As part of a weeklong series on American Indian issues, a visiting professor spoke on the disconnect between the attitudes of many Americans and the traditional American Indian respect for the earth.

A crowd of more than 90 people filled the Gallery Room of the Memorial Union as Daniel Wildcat, co-director of the Haskell Environmental Research Studies Center at Haskell Indian Nations University spoke on “Peoples of Place: Environment, Culture and Technology.” Wildcat is a member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma and co-author of “Power and Place: Indian Education in America.”

The lecture was part of the 33rd annual Symposium on the American Indian at Iowa State.

Education and cultural diversity were major themes of Wildcat’s talk, along with the differences in how Westerners and American Indians view the earth itself. Wildcat strove to address problems regarding stereotypes about American Indians.

“What has been denominated or called Indian education is not at all Indian,” Wildcat said.

“What I want to emphasize is an indigenous foundation for education.”

Wildcat said American Indians are beginning to lose their individuality as specific tribes and provided examples of how each tribe once had distinct cultures and traditions relating to the natural world around them.

The loss of American Indian identity, Wildcat said, is rooted in the cultural clashes between indigenous people of the Americas and European immigrants who have lived here for just 500 years. Europeans have spent a relatively small amount of time on this continent compared with the thousands of years American Indians had inhabited North America.

“Throughout human history, [everyone’s] ancestors have lived longer as members of tribes than they have members of modern nations,” Wildcat said.

He noted the difference in the indigenous view of the world as opposed to the typical Western point of view.

“When Western people see nature, they see resources. When indigenous people see nature, they see relatives,” he said.

Differences in the worldviews of Westerners and American Indians are an important concept in an ever-diversifying world. Wildcat said he emphasizes education about the indigenous way of life because he feels the generations of today are losing touch with nature, a relationship integral to American Indian cultures.

“I think we have a society of ADD. We have people who are so used to watching TV that they can only accept information in seven- or eight-minute segments,” he said.

“We put knowledge in boxes and then complain when we create professionals who are so finely specialized that they cannot communicate with people in their own departments. This is very counterproductive.”

Teresa Negus, senior in biology, said although she was attending the lecture for a class assignment, she was very pleased with Wildcat’s talk.

“Native Americans have lived side by side with nature and the environment for so long, perhaps it would do us all some good to take some advice,” she said.