This chapter focuses on Native American interactions with the land. Many tribes believe in the sustaining power of the land. According to most Native American traditions, the land is alive. Every particular form of the land is experienced as the locus of qualitatively different spirit beings; their presence sanctifies and gives meaning to the land in all its details and contours. These spirits also give meaning to the lives of people who cannot conceive of themselves apart from the land. Apache stores of place, Navajo relationship with the land, conflict over sacred lands, and sacred architecture are discussed.
(Here is the link for access to the PDF, just log in with your uni, I wanted to put the main link at the top so people could see what it was).
On page 14 of “Mapping Nuclear Landscapes” in the book “Tainted Deserts”, the author Valerie L. Kuletz wrote “To counterbalance the powerful wasteland discourse, these alternative Indian discourses on sacred geographies must be made continually visible, that is, discursively mapped in conjunction with the nuclear landscape”. I wanted to learn more about these sacred geographies, so I found this article that talks about the ways that Native Americans view and interact with the land.
--SCT
