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A seat at the table; Huston Smith in conversation with Native Americans on religious freedom.
In this collection of illuminating conversations, renowned historian of world religions Huston Smith invites ten influential American Indian spiritual and political leaders to talk about their five-hundred-year struggle for religious freedom. Their intimate, impassioned dialogues yield profound insights into one of the most striking cases of tragic irony in history: the country that prides itself on religious freedom has resolutely denied those same rights to its own indigenous people. With remarkable erudition and curiosity--and respectfully framing his questions in light of the revelation that his discovery of Native American religion helped him round out his views of the world's religions--Smith skillfully helps reveal the depth of the speakers' knowledge and experience. American Indian leaders Vine Deloria, Jr. (Standing Rock Sioux), Winona LaDuke (Anishshinaabeg), Walter Echo-Hawk (Pawnee), Frank Dayish, Jr. (Navajo), Charlotte Black Elk (Oglala Lakota), Douglas George-Kanentiio (Mohawk-Iroquois), Lenny Foster (Dine/Navajo), Tonya Gonnella Frichner (Onondaga), Anthony Guy Lopez (Lakota-Sioux), and Oren Lyons (Onondaga) provide an impressive overview of the critical issues facing the Native American community today. Their ideas about spirituality, politics, relations with the U.S. government, their place in American society, and the continuing vitality of their communities give voice to a population that is all too often ignored in contemporary discourse. The culture they describe is not a relic of the past, nor a historical curiosity, but a living tradition that continues to shape Native American lives.
- GenresReligionRaceAnthropology
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First published January 1, 2005
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About the author
Huston Smith
123 books315 followersSmith was born in Suzhou, China to Methodist missionaries and spent his first 17 years there. He taught at the Universities of Colorado and Denver from 1944–1947, moving to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri for the next ten years, and then Professor of Philosophy at MIT from 1958–1973. While at MIT he participated in some of the experiments with entheogens that professor Timothy Leary conducted at Harvard University. He then moved to Syracuse University where he was Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Philosophy until his retirement in 1983 and current emeritus status. He now lives in the Berkeley, CA area where he is Visiting Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
During his career, Smith not only studied, but practiced Vedanta Hinduism, Zen Buddhism (studying under Goto Zuigan), and Sufism for over ten years each. He is a notable autodidact.
As a young man, Smith, of his own volition, after suddenly turning to mysticism, set out to meet with then-famous author Gerald Heard. Heard responded to Smith's letter, invited him to his Trabuco College (later donated as the Ramakrishna Monastery) in Southern California, and then sent him off to meet the legendary Aldous Huxley. So began Smith's experimentation with meditation, and association with the Vedanta Society in Saint Louis under the auspices of Swami Satprakashananda of the Ramakrishna order.
Via the connection with Heard and Huxley, Smith eventually experimented with Timothy Leary and others at the Center for Personality Research, of which Leary was Research Professor. The experience and history of the era are captured somewhat in Smith's book Cleansing the Doors of Perception. In this period, Smith joined in on the Harvard Project as well, an attempt to raise spiritual awareness through entheogenic plants.
He has been a friend of the XIVth Dalai Lama for more than forty years, and met and talked to some of the great figures of the century, from Eleanor Roosevelt to Thomas Merton.
He developed an interest in the Traditionalist School formulated by Rene Guenon and Ananda Coomaraswamy. This interest has become a continuing thread in all his writings.
In 1996, Bill Moyers devoted a 5-part PBS special to Smith's life and work, "The Wisdom of Faith with Huston Smith." Smith has produced three series for public television: "The Religions of Man," "The Search for America," and (with Arthur Compton) "Science and Human Responsibility." His films on Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Sufism have all won awards at international film festivals.
His latest DVD release is The Roots of Fundamentalism - A Conversation with Huston Smith and Phil Cousineau.
During his career, Smith not only studied, but practiced Vedanta Hinduism, Zen Buddhism (studying under Goto Zuigan), and Sufism for over ten years each. He is a notable autodidact.
As a young man, Smith, of his own volition, after suddenly turning to mysticism, set out to meet with then-famous author Gerald Heard. Heard responded to Smith's letter, invited him to his Trabuco College (later donated as the Ramakrishna Monastery) in Southern California, and then sent him off to meet the legendary Aldous Huxley. So began Smith's experimentation with meditation, and association with the Vedanta Society in Saint Louis under the auspices of Swami Satprakashananda of the Ramakrishna order.
Via the connection with Heard and Huxley, Smith eventually experimented with Timothy Leary and others at the Center for Personality Research, of which Leary was Research Professor. The experience and history of the era are captured somewhat in Smith's book Cleansing the Doors of Perception. In this period, Smith joined in on the Harvard Project as well, an attempt to raise spiritual awareness through entheogenic plants.
