Despite the great diversity of Native American cultural features, practices and beliefs, despite there not being a single Native American worldview and despite the variety of geographical habitats Native American peoples have inhabited, there are certain characteristics that are held in common. The comparative theologian and Lakota scholar, Joseph Epes Brown has said:
"This common binding thread is found in beliefs and attitudes held by the people in the quality of their relationships to the natural environment. All American Indian peoples [possess] what has been called a metaphysic of nature; and manifest a reverence for the myriad forms and forces of the natural world specific to their immediate environment; and for all, their rich complexes of rites and ceremonies are expressed in terms which have references to or utilize the forms of the natural world."
This 'metaphysic of nature' is based upon a belief in a concept of relationship that threads itself through all Native American philosophies. As Brown says:
"In terms of interconnections, a dominant theme of all Native American cultures is that of relationship, or a series of relationships that are always reaching further and further and further out; relationships within the immediate family reaching out to the extended family, to the band, outward again to the clan, to the tribal group; and relationships do not stop there but extend out to embrace and relate to the environment: to the land, to the animals, to the plants, and to the clouds, the elements, the heavens, the stars; and ultimately those relationships that people express and live, extend to embrace the entire universe."
Let us look at the cultural environments of the Northeast, the Subarctic and the Plains regions.
© 2002 by Bornali HalderSite, Page and Article © Copyright 2002 by Bornali Halder