As I added a Rumi quote in the Sufi poetry thread:
http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/sh...82&postcount=2
A thought occurred:
“What if Rumi didn’t write it, but instead it was written by someone else, a Western dude who had been into Sufism?”
And to me it
really wouldn’t matter
who wrote a poem like that, as long as it had been written.
From:
https://nalakagunawardene.com/2009/0...ervasive-myth/
Chief Seattle (left) and actual speech writer Ted Perry:
Quote:
In his analysis, John Scull poses the query: Why are environmentalists so eager to continue to attribute these words to Chief Seattle instead of to their author, Ted Perry?
Perry, now a professor of film studies at Middlebury University, has tried repeatedly to set the record straight. Moreover, he thinks that the myth is pernicious. “Why are we so willing to accept a text like this if it’s attributed to a Native American?” he asks. “It’s another case of placing Native Americans up on a pedestal and not taking responsibility for our own actions.”
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Why indeed?
And on the other hand
why are some SJW’s; - (Anti-Cultural Appropriation Warriors) so keen on labeling one as
“Vanilla Twinkie from Pretendian tribe with typical Euro attitude of stereotyping Native Americans”; - if one quotes Chief Seattle?
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Chief_Seattle
Quote:
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Many quotes are falsely attributed to Chief Seattle. By the way, that Lakota wisdom about planning for a seven generations is probably myth too. Lokotan history starts around 1720. They barely existed seven generations before the white Americans drove them off. The wise, living in harmony with nature, "noble savage" image of Native American's, invented by hippies in the 1960's and 70's, is as much a fantasy as the bloodthirsty savage image that preceded it.
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For me personally, the
Joseph Campbell quoted
Black Elk story still sounds
true as similar to “Shamanism”.
Personally - so does the the
“Web of Life” -
Chief Seattle quote.
I mean if you come from hunter-gatherer (Western Siberian) Permian, Komi, Udmurt or Ob Ugrian background – the Spider Goddess/Deity’s interconnected web (as I understand it) -
is very important.
Number 7 is extremely important to them as well, it runs like a red thread through the whole belief system. The upper and the lower worlds have 7 layers to them. 7 days of ceremonies. 7 aspects to an exalted man. 7 is related to the 7 stars of Big Dipper and to the (central) Sun, time .... etc. etc. etc.
They are/were no hippy vanilla twinkies nor pretend Indians.
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