PROCEEDINGS 
OF THE 
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
Volume 1 SEPTEMBER 15. 1915 Number 9 
THE INDIAN AND NATURB^ 
By Alice C. Fletcher ^^^^"^^^XiJJJ^ ' ' 
PEABODY MUSEUM. HARVARD UNIVERSITY — ^ 
Presented to the Academy, August 3, 1915 
From an extended study of the Siouan tribes of the Plains Indians, 
it is evident that their tribal organization and rites are based on con- 
cepts derived from observations of Nature. 
These Indians belong to an observant, thoughtful, out-of-door people 
who for generations have lived on intimate relations with an unmodified 
environment. No animal but the dog was domesticated, all creatures 
pursued their own mode of life. With few exceptions plants were un- 
cultivated, imdisturbed in their manner of growth. No highways 
broke through the prairies or woodlands, the winding trails of animals 
served as footpaths for man. There was nothing visible to suggest 
any break in the continuity of the natural relation between man and 
his surroundings. It was amid such untouched, unforced conditions 
that these people attentively watched the various phases of life about 
them and pondered deeply on what they saw. 
The Indian discerned that everywhere dual forces were employed 
to reproduce and so perpetuate living forms. The fructifying power 
of the sun was needed to make the earth fruitful and only on the union 
of the two, the sky and the earth, was life in its various forms made 
possible. Upon these two opposites, he projected human relations 
and made them, to a degree, anthropomorphic, the sky became mascu- 
line, the earth, feminine. Finally, he was led to conceive of the cosmos 
as a unit, permeated with the same life force of which he was conscious 
within himself; a force that gave to his environment its stable charac- 
ter; to every livip.g thing on land or water the power of growth and of 
movement; to man it gave not only his physical capacities but the ability 
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