OCR Text |
Show Indians Love Living Things i Early writers really paid little attention at-tention to-how much the Indians cherished the wild flowers for their beauty, but it is known that for some Reason many plants owe their extended distribution to the influence influ-ence of the natives. Indians regarded re-garded all living things with deferential defer-ential respect. The Indians could not endure ruthless destruction of any of the objects of nature, animate ani-mate or inanimate. In a pamphlet on Indian customs, published by the University of Michigan, the writer says : "The Indians thought it improbable im-probable that hell, as described to them by the missionaries, was a place where fire burned eternally, because there would not only be a great waste of timber, but, they argued, the woods could not last that long." Detroit Free Press. |