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Not only did White Loon gain his name from his dream, and therefore
his adult identity, and whatever respect gained by it from his family
and tribe, but he also gained the image of himself as living into old
age and having freedom from disease. These are very precious gifts no
matter what period of history we consider, or what ‘tribe’.
In a modern city, thousands live without any satisfying sense of
connection with, or feeling they are respected by, their ‘tribe’.
Many live under constant fear of serious illness or early death, and
businesses are built catering to such fears.
The Pueblo Indians
Jung, writing about a meeting with some Pueblo
Indians in the USA, explains that their religion rests upon the belief
that through their frequent ritual, they help the sun to rise each
day. Without their tribal attention to the sun, they are sure the sun
will no longer rise. “This idea,” Jung explains, “absurd
to us, that a ritual act can magically affect the sun is, upon closer
examination, no less irrational but far more familiar to us than might
at first be assumed. Our Christian religion - like every other
incidentally - is permeated by the idea that special acts or a special
kind of action can influence God - for example through certain rites
or by prayer, or by a morality pleasing to the divinity.
The point Jung makes overall however is that through their beliefs
the Pueblo Indians as a group of people, have an intense peace and
satisfaction with their life. This deep peace and inner happiness is
seldom shared by more ‘rational’ modern communities. I am
not trying to argue for irrationality, but the comparison does, I
believe, highlight something that arose from the Amerindian beliefs
and use of dreams for guidance and spiritual sustenance. Namely how a
belief system, no matter if it is irrational, acts as a psychic immune
system against the ‘germs’ of despair, inferiority and
meaninglessness.
This pride and sense of belonging that was often a marked feature of
such tribal peoples prior to the coming of the white races,
illustrates one of the main functions of the dreaming process - the
psychological compensation or self-regulatory process - and how it
acts on the personality if it is deeply accepted. Because the native
peoples of America had such trust in the products of their unconscious
in dreams and visions, the compensatory images presented were of great
benefit, and fulfilled their task of keeping the balance in the
individualised identity. Unfortunately the rational attitudes of the
invading nationalities, questioning the power of the dream and vision
as they did, offered nothing to take the place of the dream. At least,
nothing that produced such an obvious sense of pride and tribal and
personal identity.
Something that becomes apparent in looking at dreams such as White
Loon’s is that the cultural attitudes and beliefs White Loon was
educated in dominate the content of his dreams. The coming of the
chickadee in early dreams was an accepted part of the vision fast, and
can be found in many other such dreams of people in his culture while
fasting. When an Indian became a Christian, through exposure to a
different set of cultural ideas, his or her dream content changed
radically. Nevertheless, many dreams were of a personal psychological
nature also, showing the individual relationships with the culture and
their own inner life. Even though White Loon’s dream of the birds
is very deeply cultural, it is interesting that birds often have the
same sort of significance in modern dreams. It was out of this sort of
observation that Jung developed his theory of the archetypes and the
collective unconscious.
Dream and visions
Something else that is apparent in comparing the visions experienced
by native Americans with those of present day individuals - perhaps
those using LSD or experiencing visions due to stress such as illness
- is that the native Americans entered their visions with some
understanding of what to expect and how to deal with the experience.
Our own cultural attitudes frequently put us at odds with our own
unconscious processes and visionary upsurge. Many people who are
confronted by the opening of the unconscious and the events that
follow, believe they are going mad, or that they will be overpowered
by forces that are antagonistic to them, and will sweep them to their
doom. Neither do many people, trained in modern Western ideals of
behaviour, know how to exist in the land of vision. Just as few desert
people know how to swim, and would feel fear if dropped into deep
water, so the person who falls into an altered state of consciousness
from the world of modern materialistic thinking, may feel great fear
instead of pleasure and the ability to 'swim' in it. Even the many
people who ‘interpret’ their dreams, have seldom moved
beyond the level of thinking, and know nothing through experience of
the deep waters of the unconscious. See: abreaction;
active imagination.
Like other primitive cultures, dreams were seen by the Amerindians
as having certain marked features that could be gained from them.
There could be an initiatory dream such as we have already considered.
There could also be dreams telling where to hunt; dreams showing a new
ritual giving some sort of power such as warding off illness, or
finding a new relationship with everyday life, or attracting a lover;
dreams could show the use of a herb for medicine; dreams might be
caused by some sort of evil within ones body, or an external evil such
as someone wishing you harm or an evil spirit; there could be a shared
dream with another person; the dream might be a revelation from
someone who was dead and now in the spirit world; or a dream, as in
the third example below, could be a map supporting and guiding the
dreamer throughout their whole life. Dreams were often considered to
be bad or good. If a dream were considered bad something had to be
done about it, such as a cleansing or healing ritual.
