ZLATEH THE GOAT

ZLATEH THE GOAT
Issac Bashevis Singer
Introduction
Issac Bashevis Singer was a Polish-born Jewish writer in Yiddish. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978. His first major novel, The Family Moskat was published in 1950.  As a youngster, he read Nikolai Gogol and Fyodor Dostoyevsky and proved to be a writer than a religious leader like his father. His brother Israel Joshua is also a writer.
Summary
Zlateh is the pet goat of the family. Reuven decides to sell Zlateh to the town butcher Feyvel as it has become old and gave little milk and mostly because the family wanted money to celebrate for Hanukkah which is near. When Aaron the eldest boy bound a rope around Zlateh’s neck it stood as patiently and good-naturedly as ever. It trusted human beings because they have always fed him and have never harmed him. It was a little confusing when it was taken along the road to the town because it has never been led that way before.  On the day Zlateh is being taken to the town the family grieves.  Aaron takes it to the town and there occurs a heavy snowstorm. Both Aaron and Zlateh couldn’t make their way through the snow.  Luckily they find a large haystack and make room to shelter inside it so that they are protected from the turbulent weather outside. For three continuous days they stay there and in these three days, Aaron realizes that his love for Zlateh has grown into an inseparable bond and she seems like family to him.
Aaron decides not to sell Zlateh as she has saved him by providing her milk to quench his hunger. Zlateh also feels grateful to Aaron for saving her from the heavy snow and providing her ample hay. After their return home Zlateh is treated majestically.
Exercises
I. Answer the following questions:
1. How does Aaron react to his father’s decision to sell Zlateh?
He is sad but still obeys his father’s wishes.
2. What does Aaron recognize from his stay in the haystack?
 Zlateh is his friend and cannot be sold.
3. Aaron gets lost because___________
Snow covers the road
4. Why does the father want to sell Zlateh?
  The family needs money to celebrate Hanukkah
II. Answer the following questions in a sentence or two:
1. Why was it a bad year for Reuven the furrier?
That year the winter has been slow and relatively mild, and there has been little need of a furrier’s service.
2. What was the family’s response when Reuven asked Aaron to take the goat to town?
Leah, the mother wiped the tears from her eyes. Aaron’s younger sisters, Anna and Mirian, cried loudly.
3. Why did Zlateh trust human beings?
 She knew that they always fed her and never did any harm.
4. Why was Zlateh astonished when Aaron led her out on the town road?
 Zlateh has never been led in the direction of the town before.
5. When did Aaron realize that he was no longer traveling on the road?
  Beneath the thick snow Aaron’s boots touched the softness of the plowed field.
6. What looked like a ‘snow clad hill’?
A large stack of hay
7. Why did Aaron realize that the haystack could save them?
Aaron was a village boy and he knew it is always warm in a haystack.
8. What did Aaron do to breathe inside the haystack?
He bored a window through the hay.
9. What does it mean that Zlateh seemed eager to reward Aaron and how does it fit with what you have already learned about Zlateh?
Zlateh is a patient, good-natured goat. She wanted to thank Aaron for bringing her to a home, made of food and she was happy to give Aaron her milk.
10. What do you understand from the way Aaron and Zlateh communicated with each other?
Each wanted to show their gratitude for saving each other lives from the stormy snowfall.
11. How many days did Aaron and Zlateh spend inside the haystack?
3 days
12. What were Aaron’s dreams about while he was staying inside the haystack?
He dreamed of green fields, trees covered with blossoms, clear brooks, and singing birds.
III. Answer the questions in a paragraph:
1. The circumstances that compelled Reuven to decide on selling Zlateh.
          That year the winter has been slow and relatively mild, and there has been little need of a furrier’s service. It was the time of Hanukkah and the family had little money to celebrate the festival. With much hesitation, Reuven decided to sell Zlateh to Feyvel for eight guldens.
2. The communication between Aaron and his goat.
      During the four days sheltering in a stack of hay, Zlateh realized there was an inseparable bond between him and his goat. He felt lonely and missed his family. He had always loved Zlateh but now she seemed to be like a sister. He wanted to talk to someone and started talking to Zlateh. To every sentence, Aaron made she just replied in her single sound “maa”. She can’t speak but she understood what Aaron told her. Her language consisted of only one sound, but many meanings.
3. Compare the character of Zlateh and Aaron.
      Zlateh is the family pet goat. It is so bonded with the family members. It is patient and good-natured. Zlateh trusted human beings because she knew that they always fed her and never did any harm. It believes so because no one in the family has caused any harm to it. Aaron doesn’t want to sell Zlateh, but he has to obey his father who has decided to sell Zlateh off for eight guldens. Zlateh innocently follows Aaron through the unfamiliar road to town.  After their challenging way out of snow, they are both grateful to each other.
4. The days Aaron and his goat spent inside the haystack.
      Aaron hollowed out a nest for himself and the goat. He also bored a window through the hay and snow and kept the passage clear.  Zlateh was hungry and eagerly ate the hay around. Aaron ate the two slices of bread and cheese that he had with him. He was still hungry and drank his goat’s milk. When he felt lonely he would talk to Zlateh and she would reply with her usual “maaa”. At night the snow had blocked up the window. He dreamed of summers while in the haystack.
5. The change of weather in Singer’s Zlateh the goat.
      At the beginning of the story it is said that year the winter was mild. It was almost the time of Hanukkah but there was only a little snow. The peasants complained that because of the dry weather there would be a poor harvest of winter grain. It was a bad year for Reuven. But on the day Zlateh was taken to sell, there occurred heavy snowstorm continuously for three days. Though the three days of the snowstorm was difficult for Zlateh and Aaron, it turned out to bring good days for him and his family. Zlateh was saved and they decided to never sell it off, the bond between Aaron and Zlateh grew even stronger. It also conveys that the windy snowy days are to bring good for the peasants and the furrier. 