He has been a friend of the XIVth Dalai Lama for more than forty years, and met and talked to some of the great figures of the century, from Eleanor Roosevelt to Thomas Merton.
He developed an interest in the Traditionalist School formulated by Rene Guenon and Ananda Coomaraswamy. This interest has become a continuing thread in all his writings.
In 1996, Bill Moyers devoted a 5-part PBS special to Smith's life and work, "The Wisdom of Faith with Huston Smith." Smith has produced three series for public television: "The Religions of Man," "The Search for America," and (with Arthur Compton) "Science and Human Responsibility." His films on Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Sufism have all won awards at international film festivals.
His latest DVD release is The Roots of Fundamentalism - A Conversation with Huston Smith and Phil Cousineau.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 6, 2007
This book is interviews by Huston Smith, world reknown expert on World Religions and really metaphysics, with extraordinary Native American Indians who were at the World conference of Religions in Cape Town, South Africa in 1999. It gives you an incredible perspective on the level of discrimination that the Native Americans have endured and are enduring. You are seeing it clearly through their eyes for me, for the first time because of the skill of the interviewer. I always considered myself understanding and nondiscrimating when dealing with people in minority groups, however after reading this, I realized how much discrimination against Native Americans is just a part of our culture here. I think it is an important perspective to have if we truly want to believe that everyone is our relative here on earth.
August 22, 2021
From Congress to the United Nations, Indigenous and native people are calling for peace, rights, reconciliation, restoration of land, water, “All Our Relations” and/or some kind of just recompense for these failures. Our pressure from migrants fleeing industrial farming corporations, their bulldoze-and-burn techniques, maquiladora slave-labor camps, dictators and funded wars could be pulled back if we listened to the moral balance of their stories, histories and the balanced relationships with the earth from which they came.
With any luck and good wisdom, we can ALL learn from these truth-tellings to blend the edges of “fiction” with “history” and cleave to a center which is humane, spiritual, material and changing. This “gravitation” to a unified, healthful center is also elucidated by longtime Berkeley resident Huston Smith’s A Seat at the Table: In Conversation with Native Americans on Religious Freedom, edited and prefaced by Phil Cousineau. He quotes Gene Thin Elk (Lakota, 1994, p.119) “We have, at the very core of our being, more power than anything human kindness has ever made ever since the beginning of time…We can, in any given second, start that healing process and walk a healing road.”
Vine Deloria Jr. said in 1979, “The fundamental factor that keeps Indians and non-Indians from communicating, is that they are speaking about two entirely different perceptions of the world.” (p. xviii) Smith, in conversation with Anishinaabeg activist and politician Winona LaDuke, responded to one of her questions about world religions by saying “the unique contribution of the Indigenous peoples is to focus on this point of mutual relatedness,” (p. 52) and she “vigorously described this way of conducting oneself in the world.”
She also said the name for her nation was “the land of the people,” “But it also means the land to which the people belong…In all our stories, in our oral history, we say this is where the giant went to sleep, or this is where the great river was made. All those stories are contained in the land itself, and they are not contained elsewhere.” (ibid.) “It’s not about looking back – it’s about being on your path – staying on the path the Creator gave you,” (p. xx) and to “live in accordance and respect to the Akin, the Earth that cares for us, which is our Mother. That is what we are taught in our community.” (p. 52)
Cousineau says, “Along with the recovery of lost land and revenues comes the revitalizing of what many elders call the “Good Red Road,” the spiritual path that emphasizes the community and the great web of life.” (p. xviii) The lost children and wise adults who see the Earth sinking under her human burdens are turning to these old ideas and stories, the Elders who experience, repeat and remember them and the old “songs.”
The process of storytelling, oral traditions that encompass culture, ethics, religion, history, family and all parts of Natural History: geology, geography, botany, zoology and more; circle around back to a worldview where dreams, songs and visions of interconnectedness are held in the highest esteem; a worldview where ALL is held in balance by each part working together, even in the midst of change, BECAUSE of change. Because of curiosity, learning and sharing “songs.”
With any luck and good wisdom, we can ALL learn from these truth-tellings to blend the edges of “fiction” with “history” and cleave to a center which is humane, spiritual, material and changing. This “gravitation” to a unified, healthful center is also elucidated by longtime Berkeley resident Huston Smith’s A Seat at the Table: In Conversation with Native Americans on Religious Freedom, edited and prefaced by Phil Cousineau. He quotes Gene Thin Elk (Lakota, 1994, p.119) “We have, at the very core of our being, more power than anything human kindness has ever made ever since the beginning of time…We can, in any given second, start that healing process and walk a healing road.”
