Silence and its foundational importance in both Animism and Differentiating Western and Native American Culture

An Exploration

Summary

In this article, I explore the role of silence – the simple act of staying quiet – as a factor in differentiating between Western and Native American culture.  Among Westerners, silence is considered awkward, particularly in social situations.  However, for the Native Americans, silence is an embedded and comfortable part of their culture.  While hunting, Native American tribes such as the Anishinaabe will practice silence in the forests to hear both prey and predators.  I hypothesize this practice of silence leads not just to increased awareness of the forest, but to a greater bond between humans and the environment.  I develop this hypothesis based on the neuroscience of silence and its impact on the brain, as well as on hormone secretion.  I highlight research that shows silence leads to greater neuron production as well as increased production of oxytocin, the “love hormone.”  These research findings are promising indications there may be a physiological basis for silence as a factor in the different Native American and Western relationships between Man and the environment.

Introduction

In 2014, the Enbridge Corporation, a Canadian oil company proposed construction of a new pipeline to replace the original Line 3 pipeline that first became operational in 1968¹.  The new pipeline was to carry tar sand oil from Alberta through Canada, North Dakota, and Minnesota before ending at Superior, Wisconsin.  In Minnesota, the pipeline was built on the native lands of the Anishinaabe people².  This land, like much of Minnesota, is filled with thousands of rivers and lakes and so is exceptionally susceptible to pollution from any oil leaks from the pipeline once constructed.  This is not an idyll concern.  Between 1970 and 1992, the old Line 3 pipeline, then called the Lakehead pipeline, spilled an estimated 5.7 million gallons of crude oil, including 1.7 million gallons into the wetlands near Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

In the summer of 2021, inspired by a podcast I heard on the damage being caused by the construction of Line 3 as well as the potential dangers to come to the sacred waters of the Anishinaabe I chose to become a ‘water protector.’ I traveled to rural northern Minnesota to join the Anishinaabe in protesting the construction of Line 3.  Our protests involved standing in-front of Enbridge workers and machinery, often at great risk to being arrested by the local police who came with their armored vehicles.  My favorite part of the experience, though, was the celebrations in the evenings that followed our protests.  Here, in a space between the teepees set up around out campsite, we gathered to the music of the Native American drumbeat.  The elders spoke, telling us stories of days past.  They spoke of what the land meant to them, how their ancestors farmed wild rice by hand, storing food for the year.  And they spoke of the importance of the water.  I remember, in particular, an anecdote from the activist Wynona LaDuke who talked to us about the beauty of a pure water crystal, and how it becomes completely deformed when the water is polluted by oil.

Standing on the banks of the river, listening to them, I could not but help feel there was an essential difference in my connection to the land and to the environment and that felt by the Anishinaabe people.  I respected the land and wanted to see it preserved; but for the Anishinaabe it felt as if they were losing the life of a loved one, and not just an object they admired.  That the Native Americans have a more intimate connection to nature is not new.  As an animistic culture, the Native Americans believe life exists in all objects, both animate and inanimate.  Listening to the elders that day, I became curious as to why the Anishinaabe had developed their belief in animism, while Westerners had not, and why the Native Americans had developed the strength of bond between themselves and the environment that we as Westerners simply did not match.

Who’s more important:  Man, or Nature?

Part of the answer, I found, is in the respective origin stories of the Native Americans and the Westerners.  The author Robin Kimmerer in her book, “Braiding Sweetgrass”³ captures this well when she contrasts the story of Eve in Western culture with that of the Skywoman in Native American culture.  In Western culture, Eve is forced out of Eden, in effect creating a schism between nature and man.  In Native American culture, Skywoman descended to Earth from Skyworld clutching seeds that helped the world from “brown to green.”  In this origin story, there is unity between humans and the earth.  Other writers such as D’Arcy Rheault talk about how man came after creation as the weakest and dependent on what came before.  In his book, “Anishinaabe Mino-Bimaadiziwin (The Way of a Good Life),” Rheault describes how man was the “last and weakest on Earth… after the rest of the world, after all the minerals, plants, insects and animals had found their home.”  And “as human beings, we must struggle due to our weakened state of existence.  We are dependent on others for our well-being.”  In Christianity, man came after creation but as the dominant entity on the planet with all of nature meant to serve the needs of man.

These stories help explain the different approaches Native Americans and Westerners take to the environment and the deferential respect Native Americans have for the land.

The role of Silence in Creating Bonds

The second story told to me by the elders was the role of silence.  In native American culture, silence is taught as an essential part of culture.  Traditionally, Native American hunters were taught the importance of hunting in complete silence.  This is not just to hear their prey, but also to hear their predators.  In the process, though, of staying silent comes the listening to the sounds of the forests and of the trees.  This listening, in turn, creates a connection between nature and man.

More common in Western culture is the idea that silence is something that must be filled.  An interaction between two new acquaintances is considered awkward if there is silence between them.  The sign of a strong friendship is easy, continuous conversation.  Yet, even in Western culture, the idea of silence as a measure of the strength of a bond does exist.  People who are comfortable with each other often have a comfortable silence between them.  The silent dog lying at his owner’s feet is considered the epitome of connection and bonding between man and dog.   And the idea that silence is a means of creating a connection also exists in the West.  Nuns and monks have for centuries taken vows of silence for the purpose of communing with God.⁵  In Eastern cultures, silent meditation is considered a means of achieving enlightenment.⁶  In effect, Silence is used across cultures to create different kinds of connections:  In the West, silence is used to connect to God; in Eastern cultures silence is used to connect to your inner self, while for Native Americans, silence is used to connect to the environment.  Given the role Silence plays in creating connections across different cultures, a key question is, how does it work? 

The Neuroscience of Silence

In his book, “Ashinaabe Ways of Knowing and Being”, Lawrence Gross provides one rationale for why silence creates connection.   When one is silent, one becomes aware of the sounds and therefore presence of other entities or, as Lawrence Gross puts it, silence “reveals the natural elements and the members of the natural world by extension, have their own story to tell…”⁷  Being silent in the forest, one can hear the trees rustling in the wind; being silent by the campfire, one can hear the sound of the fire and understand the life within it.  I was curious, though, if there was a neurological, chemical, or hormonal basis for the connection created by silence.  This is an area of further exploration; however, two research articles point to intriguing possibilities.  The chemical basis for love is the hormone oxytocin.  It is well studied that this hormone – also called the ‘love hormone’ – is released when, for example, a mother bonds with her baby.  In a paper by Margarita Maramis et al ⁸, the researchers ran an experiment to test the amount of oxytocin released when a group of fourth grade students were silent.  What they found was that silence significantly increased the amount of oxytocin in these students.  If silence does increase oxytocin in the brain, perhaps this is a basis for the connection to the environment?

In their paper, “Is Silence Golden? Effects of auditory stimuli and their absence on adult hippocampal neurogenesis,” the authors Imke Kirste, et al, show that silence leads to a greater number of newborn immature neurons.  The hypothesis they present is that silence is an unnatural state, leading the brain to prepare new neurons so it can flexibly adapt to environmental changes.  Whether this new growth of neurons influences creating connections is a question that I think requires further research.  However, it is intriguing in of itself that silence does have physiological changes in the brain.     

Summary & Further Research

In this research I explored why it is that the Native Americans and Westerners held different approaches to the environment.  I explore two hypotheses.  The first is that the origin stories in each culture set the beliefs in each culture.  In Western culture, the origin story where Adam and Eve are cast out of Eden creates a separation between humans and the environment.  In Native American culture, the arrival of Skywoman, the first human, leads to the “greening” of Earth.  There is a unity between humans and the environment.  I explore if these respective origin stories may be a reason why Western and Native American cultures have different relationships with the environment.  However, an area of further research would be to understand which came first:  Did the origin stories follow from cultural beliefs, or did the culture follow from the origin stories?  The second hypothesis I explored is the possibility that silence which is considered differently in Western and Native American cultures may be a factor in the respective bonds created with the environment.  To see if this may be true, I researched the literature on Silence and found that it does lead to changes in the brain, as well as leads to the secretion of oxytocin, the ‘love hormone’ that is produced when bonds are created. Understanding if these physiological effects are strong enough to lead to a stronger bond with the environment is a subject of further research.

References

1. Wikipedia, “Line 3 Pipeline”
2. MPR News Staff, “The Line 3 oil pipeline project: What you need to know,” mprnews.org, July 16, 2021
3. Kimmerer, Robin W, “Braiding Sweetgrass,” Milkweed Editions, 2013, p4
4. Rheault, D’Arcy, “Anishinaabe Mino-Bimaadiziwin (The Way of a Good Life),” Debwewin Press, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, p.104.
5. English Heritage, “Abbeys and Priories, Silence at Monasteries,” English-Heritage.org.uk
6. Bortuloz, S., “The Hidden Meaning of Silence – Insights from Japanese Buddhist Culture
7. Gross, Lawrence W., “Anishinaabe Ways of Knowing and Being,” Routledge Press, 2014, p62
8. Margarita, Maramis, et al.,” Effects of Playing Angklung and Practicing Silence on Emotion, Cognition and Oxytocin Levels in Children: A Preliminary Study,” Malaysian Journal of Medical Science, 2021 Jun; 28(3): 105–117.
9. Kirste, Imke, “Is silence golden? Effects of auditory stimuli and their absence on adult hippocampal neurogenesis,” Brain Structure & Function, 2015; 220(2): 1221–1228.