Question

Why does Chief Dan George reflect on the idea of communal living in "I Am a Native of North America"?

Answer 1

• Sample Answer
In the reflective essay, “I Am a Native of North America,” Chief Dan George expresses his views of Native American and white cultures. When talking about his own upbringing, he describes how he grew up living in communal houses where “...people learned to live with one another; learned to serve one another; learned to respect the rights of one another”. To him, this helped create a warm and caring community. He also claims that in his culture, “there was a deep respect for everything in nature that surrounded them”. To support this idea, he recounts an incident with his father. When as a boy Chief Dan George was fishing just for fun, his father stopped him, saying, “You must respect [the fish]. You must not kill them just for the fun of it”. To Chief Dan George’s thinking, a community cannot be healthy unless its members feel a clear connection to the natural world. He clearly thinks his own upbringing had definite benefits that other cultures could look to as a model.
In contrast, Chief Dan George describes what he sees as problems with modern white society. Unlike his own culture, in modern communities, people don’t live communally, but rather separate from each other. He writes, “people in one apartment do not even know the people in the next and care less about them.” He sees this a problem because people in such a living situation don’t learn to take care of each other. Chief Dan George believes this lack of connection causes even further damage, both to the environment and with repeated wars in which millions are killed.
In fact, Chief Dan George even questions whether people in modern society have learned how to love anything: their neighbors, nature, or even their families. He sees love for one another as the solution to this terrible dilemma. He believes that without this love our communities will fail. When trying to bring both Native American and modern white cultures together, he knows this will be difficult. Addressing members of the white cultural community, he states, “You must truly love us, be patient with us and share with us. And we must love you – with a genuine love that forgives and forgets…”. He believes if this mutual love could happen, then a greater brotherhood could be created, a brotherhood that would provide an even more positive community for all.