Stories of taming the Wild West lie deep in the mythology of how the United States came to be. But what does it mean to call the West “wild?” Did “white people” tame it? Does the Wild even need taming?
The First Peoples who lived in the geographies of the Wild West tell a story quite opposite to American mythology. Luther Standing Bear (1868-1939) was chosen as chief by the Ogalala Sioux in 1902. He authored books and articles that continue to be on college reading lists in anthropology, literature, history, and philosophy. Standing Bear says his people did not think of the West as wild.
Only to the white man was nature a “wilderness” and only to him was the land “infested” with “wild” animals and “savage” people. To us it was tame. Earth was bountiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery. Not until the hairy man from the east came and with brutal frenzy heaped injustices upon us and the families that we loved, was it “wild” for us. When the very animals of the forest began fleeing from his approach, then it was that for us the “Wild West” began.
Chief Standing Bear is one of many Indigenous voices that correct the views of civilization toward what is wild. The attitudes and actions of “white people” evoked a horror in the First Peoples that was too deep for words. First Peoples had roamed over great expanses of unowned lands for centuries. These lands were home; even more, these lands could not be separated from who they were. Then came U.S. westward expansion. The U.S. devised treaties to displace First Peoples from their vast lands and confine them within land reserves. Laws were devised to help settlers own the lands that had been a commons shared by First Peoples and all species. The U.S. military protected the settlements and enforced the containment of First Peoples. The takeover of the grand, unowned lands wrenched the souls of First Peoples. They were integral with the land. It was not real estate which could be appraised and given a dollar value. So when the U.S. forced tribes off their land, it was identity theft. First Peoples lost their way of life and who they were—a trauma from which recovery is wrenchingly difficult.
But First Peoples are not the only ones who’ve not recovered. The rest of U.S. civilization hasn’t either. U.S. mythology continues the lie that westward expansion was a story of glory, perseverance, and daring that went into creating a great nation. In fact, it was a clash of paradigms in which First Peoples were methodically killed. First Peoples were living the OneEarth paradigm; westward expansion imposed the MultiEarth paradigm. Until “white people” and “white government” acknowledge that westward expansion was wrong in ideology and morally wrong in practice, the wound continues to bleed, fester, and ooze. European-Americans blew a marvelous opportunity to partner in living OneEarth ways on this continent. It could have worked for all.
Confessing the error would be a step in healing the psychological and spiritual wound in all who’ve separated from Earth’s story. The wound is proving to be a savage hurt. The degree of its savagery becomes apparent in how European-Americans act toward species of the Wild and toward First Peoples. Non-Indigenous Americans have projected onto the First Peoples the wound they were not ready to heal in themselves. Rather than joining with First Peoples in learning the ways of living interconnected with Earth and her species, non-Indigenous peoples forced them into disconnected ways. Unconscious of how savage the wound of separation from the Wild actually is, First Peoples were called savage, rather than the people and systems responsible for inflicting the wound. European-Americans, unaware how extreme their belief was that Nature needed taming, saw how First Peoples connected with Nature and called them “wild.” In their minds, First Peoples needed civilizing. Conforming this wild land and people to the MultiEarth paradigm was top priority. MultiEarth civilization in the U.S. is born out of the wound of separation from Earth and continues to be shaped by its pain.
Had “civilizers” moved beyond ego identities to ego-Self collaboration in greater topographies of consciousness, the outcome on this continent would have been much more Earth-size than we are today. Not only would civilizers have been healed of their own soul-wounds, they would have been enlarged in consciousness by learning from those they saw as standing in their way. It’s a heroic journey that was never taken. Collaboration on an Earth-size paradigm could have brought the OneEarth treasure into a mixed race, continent-wide expression. Instead, we got MultiEarth on steroids through a European-American mythology that continues to be told even though it treats dehumanizing people and abusing Mother Earth as acceptable. It’s a mythology that keeps this country outside of the many possible expressions of the archetypal Garden.
[The preceding is an excerpt from my forthcoming book, From Egos to Eden: Our Heroic Journey to Keep Earth Livable, Chapter Nine, “From Taming the Wild to Rewilding Ourselves.”]