ON KILLING A TREE

ON KILLING A TREE
Gieve Patel
Introduction
Born in 1940, Gieve Patel is an important presence in the history of modern Indian poetry in English. He is a poet, playwright and painter, as well as a doctor by profession. He has written three books of poetry (Poems, How Do You Withstand, Body and Mirrored Mirroring); three plays (Princes, Savaksa and Mr Behram); and held several exhibitions of his paintings in India and abroad. He lives in Mumbai.
“Gieve Patel is hardly an avant-garde writer and he does not pretend to be one,” writes scholar Sudesh Mishra. “Belonging to the same generation as (Adil) Jussawalla and (Arvind Krishna) Mehrotra, he is a poet whose vision eludes simplistic modernist labels and equations.” Mishra attributes this to the fact that Patel (like poets Kamala Das and Jayanta Mahapatra) has never been a formal student of literature or linguistics.

          The enduring concerns in Patel’s poetry are the besieged terrain of the human body, its frailty, absurdity and perishability; the vulgar social inequalities of caste and class that continue to assail post-Independence India; the predicament of the subaltern, perennially relegated to the sidelines of history and art; the daily catalog of violence, conflict and pain that make up “the century’s folk song”; the perpetual looming shadow of physical death; and a probing curiosity about what – if anything – lies beyond a world of fraught materiality.

        In the accompanying interview, Patel describes himself as “a profane monk” whose poetry reveals “a slightly sick concern with the body”. This preoccupation is evident in Patel’s poetic terrain (evoked time and again with horrified but rapt fascination): a world of nerve endings and viscera, ragged fiber and vein, gnarled root and leprous hide, pervaded by the overwhelmingly organic odors of sex, secretion and excretion. The tone is frequently flat, dispassionate, even offhand, wary of any attempt to ennoble, prettify or sentimentalize the subject matter. The existential questions – and they are never far away in Patel’s work – are not presented as airy abstractions; they emerge thickly, haltingly, from the glutinous dough of corporeality that is the focus of what seems to be the gaze of a committed forensic pathologist.
Exercises
I. Answer the following questions
1. In which collection was the poem “On Killing a Tree” originally published?
a. Poems      b. How Do You Withstand, Body   c. Mirrored Mirroring  d. None of these
Ans: Poems
2. What does the word “hide” mean in leprous hide?
a. Skin  b. leaf  c. Sickness D. None of these
Ans: Skin
II. Answer the following questions in a sentence or two;
1. Comment on the opening line of the poem “On Killing a Tree”
According to him, it will take too much time to kill a tree. It is not just a simple jab: a quick stab or blow: to do the job.
2. Why does the poet say that a simple job of the knife will not kill a tree?
It is not so easy to kill a tree because the tree has grown over a period of time, taking in from the earth, sun, air, and water.

