The Soul of the Indian: An Interpretation
1911
The Soul of the Indian: An Interpretation
1911
At the turn of the twentieth century, as Native American traditions faced systematic suppression, a Dakota physician named Charles A. Eastman sat down to preserve something irretrievable: the spiritual world of his people. Written in 1911, The Soul of the Indian is not an anthropologist's fieldwork or a missionary's report. It is an insider's testimony, drawn from childhood teachings and ancestral memory, offering what Eastman calls "the human, not the ethnological standpoint" on Native American religion. Eastman explores the Great Mystery that permeates all existence, the sacred communion with nature, the unwritten scriptures of ceremony and symbol. He describes the moral codes binding community, the dignity of worship conducted without churches or scriptures, and the profound spiritual wisdom that sustained his people for generations. Yet the book carries a mournful urgency: Eastman writes as the old ways are fading, as boarding schools erase language and tradition, as the world that shaped him disappears. His prose pleads for recognition that Native American spirituality deserves the same respect accorded any world religion. This book endures because it was written from within a tradition, not about it. For readers seeking authentic indigenous voices, for anyone curious about the spiritual life that existed across the Americas before contact reshaped everything, Eastman's account remains indispensable.
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“The true Indian sets no price upon either his property or his labor. His generosity is limited only by his strength and ability. He regards it as an honor to be selected for difficult or dangerous service and would think it shameful to ask for any reward, saying rather: "Let the person I serve express his thanks according to his own bringing up and his sense of honor. Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new sweet earth, and the Great Silence alone!. What is Silence? It is the Great Mystery! The Holy Silence is His voice!””
— Charles A. Eastman
“The logical man must either deny all miracles or none.””
— Charles A. Eastman
“To the untutored sage, the concentration of population was the prolific mother of all evils, moral no less than physical. He argued that food is good, while surfeit kills; that love is good, but lust destroys; and not less dreaded than the pestilence following upon crowded and unsanitary dwellings was the loss of spiritual power inseparable from too close contact with one's fellow-men.””
— Charles A. Eastman
“The native American has been generally despised by his white conquerors for his poverty and simplicity. They forget, perhaps, that his religion forbade the accumulation of wealth and the enjoyment of luxury. To him, as to other single-minded men in every age and race, from Diogenes to the brothers of Saint Francis, from the Montanists to the Shakers, the love of possessions has appeared a snare, and the burdens of a complex society a source of needless peril and temptation. Furthermore, it was the rule of his life to share the fruits of his skill and success with his less fortunate brothers.””
— Charles A. Eastman
“I have not cared to pile up more dry bones, but to clothe them with flesh and blood.””
— Charles A. Eastman
“It is simple truth that the Indian did not, so long as his native philosophy held sway over his mind, either envy or desire to imitate the splendid achievements of the white man. In his own thought he rose superior to them!””
— Charles A. Eastman
“The religion of the Indian is the last thing about him that the man of another race will ever understand. First,””
— Charles A. Eastman
“The worship of the “Great Mystery” was silent, solitary, free from all self-seeking. It was silent, because all speech is of necessity feeble and imperfect; therefore the souls of my ancestors ascended to God in wordless adoration. It was solitary, because they believed that He is nearer to us in solitude, and there were no priests authorized to come between a man and his Maker. None might exhort or confess or in any way meddle with the religious experience of another. Among us all men were created sons of God and stood erect, as conscious of their divinity. Our faith might not be formulated in creeds, nor forced upon any who were unwilling to receive it; hence there was no preaching, proselyting, nor persecution, neither were there any scoffers or atheists.””
— Charles A. Eastman
“Friendship is held to be the severest test of character. It is easy””
— Charles A. Eastman