As an example of an Indians attitudes to dreams, this statement of
White Hair, a medicine man, is interesting. “Every dream that
takes place is certain to happen. Whenever the evil spirits
influence it, it is certain to happen. Whenever we dream a bad dream
we get a medicine man to perform sing and say prayers which will
banish the spirit.”
This description by a medicine man explains how he had a dream
showing him a new medicine. He says, “I saw a dog that had been
shot through the neck and kidneys. I felt sorry for the dog and
carried him home and took care of him. I slept with the dog beside
me. While there I had a bad dream. The dream changed and the dog
became a man. It spoke to me and said, ‘Now I will give you
some roots for medicine and show you how to use them. Whenever you
see someone who is ill and feel sorry for him, use this medicine and
he will be well.’ One of these medicines is good for sore
throat.”
The following is a fasting dream/vision recorded by Father Lalemont,
a Jesuit priest working among the Indians.
At the age of about sixteen a youth went alone to a place where he
fasted for sixteen days. At the end of this time he suddenly heard a
voice in the sky saying, “Take care of this man and let him end
his fast.” Then he saw an old man of great beauty come down
from the sky. The old man came to him, and looking at him kindly
said, “Have courage, I will take care of your life. It is a
fortunate thing for you to have taken me for your master. None of
the demons who haunt these countries will have any power to harm
you. One day you will see your own hair as white as mine. You will
have four children, the first two and last will be males, and the
third will be a girl. After that your wife will hold the relation of
a sister to you.” As he finished speaking the old man offered
him a raw piece of human flesh to eat. When the boy turned his head
away in horror, the old man then offered him a piece of bear’s
fat, saying, “Eat this then.” After eating it, the old man
disappeared, but came again at crucial periods in the person’s
life. At manhood he did have four children as described. After his
fourth, “a certain infirmity compelled him to continence”
He also lived to old age, thus having white hair, and as the eating
of the bear fat symbolised, became a gifted hunter with second sight
for finding game. The man himself felt that had he eaten the human
flesh in the vision, he would have been a warrior instead of a
hunter.
Such dreams as the above, about the use of a herbal root for
medicine, show how many herbal treatments, not only among the
Amerindians, but from tribal people throughout the world, came about.
In fact many tribes attributed the origins of many of their cultural
artefacts, their religion, the use of fire, to a specific dream
experienced by a past tribal member.
Because of the great many Amerindian tribes, and their different
dream beliefs, it is impossible to summarise the views of life, death
and human origins arising from their dreams and visions. The following
description of the beliefs of the Naskapi Indians is so pure and
simple however, that it probably holds in it many of the beliefs of
other tribes. It is taken from Man
And His Symbols by Carl Jung, published by Aldus
Books, 1964. It is from the section on The Process Of
Individuation by Marie L. Von Franz.
Dream doorway to wider awareness
The inner centre, the Self, or the guiding spirit of a person “is
realised in an exceptionally pure, unspoilt form by the Naskapi
Indians, who still exist in the forests of the Labrador peninsula.
These simple people are hunters who live in isolated family groups,
so far from one another that they have not been able to evolve
tribal customs or collective religious beliefs and ceremonies. In
his lifelong solitude the Naskapi hunter has to rely on his own
inner voices and unconscious revelations; he has no religious
teachers who tell him what he should believe, no rituals, festivals
or customs to help him along. In his basic view of life the soul of
man is simply an ‘Inner companion’ whom, he calls ‘My
Friend’ or ‘Mista peo’, meaning ‘Great Man’.
Mista peo dwells I the heart and is immortal. In the moment of
death, or just before, he leaves the individual, and later
reincarnates himself in another being.
Those Naskapi who pay attention to their dreams and who try to
find their meaning and test their truth can enter into a greater
connection with the Great Man. He favours such people and sends them
more and better dreams. Thus the major obligation of an individual
Naskapi is to follow the instructions given by his dreams, and then
to give permanent form to their contents in art. Lies and dishonesty
drive the Great Man away from one’s inner realm, whereas
generosity and love of his neighbours and of animals attract him and
give him life. Dreams give the Naskapi complete ability to find his
way in life, not only in the inner world but also in the outer world
of nature. They help him to foretell the weather and give him
invaluable guidance in his hunting, upon which his life
depends...... Just as the Naskapi have noticed that a person who is
receptive to the Great Man gets better and more helpful dreams, we
could add that the inborn Great Man becomes more real within the
receptive person than in those who neglect him. Such a person also
becomes amore complete human being.” |