3. Why does the poet try to teach us how to kill a tree?
If not uprooted properly the tree can grow from its roots again. Here through sarcasm and irony the poet implies his anger against cutting trees.
4. What does the poet say of the resiliatory power of trees?
The bleeding bark of the tree will heal and it will rise and grow to its former size from its roots.
5. What does the poet mean by anchoring earth and earth cave?
Earth is here portrayed as a ‘cave’ or Mother Earth, the cave being symbolic of the womb. While the root remains hidden in the cave of Mother Earth, even though Man may attack the tree, his reach is limited. He may chop off the leaves and the branches, but so long as the root is safe within the earth, the tree will not be seriously injured or damaged. At some point, Man seems to get this, and so he targets the part of the tree that holds the secret connection between the source of life and the tree, the root.
6. What does the pet mean by the strength of the tree exposed?
The strength of the tree lies in its roots, which the poet asks to snap out in order to kill the tree. Thus, the phrase “the strength of the tree exposed” refers to the roots of the tree being exposed to sunlight and air.
7. What does the poet mean by the last line “and then it is done?”
Then the poet concludes the poem with the phrase: “It is done.” That brief statement encompasses the triumphant tone of the humans who have at last succeeded in killing the tree.
8. What is the tone of Gieve Patel’s poem On Killing a Tree?
Sarcasm and irony.
9. Comment on the imagery of the bleeding bark.
Once the tree is chopped its sap will trickle off which is compared to blood.
III. Answer the following questions in a paragraph
1. The step by step process needed for killing a tree.
Gieve Patel sarcastically explains the process of cutting a tree as a voice against cutting trees in his poem ‘On Killing a Tree’. It should not be done using a knife but it is to be hacked and chopped. That is not enough as new sprouts will come out of it, so it should be pulled out from its roots. It is to be roped, tied and pulled out, snapped out from the earth. Then it must be put to scorch and choke under the sun, thereby browning, hardening and withering
2. Why it is not an easy job to kill a tree?
It is not so easy to kill a tree because the tree has grown over a period of time, taking in from the earth, sun, air, and water. One will not succeed in doing so by just a “jab”, a stroke of a knife. It has been nourished by the very elements of existence, earth, wind, water and air. So, in pitting himself against a tree, in a sense, a human pits himself against all these elements that have invested their strength in the tree. That’s why it’s not so easy to kill.
3. Comment on the language of the poem
4. What is the message of On killing a tree?
The poem on killing a tree is Patel’s wake up call to the citizen of the 21st century to think again before they heartlessly chop trees. It’s time to become conscious of the irreversible damage we are un‐thinkingly doing to our home planet, Earth. It is also time to take a more holistic life on Earth, considering trees and plants not as lower life forms that can be treated treat without compassion, but rather as an equally important aspect of Nature. Only this change in attitude can ensure that our beautiful green planet will continue to be habitable for our future generations.

IV. Answer the following questions in about 300 words
1. “On Killing a Tree” describes man cruelty and violence to nature discuss.
Gieve Patel sarcastically explains the process of cutting a tree as a voice against cutting trees in his poem ‘On Killing a Tree’. Though the poet employs skillful process of killing a tree, he is actually showing his resentment against those who kill nature. His style is ironic and detached. It is a graphic picture of man’s cruelty towards Nature which is symbolized by the tree. He gives a total description of the annihilation of a tree. Man’s greed is not quenched by the mere physical process of killing a tree. The tree which symbolizes Nature has grown Slowly consuming the earth and rising out of its crust. It takes much time to kill it
It should not be done in a “simple jab of the knife” but it is to be hacked and chopped. That is not enough as new sprouts will come out of it, so it should be pulled out from its roots. It is to be roped, tied and pulled out, snapped out from the earth. Then it must be put to scorch and choke under the sun, thereby browning, hardening and withering. The poet brings all the cruelty done to trees by humans. Often it is forgotten that trees are living things and nature is often neglected in the mad race of human greediness. This greediness to wealth has made man insensitive and heartless to other organisms. Tomorrow’s concerns are less important. He does not think of preserving this earth fit for living for coming generations. His cruelties continue when the tree log is left to scorch and burn in the sun.
 The poem is also about the endless generosity nature offers to man. However man’s cruelties continue the tree is in constant persistence to be born again.
“The bleeding bark will heal
And from close to the ground
Will rise curled green twigs”
The lines, shows the tree’s attempt to revive from its broken parts. Its strength is offered by nature. It absorbs sunlight, air and water for its sustenance but man exploits nature for his greed.

