Recovering The Sacred Analysis

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If you were to ask someone to define the word “sacred”, you would get a multitude of response, all of which would be generally accepted. For instance, a Christian would say that the altar at their local church is sacred, a Muslim would respond that the Kabba in Mecca is also sacred, and a Jew would tell you the Western Wall of their ancient temple in Jerusalem is truly sacred. However, when Native Americans were asked to define their religion when Europeans began to arrive in the Americas, their response was not found satisfactory and they were labeled as backwards savages and were told that they must convert to Christianity. Subsequently, what does the word “sacred” mean for Native Americans? In Winona LaDuke’s, Recovering the Sacred, the word is defined by just about everything that makes up a part of the Native American way of life because for them, life itself is sacred. This means that the lands that their tribes have lived on for hundreds of years and the resources that flow through them, …show more content…
After the Massacre, the soldiers looted the bodies of the Lakota that were slaughtered, taking scalp locks, clothes, and even going so far as to cut the feet off of an infant in order to get its moccasins. Many of these items made their way to collections throughout the United States and even across the world, and even though the United States passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the act contains so many loopholes that collections will insist that they are not included in the law and other major collections and universities flat out refuse to relinquish their collections and have only parted with some of the objects or bodies that they
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