Last Tuesday, we (me and my partner) participated in the Native American Heritage Month Opening Celebration which was hold by NAECC as the beginning of Native American Heritage Month. This event was celebrated with a Native American community drum circle.
At first, I thought this event wastes me time and I must take part in it because of the ENGR 131 class. But with the development, I found the activity was interesting and gave me useful information about the native America Culture. At the beginning of the celebration, the speaker showed his drum to us and introduced native America culture around the drum. The basic rhythm is the heart beat. The lecturer told us this is the first sound we heard, the heart beat of our mothers. Their drums have different sizes and convey different massages by different rhythm. Tony, the speaker, said he used the drum to pray. He prays for the deity in native America culture and prays for animals and his families. One of his statements is expressive. He believes that people can communicate with animals and plants. I found this statement is similar with the fairies in China. In Chinese culture, many animals and plants can live thousands of years and they absorb the essence of the nature. After thousands of years, those animals and plants become Jing, a kind of evil spirit. They can change their bodies and become human. Those animals and plants have emotion. Many ancient novels image the love stories between human being and Jing. But there are many differences between native America culture and Chinese culture. Native Americans pray for the nature. They hope the animals and plants can live well. In china, people don’t pray for Jing. Most of the time, people believe that human can’t have contact with Jing, because they think Jing are kind of devil. I think that the Native American's view of the world is very interesting. They are very in touch with it and it plays a big role in their lives and their religion.
I wish I had been able to go to this! It sounds very interesting; especially how the drum beat symbolizes a heartbeat. Would them being different sizes mean that we are all different? Do you think there's a relationship between the belief that one can communicate with plants and animals and how wise a culture is? With the evil spirit Jing, can that be considered like karma? An evil presence that comes back in a different form?
ReplyDeleteI don’t think there’s a close relationship between the belief and how wise a culture is. I think the origin of those beliefs is because people need religion to protect them. With the passage of time, it became a tradition or a common understanding of an ethnic group. To Christian, people will enter heaven when they die. I am not sure it is true, but I didn’t hear about something like normal people can become one of the deities in west culture. In china, ancient people believe that if people keep practice in a particular way they can become deity on day. This is because of the Taoism and I only know a little about it. Jing is something like this. In regular, people think plants and animals don’t have consciousness. They can’t think problems as human do. After thousands of years, they have consciousness and can think complex questions like human. This is Jing. I don’t think it likes karma.
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