Vine Deloria Jr. said in 1979, “The fundamental factor that keeps Indians and non-Indians from communicating, is that they are speaking about two entirely different perceptions of the world.” (p. xviii) Smith, in conversation with Anishinaabeg activist and politician Winona LaDuke, responded to one of her questions about world religions by saying “the unique contribution of the Indigenous peoples is to focus on this point of mutual relatedness,” (p. 52) and she “vigorously described this way of conducting oneself in the world.”
She also said the name for her nation was “the land of the people,” “But it also means the land to which the people belong…In all our stories, in our oral history, we say this is where the giant went to sleep, or this is where the great river was made. All those stories are contained in the land itself, and they are not contained elsewhere.” (ibid.) “It’s not about looking back – it’s about being on your path – staying on the path the Creator gave you,” (p. xx) and to “live in accordance and respect to the Akin, the Earth that cares for us, which is our Mother. That is what we are taught in our community.” (p. 52)
Cousineau says, “Along with the recovery of lost land and revenues comes the revitalizing of what many elders call the “Good Red Road,” the spiritual path that emphasizes the community and the great web of life.” (p. xviii) The lost children and wise adults who see the Earth sinking under her human burdens are turning to these old ideas and stories, the Elders who experience, repeat and remember them and the old “songs.”
The process of storytelling, oral traditions that encompass culture, ethics, religion, history, family and all parts of Natural History: geology, geography, botany, zoology and more; circle around back to a worldview where dreams, songs and visions of interconnectedness are held in the highest esteem; a worldview where ALL is held in balance by each part working together, even in the midst of change, BECAUSE of change. Because of curiosity, learning and sharing “songs.”
January 7, 2018
“Is there anything in the primal religions that is uniquely important? I would say yes. They correct our modern assumption that later is better. That illusion is contained in this word progress, and progress has been, pardon the language, the bitch goddess of the twentieth-century West.”
I decided to read this because 1) I live in America; 2) I only ever learned the “big five” in school; and 3) my job has to do with public lands, currently the subject of some fraught and fractious conversations with native religion at the fore.
I found a lot of ideas that resonated:
* “Though no one voice speaks for all, sometimes many speak as one.”—Joseph Bruchac
* The “double bind of romanticism and racism”
* In most (all?) native languages, there is “no word for ‘religion’ as institutionalized spirituality—rather, religiousness, a way of life, a ‘wisdomed tradition.’” There is “no one word for God, but many for the Great Mystery—sacred names for the great force in the universe that connects all living beings in the circle of life. And for the Hopis, ultimate reality is simply, numinously, a’nehimu, ‘A mighty something.’“
* Why do you write?” ‘Because Indians always tell a story. The only way to continue is to tell a story and that’s what Coyote says.’“—Simon Ortiz
* “One does not sell the land people walk on.”—Crazy Horse
… and some I still can’t stretch to span my three continents.
* The idea of a birthright or a homeland; the idea that a particular place—and in particular, an unchanging place—is owed to anyone instead of anyone else.
* Related, the idea of inherent obligations due or inherited from the dead.
I’ll keep reading and thinking and listening and see what happens.
I decided to read this because 1) I live in America; 2) I only ever learned the “big five” in school; and 3) my job has to do with public lands, currently the subject of some fraught and fractious conversations with native religion at the fore.
I found a lot of ideas that resonated:
* “Though no one voice speaks for all, sometimes many speak as one.”—Joseph Bruchac
* The “double bind of romanticism and racism”
* In most (all?) native languages, there is “no word for ‘religion’ as institutionalized spirituality—rather, religiousness, a way of life, a ‘wisdomed tradition.’” There is “no one word for God, but many for the Great Mystery—sacred names for the great force in the universe that connects all living beings in the circle of life. And for the Hopis, ultimate reality is simply, numinously, a’nehimu, ‘A mighty something.’“
* Why do you write?” ‘Because Indians always tell a story. The only way to continue is to tell a story and that’s what Coyote says.’“—Simon Ortiz
* “One does not sell the land people walk on.”—Crazy Horse
… and some I still can’t stretch to span my three continents.
* The idea of a birthright or a homeland; the idea that a particular place—and in particular, an unchanging place—is owed to anyone instead of anyone else.
* Related, the idea of inherent obligations due or inherited from the dead.
I’ll keep reading and thinking and listening and see what happens.
January 13, 2022
I underestimated Smith and I apologize deeply. This is so healing and hopeful, for me, an adoptee who is Not Italian but Ohlone (California Native). I have been reading and learning all I can from respectful sources. While Cosineau autographed my first edition, I just opened the book this year. I plan to recommend it highly and widely.
Just recently I read, Unsettling Truths. Different ground, centered on the impact of Christianity. By Mark Charles. Highly recommend as well.
🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
Just recently I read, Unsettling Truths. Different ground, centered on the impact of Christianity. By Mark Charles. Highly recommend as well.
🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
February 24, 2022
Profound and inspiring wisdom. Beautiful sentiments and directions for right relationship.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews