The Circle Way of Life in the Old Tribes

Human beings became human because they came together to help each other and we have evolved with helpfulness as a basic ingredient of our nature. In that way each one was equally important, each must be listened to, to be understood and appreciated. That is why as long as the circle was unbroken the people flourished. When we lose the circle we lose each other, we become afraid, and we lose our humanity. And that is why we live today in such an inhuman world.by Manitonquat (Medicine Story)

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Editor’s note:
This is an excerpt from the book “Have you lost your Tribe?” by the native American elder Manitonquat. He is the author of several books (non fiction and fiction). They are available through Amazon and through www.circleway.org. As the discussion is unfolding how we can change humankind’s direction his thinking and wisdom is a major contribution. Together with his wife Ellika he brings the knowledge of the Circle Way of living to interested people all over the world in camps and workshops. To learn more visit www.circleway.org

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published here with permission of the author

Imagine now that you were experiencing a life in such a community. As a baby being born you would open your eyes to a group of loving women, the midwives and helper assistants who have been waiting for the magical moment of your appearance to help you into this world in the softest and gentlest way. There is nothing but wonder and gratitude at your arrival. The faces you see are smiling with love and gleaming with tears of joy. You are here at last! The whole tribe is waiting to meet you and cheer you into their world. You look to make connections and each one wants to connect with you, to help and guide you. Your coming has brought new happiness to the people. You have many relatives: the whole village is your family.

Growing up when there are confusions and frustrations, conflicts losses and other unavoidable hurts, there are many to learn from, wide elders and storytellers, clan mothers, aunties, uncles ,older children. Through the years of your life you stay close to these people, and as you grow old the love receive and the love you give reach ever deeper dimensions.

You work and play and celebrate together, through laughter and through grief, through the birth of babies, their growing to adults, and the coming of new generations. All helping one another, learning together, planting harvesting, building together, dreaming together, and filling the seasons with celebration.

This is the Circle Way. Human beings became human because they came together to help each other and we have evolved with helpfulness as a basic ingredient of our nature. In that way each one was equally important, each must be listened to, to be understood and appreciated. That is why as long as the circle was unbroken the people flourished. When we lose the circle we lose each other, we become afraid, and we lose our humanity. And that is why we live today in such an inhuman world.

Even when we lose all that and begin to hurt ourselves and others, the circle can heal us. The circle can make us human again. That is what happens in our prison circles. Simply by learning respect, by treating each other respectfully, listening to one another, being there to support each other, the circle members begin to heal.

I was touched the other night by a man called Little Wolf in one of those circles. He was considering the coming prospect of his release and said, “I don’t want to leave, because that means I leave my family behind, the only real family I have.” That closeness, feeling at home with the people around us, that feeling of family hood, is what we all need, and now the goal for Little Wolf must be when he gets out to find a circle or to make one and to keep getting close and building family wherever he is.

That is the goal for all of us, if we want to live a truly human life, to keep growing our circle, expanding our love, our capacity to give and receive affection and encouragement and appreciation, to listen and to understand and support one another.

What made us human was this experience of living tribally, in a circle of equals, in groups larger than the extended families of our primate relatives but small enough that the individuals were able to know each other well. A true tribe must provide protection and support to every member equally. In a truly human society there can be no discrimination against any individual regardless of age, physical or mental capacity, sex, or sexual preference.

The whole tribe, therefore, has a sense of involvement and responsibility for each child, which takes a lot of the burden off the parents. As well as the elders, clan leaders and band chiefs, the siblings, the grandparents, the aunts and uncles, the cousins, all have roles in helping and guiding the little children. The child grows with a sense of belonging, of being cared about, of having a place and a value among his or her people.

Consider too the effect on all the adults of the tribe of being with, caring for and guiding the children. When we honor the children, when we listen to them and pay attention to their thoughts and feelings, it has a wonderful effect on us. It nurtures our own sense of caring and our thoughts for their welfare. And when we have that attitude of caring and paying good attention to them, we are constantly being confronted by the innate wisdom that we once ourselves possessed, that we brought into this world in our nature. That wisdom that the complex exigencies of survival in our complicated and confusing world have been buried in forgotten closets of our consciousness.

To children the world is still viewable from the simple stance of what is pleasant or unpleasant, sweet or sour, fun or not fun, interesting or boring, kind or mean, healing or hurtful. My friend Robert Alter learned from his daughter when she was a little girl that everything in life could be described as either “yum” or “yuck!”

Little children, feeling safe and cared about, excited just to be alive, finding the world a curious and interesting place, want above all to have fun and to laugh. Imagine what it really means to any community to have such teachers with them, to have free happy children to teach us about freedom and happiness, to make us laugh and show us how to play.

Children are always in the moment. They have not yet narrowed their concerns and everything is interesting and a kind of miracle. They want to learn and understand it all. Today we send them to institutions to learn – institutions that uniformly destroy all their curiosity and make learning drudgery and hardly ever any fun.

Living closely together, cooperating communicating, learning from each one, making each one important, developing our caring a understanding and therefore our love and compassion, listening to old and young alike and honoring all – that is how we evolved into homo sapiens sapiens, the wise, wise ones.

But we are in danger of turning that evolution back, returning to the world of baboons who are always fighting or indifferent to one another. Because we have lost our tribes, we have been isolated from each other when we all need each other. We have substituted nations for tribes. Nations that demand our loyalty, our praise, our money, but give so little in return that the majority of people in even the richest nations are struggling for survival while a fortunate few have more wealth than they can use. (The income gap is huge and growing. At this time in the U.S. the average income of the bottom 90% of people is $31,244 a year while the top 1% earn 1.1 million. Since World War II the share of the nations’ income for the lowest 80% of the people has been falling and continues to fall.)

But the wealthy few are unsatisfied. They do not want to share or help others to a fair share of the Earth’s resources. They do not even enjoy the moment. They want more. They don’t have deep and satisfying relationships, they don’t spend fun time with their children, they are only driven to make more stuff, or to make money from their money. To be smarter dealers and bigger consumers.

The lack of love, our most precious capacity and experience, is illustrated every moment of every day just by watching what is presented on television the window to our culture. First, of course, the news, full of wars and violence and political attacks and acrimony, of local crimes and corruption; then there are of soap operas about people unable to communicate, consummate or enjoy relationships; we see “reality” shows set up to pit people against each other, talk shows with people making sly put-downs of others, and silliness that passes for humor, game shows only about winning big a big prize; especially telling are an endless flow of crime dramas capitalizing on people’s fears and playing up the horrors created by socio-or-psychopathic villains. Only sporting events seem comparatively untouched by all that and sometimes even seem to counter-act the isolation, as when teams or individuals publicly show affection for one another after the game. But even that is spoiled by the fanatical fans that riot at many European football matches.

But over all that is the pounding constant repetition of the commercials reminding us that the only important thing in our lives is stuff, stuff to make you attractive or to make others envy you, that will make you feel important or powerful or at least reduce your pain, but will never actually satisfy you. You must crave more and more until our already denuded and polluted planet is stripped beyond what it can bear. Your value to society, to the nation, and to your peers is not as the interesting and loving person you are, but only as a consumer.

There is good news, however. We are learning. The desire to change society in ways better suited to our humanity is one that may be as old as civilization itself. For nearly ten thousand years most human beings have accepted the world they were born into, but there are exceptions, models that are woven into our dreams and hopes – and our tales. Lao Tse told of better more ideal ways to act in society, Buddha, Socrates, Hillel, Jesus, Mohammed, Rumi, St. Anthony, Francis of Assisi, Thomas More, George Fox, Karl Marx, Robert Owen, Sri Aurobindo, Mohandas Gandhi, M.L.King Jr., are only a few of the thousands of thinkers who dreamed of a better world, a list that should also include the Peacemaker of the Six Nations, Sweet Medicine, Wovoka, and Black Elk.

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