"In the old way there were no locks on our doors. We had no fences to make lines between 'mine' and 'yours'. To be great among our people was not to gather the most for ourselves, it was to be the biggest giver and sharer and to protect the weak. We honored those who could help the most, not those who could have the most.
"Once a person starts to live in your way, everything changes, because everything has to be protected. You start making rules about what people can't do, not what people should do. Look at those Ten Commandments you tried to teach us in the boarding school: 'Thou shalt not, thou shalt not.'
"I'd rather have rules that say, 'You should, you should.' It teaches us who we should be, not who we should not be. All your way does is tell someone how not to be bad. It doesn't tell them how to be good.
"When we teach the children this fear way, we set their feet on a bad path. We teach them to grow up thinking about themselves. Sharing is just a small stick they hold out to other people, not the strongest branch on the tree of their lives. They learn to protect, not to give, and it builds a wall around their hearts.
"We need to change this. We need to teach them a helping way. We need to teach them that the way to be strong is to help the weak; the way to have wealth is to give things away; the way to lead is to serve. We need to let them know that they are an important part of the circle of life, and if they do not play their part, no one else can.
"If we teach them these things they will have hope in their hearts."
from "The Wolf at Twilight - An Indian
Elder's Journey through a
Land of Ghosts and Shadows" p 307-308
By Kent Nerburn
