one of absolute respect. Respect has many meanings in the English language, but to Native people, respect means that all things have the right to live, and must be treated in a way that allows life.

It must also be kept in mind that peace is not a state of truce, but is felt in the conscious. War and war-making have no place within a society that practices such a philosophy.

Present general society believes such a philosophy to be an unobtainable ideal, and cannot believe that a philosophy of peace was in actual practice until the arrival of Columbus, and subsequent unceasing exploitation. Still, nevertheless, aboriginal history tells of the lengthy period of peace between millions of pre-Columbian people who lived in autonomous groups, side by side.

Aboriginal history dates the complete understanding of the state of true peace to almost 2000 years ago. Up until that time, the groups maintained peace without a true understanding of the Way of Peace and its necessary connection to consciousness. True understanding of the Way of Peace came about when a Being came to live among the people of North America. On reaching adulthood, the Being taught the necessity of the completeness of the philosophy of peace. The Being is known by different names across the continent, but the teachings are the same, and by that, aboriginal people know that the source of the teachings was the same person. The Being was greatly loved, but a day came when the Being's work was completed and the Being was seen no more.

The teachings about the Way of Peace are complete, and it was the people who lived those teachings that met Columbus on his arrival to the continent that we now call North America. It was other people who lived the teachings of the Way of Peace who met the early settlers along the eastern shores of America, and still others who met the fisherman on the shores of eastern Canada.

These groups of people had lived more than a millenia in complete peace, and they foresaw the future of blood and horror that awaited them and their descendents .. but the Way of Peace guaranteed, nevertheless, a continuation of the race.

That is why the aboriginal people of the continent continue to negotiate for the right to ancestral land, language, and culture while in other parts of the world, bomb-throwing and other practices of war continue.

As with any other philosophy, the Way of Peace is a choice, and a complete understanding of how and why to choose such a way is necessary. So it may well be the great, good fortune of the indigenous people of North America that the teachers of the philosophy of the Way of Peace have survived throughout the purposeful annihilation of the past 500 years. That survival may well be an indication of how deeply ingrained the philosophy and practice of the Way of Peace is. The choices about making war or living in peace, certainly continue to exist, but so do the teachers.

This article was originally published in Cross Cultures Magazine in Volume 1 - Issue 5 - 1992. Unauthorized copying, distribution or other usage without express written permission of the publisher is prohibited.