Lame Deer and Sanchez

Lame Deer was a Sioux chief and medicine man who seduces us, the reader, to sit down an

The perspectives of Lame Deer and Porfirio Sanchez had their similarities and differences as they talked about who they are and what they believe. Native American Indians, no matter who they are, will always represent and have a respectful relationship with there natural surroundings in which Mother Nature has provided us.

In “Listen to the Air,” Lame Deer today lives mostly in the present but relates it to the past. Throughout the passage Lame Deer talks about how much his culture or society depended on the resources that were available in his environment and how they never took one thing for granted. As he discusses his past, he relates it to how today’s modern world uses the same resources but in a way that seems arrogant and selfish. Not only does he look at the past and the present, but he also looks at what he thinks the future holds. “You are spreading death, buying and selling death.” (Deer and Erdoes 474) Basically, Lame Deer is trying to say that if we continue using, or in other words killing, the resources as we do now we will eventually have nothing left. For Sanchez, things are different. He is basically a sixty-seven, unemployed bum who takes one day at a time. He is living in the present and taking everything for what it is worth. Here’s someone who doesn’t look back at the past where he lived in the hard land but looks at what’s available to him like nature and the city and appreciates it for what it is today.

Lame Deer’s feelings for the environment are very strong, especially towards today’s modern world. After Lame Deer had so nicely seduced us to sit and listen, he seems to attack us for the way we have not respected the environment. “You have raped and violated these lands, always saying, ‘Gimme, gimme, gimme,’ and never giving anything back.” (Deer and Erdoes 472) Lame Deer doesn’t seem to understand the cultural beliefs of today’s human beings compared to how he and his culture recognized everything that surrounded him. Lame Deer has been brought up as a spiritual and giving perso

Some topics in this essay:
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