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Module II – Sustainable Environment
THE END OF LIVING - THE BEGINNING OF SURVIVAL
Chief Seattle
Introduction
Chief Seattle (c 1780—June 7, 1866) was chief of Duwamish tribe of the Native Americans in western Washington and metropolitan Seattle. In 1854, the government of the United States of America made an offer for a large area of Indian land and promised a ‘reservation’ for the Indian people. Chief Seattle's reply to the proposal—the prose passage named ‘The End of Living and the Beginning of Survival’—remains a most beautiful and profound statement on environment and related issues. There is a great deal of controversy surrounding the speech of 1854. There are many conflicting pieces of information, various versions of the speech, different dates, and debates over its very existence.
Summary
This is an inspiring speech delivered by Chief Seattle, a Native American leader, as a response to an offer made by the President of the United States to buy their land. He feels and argues that it is impossible to buy or sell natural resources like air, water, and land because we do not own them. They are a gift. He says that every part of the earth is sacred to him and his people; they are a part of the earth and the earth is a part of them. Even the souls of the Native Americans do not leave their land. Instead, they make it their permanent residence, unlike in the belief systems of mainstream religions. In short, the earth is not an inanimate tract of land, but a living presence to be treated with love, care, respect, and fear. But the worldview of white men is entirely different. For them, it is an object to be tamed, conquered, and exploited to the full, until it ceases to be useful. For Native Americans, on the contrary, all-natural phenomena are their own siblings. It is true that the President has promised to take care of them like a father. He has also promised to give them a special area where they can continue living with all their rites, rituals and other cultural practices. But still, the sale is going to be difficult as the pangs of parting with such a dear and sacred place are excruciating. The Chief suggests some conditions. If at all the transaction takes place, white men should remember that land is sacred and inviolable. They should also teach their children the same. The Chief wants white men to treat rivers and beasts as their own brothers, not to be seen through a utilitarian perspective. They have seen white men pollute rivers and shoot animals for the sake of fun. The reality is that every object in nature is connected to each other. Whatever happens to animals and land will happen to us sooner or later. No one can escape this fate. The earth does not belong to us but we belong to the earth and all are bonded like family members. For his people, the din, frenzy and chaos of modern cities are a painful sight. The simple pleasures of nature are more precious and more important than anything else. They treat rain, wind, and land as living organisms just like humans. Unfortunately, the white man has neither the sense nor the sensibility to feel the pulse of nature. Chief Seattle ironically and sarcastically adds that perhaps the problem is with himself and his people—they are uneducated, uncultured and uncivilized!
The holistic vision of the speech is reiterated at the end within a theological framework. There is only one God and He does not discriminate between peoples. White or red, human beings are equal in His eyes. The earth is precious to Him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on the creator. Destiny is a mystery to the Native Americans too, but they do realize that the changed environment marks the end of living and the beginning of survival.

