“Sameness with variation demonstrates you cannot separate the hero from the people,” said Faulds. “The heart of Native American ethos is a sense of oneness with the creator. Everything is connected. Individual identity is inextricable from the whole of society.”

Many Native American tribes do not have a tribal word for “good-bye.”

“There’s a certain amount of brave hope revealed in that dynamic,” said Faulds. “Not having a word for ‘good-bye’ gives immortality to the people, and helps maintain their identity.

“All identity is shaped by relationships. Descartes was a very dangerous man in saying, ‘I think, therefore I am.’ What should be said is, ‘I am in relation with all my relations.’”

Faulds used Charles Eastman, a Wahpetonwan Dakota (Woodland Sioux) Indian physician and author, as an example of a Native American who retained his identity, yet embraced change. Eastman, named Ohiyesa by his father, was raised traditionally as a Woodland Sioux by his grandmother, from 1858-’74, until he was 15. He gained a thorough first-hand knowledge of the life ways, language, culture and oral history of his tribe.

His father, Many Lightning, was thought to have been hanged at Mankato, Minn., but reappeared and insisted Eastman receive the “white man’s” education. Educated at Dartmouth and Boston University medical school, Eastman became a highly literate physician, who was the only doctor available to the victims of the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890.

According to Faulds, other Indian writers of this period were either entirely acculturated - had never lived the traditional life of their people or been educated out of their native knowledge - or were not literate, and were able to provide only “as told to” materials, through the filters of interpreters and non-Indian writers.

One seminar attendee asked Faulds if the sacred spiral was applicable to all cultures.

“Yes, but is expressly Native American, and a primary dynamic in their culture,” said Faulds. “But you find it everywhere, including in works such as ‘The Odyssey.’ You’ll even find the same pattern in the Gospels; however, the spiral is universally present in Native American cultures.”

What’s next

The 34th Symposium on the American Indian “Native Roots Run Deep” continues on the NSU Tahlequah Campus through April 8. For specific event times and locations, visit http://arapaho.nsuok.edu/%7Eindiasym/index.htm, or call NSU’s Center for Tribal Studies at (918) 456-5511, ext. 4350.