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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 3 page research paper that contrasts and compares Native American values with European-descended American values. The writer focuses, in particular, on the manner in which these two groups differ in regards to the way they perceive land. Bibliography lists 4 sources.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khnaea.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
fundamentally different from those held by Europeans and this difference survives to a certain extent into the present. Rather than a materialistic focus on private property that stressed individualism and
a literary culture, native traditions wee oral, egalitarian and with a lifestyle traditionally rooted in nature (Paper). As this suggests, one of the principal areas in which Native American
and Western European values differed was in regards to concepts of property. The Western European concept of property was based on the idea of private ownership and a relationship to
specific economic laws (Larson). In contrast, Native Americans perceived land as a "source of cultural, physical and spiritual sustenance" (Larson). The principal motivating factor behind the English invasion of North
America, behind the massacres of Native Americans, as well as the deception and brutality, was the powerful drive to acquire private property (Larson). Native Americans took a completely
different approach to land. They considered themselves to be a part of the land on which they dwelled (Larson). Land, in the Native American point of view, not only provides
sustenance, but is a source for spiritual origins and myth, which, in turn, provide an abundance of cultural and emotional meaning (Larson). It was the harshness of the plains, for
example, that shaped the tribal communities and their emphasis on sharing resources as a primary value (Larson). The land was far too important and significant in the lives of the
people for them to permit ecological destruction. According to Larson, one of the effects of centuries of contact with European-descended Americans has been a severance between Native American peoples and
the land. However, this relationship is being rediscovered by Native American authors, such as James Welch and Louise Erdrich, among others. In his novel Fools Crow, Welch offers a
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