Comments
It should be noted that from the 1860s to the 1930s, under the Federal Homestead Act, the American government allocated at low or no cost some 246 million acres of land of Native Americans for farm homesteads to about 1.5 million people, almost entirely from the white population. One can argue that animism—the belief that non-human entities have also souls—informs the speech though it is believed that the Chief embraced Roman Catholicism in 1848.
It is obvious that the beliefs of people almost directly impact their attitude to nature and other peoples. For example, sacred groves in India remain miniature forests not because people are alive to the dangers of deforestation and its accompanying evils but simply they do not want to incur the wrath of irascible snake gods! Whatever be the underpinning belief system, the net result is desirable: at least some parts of the land remain intact. Similar is the case of animals. Practically all religious groups consider certain animals holy or satanic. Irrespective of the attitudes, the final result is that these animals are shunned from habitats and carefully kept away from culinary habits. The speech raises some interesting questions that deserve deep contemplation. For example, it problematizes anthropocentric philosophies and theologies. Have we, the humans, been divinely authorized to dominate the earth and all other organisms? Predictably, we cannot come up with a tailor-made answer. Attitudes vary (often so subtly that we cannot tell one from the other) from culture to culture, from religion to religion. The Biblical god vests come privileges on mankind: “. . . have dominion over the fish and the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” How far is it logical to say that this view has permeated the gamut of western weltanschauung? On the other hand, in India many animals are closely associated with deities, as vehicles, servants or symbols. In Vedic literature, Dawn, a female deity, rides a chariot drawn by seven cows and the cow is treated as holy by many sects. The donkey is the vehicle of Shitala Devi, the goddess who is invoked to ward off smallpox, even as her anger can bring it on. Are we to understand that these animals are revered and feared because of their association with divine figures? Are Indians any better than westerners in treating animals?
Exercises
I. Answer the following questions
1. In which year did Chief Seattle make the address titled the End of Living and the beginning of survival?
a) 1866      b) 1854     c) 1887     d) 1845
Ans: 1854
2. In which language did Chief Seattle make his speech?
a) French   b) English     c) Lushootseed     d) Spanish
Ans: Lushootseed
3. Whose translation of Chief Seattle’s speech was published in Seattle Sunday star in 1887?
Ans: Henri A Smith
4. Whom does Chief Seattle mean by the great chief in Washington?
Ans: Great chief refers to the father of Chief Seattle
5. What does Seattle mean by the smoking iron horse?
Ans: The smoking iron horse refers to the train
6. To which tribe did Chief Seattle belong?
Ans: Suquamish tribe
II. Answer the following questions in a sentence or two:
1. Why does Chief Seattle say that buying or selling the land is strange to Native Americans?
Seattle says that buying their land will not be easy for the Great Chief in Washington, because this land is sacred to them. The shining water in the streams and rivers is the blood of their ancestors
2. What are the different attitudes of the whites and native Americans to the country of their birth?
The white treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky as things to be bought, plundered sold like sheep or bright beads. But for Americans the country of their earth is sacred.
3. What does Seattle say about the cities of the white man?
The cities of the white man are full of din, frenzy, and chaos, and the sight of these cities pains their eyes.
4. What does the Native American see the rivers and the earth?
He says that every part of the earth is sacred to him and his people; they are a part of the earth and the earth is a part of them. For them rivers are brothers who quench their thirst.
5. What does Seattle want the white man to teach their children?
Seattle wants the white men to teach their children that the land is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of his people. The water's murmur is the voice of his father's father.
6. What is the difference between living and surviving?
Living is a meaningful existence with many activities including hopes for a bright future whereas survival is the bare minimum mode of existence in which a being struggles to remain alive somehow.
7.  Explain the sarcasm in the words of Seattle when he says’ I am a savage and do not understand,            
When Seattle says that he is a savage, he means that the Whiteman is a savage and he does not understand the sacred earth, trees, rivers, sky, and the beasts and birds, there is no quiet place in the Whiteman’s cities. He does not seem to notice the air he breathes, and like a man dying for many days, he is numb to the stench.
8. What will happen to man if all the beats are gone/
If all the beasts are gone man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man.
9. How does the Indian look upon water
According to them each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of their people. The water’s murmur is the voice of their fathers father.
10. What are the conditions laid by Seattle to sell his land to the great chief
The Great Chief must keep the land apart and sacred, as a place where the white man can go taste the wind. The Whiteman must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers. He must teach his children that the earth is the Redman’s mother
I. Answer the following questions in a paragraph
1. The different approaches of the Whites and the Native Americans to the environment
The speech of Seattle brings out the two world views on environment which are diametrically opposed to each other. The White settler is a representative of western outlook on environment which places man above everything. It is the anthropocentric or human-centered concept of ecology. According to this theory, living beings and nonliving exist for the sake of man. In other words, it is the concept of shallow ecology that the white hold on to. On the other hand, the Red Indian speaks through the author. Seattle strongly advocates the theory of all-inclusiveness or the concept of Deep Ecology. He says, "For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected". He asks the white settlers to teach their children that the earth is our mother. Again, "the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth...... all things are connected". This is a direct and convincing affirmation that both the Redman and the White man are the son s of God. Hence they are brothers.
2. Native American criticism of the white man’s treatment of mother earth
Speaking on behalf of the Red Indians, Seattle criticizes the Whiteman’s attitude towards Mother Earth. The Whiteman leaves his father's grave behind. He kidnaps the earth from his children. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy. His appetite devours the earth and leaves behind only a desert. He forgets his father's grave and his children's birthright. He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep, or bright beads. There is no quiet place in the Whiteman’s cities. There is no place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring or the rustle of an insect's wings. The Whiteman does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a dying man, he is insensitive to the stench.
3. Comment on the passion and feelings conveyed in chief Seattle speech
Chief Seattle feels and argues that it is impossible to buy or sell natural resources like air, water, and land because we do not own them. They are a gift. He says that every part of the earth is sacred to him and his people; they are a part of the earth and the earth is a part of them. Even the souls of the Native Americans do not leave their land. Instead, they make it their permanent residence, unlike in the belief systems of mainstream religions. In short, the earth is not an inanimate tract of land, but a living presence to be treated with love, care, respect and fear. But the worldview of white men is entirely different. For them, it is an object to be tamed, conquered and exploited to the full, until it ceases to be useful. For Native Americans, on the contrary, all natural phenomena are their own siblings.

II. Answer the following questions in about 300 words
1. Summarize the major arguments in Chief Seattle’s speech
Chief Seattle argues that it is impossible to buy or sell natural resources like air, water and land because we do not own them. They are a divine gift. Every part of the earth is sacred to him and his people; they are a part of the earth and vice versa. Even the souls of the Native Americans do not leave their land. Instead, they make it their permanent residence, unlike in the belief systems of mainstream religions. In short, the earth is not an inanimate tract of land, but a living presence to be treated with love, care, respect and fear. As far as the white man is concerned, land is a mere hostile territory to be tamed, conquered and exploited to the full until it ceases to be useful any longer. For them it is a buyable and sellable commodity unworthy of human emotions. He has no religious, spiritual, genealogical or eschatological associations to the land and naturally there is nothing that ties the white man down to it. Land is uniform all over the world and it is a surface to build noisy cities on. Chief Seattle justifiably fears that the white man’s appetite would devour the earth and reduce it into an arid dessert. It is true that the President has promised to take care of the Native Americans like a father. He has also promised to give them a special area where they can continue living with all their rites, rituals and other cultural practices. But still the sale is going to be difficult because the pangs involved in parting with such a dear and sacred place are acute. Seattle wants white men to teach their children that the land is sacred and inviolable. He wants them to treat rivers and beasts as their own brothers and to approach nature with moderation. Indians have seen White men pollute rivers and shoot animals for the sake of fun. The reality is that every object in the nature is connected to each other. Whatever happens to animals and land will happen to us sooner or later. No one can escape this fate. The earth does not belong to us but we belong to the earth and all are bonded like family members. For his people the din, frenzy and chaos of modern cities are a painful sight. For them simple pleasures of nature are more precious and more important than anything else. They treat rain, wind and land as living organisms. Unfortunately the white man has neither the sense nor the sensibility to feel the pulse of nature. Chief Seattle ironically and sarcastically adds that perhaps the problem is with himself and his people—they are uneducated, uncultured and uncivilized!
The holistic vision of the speech is reiterated at the end within a theological framework. There is only one God and He does not discriminate between people. White or red, human beings are equal in His eyes. The earth is precious to Him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on the creator. Destiny is a mystery to the Native Americans too, but they do realize that the changed environment marks the end of living and the beginning of survival

2. Chief Seattle’s speech is a powerful plea for respect of Native Americans rights and environmental values. Substantiate
Seattle’s letter to the American Government is a passionate plea for respect on the part of humans for environment as it emphasizes the need for holistic vision, interconnected nature of living organisms, preservation of environment, unitary nature of the universe and a new vision of development. The anthropocentric, utilitarian, materialistic and parochial worldview of white settlers considers earth an inanimate object to be tamed, conquered, plundered and exploited with scant regard for posterity. Land is uniform everywhere with no spiritual values and associations. While one piece of land runs out its utility, they march ahead looking for another. But for Native Americans earth and natural resources are a divine gift—sacred and inviolable. They are a part of the earth and vice versa. Earth is a living presence to be treated with love, care, respect and fear. Everything is interconnected. Whatever happens to animals and land will happen to us sooner or later. For them rain, wind and land are living organisms just like humans. There is only one God and He does not discriminate between peoples. The earth is precious to Him and to harm earth is equal to scorn Him. According to Chief Seattle, even the souls of the Native Americans do not leave their land. Instead, they make it their permanent residence, unlike in the belief systems of mainstream religions. But the unscrupulous white settlers destroy it and deny his own children the graces of the earth and prevent them from enjoying the music of nature. Modern cites are full of din, frenzy and chaos and city dwellers are missing the simple pleasures of nature. White man, in his critical view, is incapable of sensing the subtle aspects and changes of nature. Chief Seattle makes it abundantly clear that all living and non-living beings are interconnected and depend on each other. To extinct one species is a crime to ourselves, future generations and to God. What we need is a new paradigm of development which takes into account the importance of nature and the delicate relations that structure the world.

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