Dances with Wolves and Nature
Cameron Clark
I can remember sitting on the living room couch with my Dad as a kid. He
would flip through the television channels, pausing on anything that caught his
attention but was not “crappy TV”. His favorite thing to land on, however, was an
old movie that he remembered but that I was unfamiliar with. And one of his
favorites movies was Dances with Wolves, the movie based on the novel by Michael
Blake. My Dad would add his own
commentary to the narration by main
character John Dunbar, and together we
would admire the Sioux Indians’
resourcefulness, their sustainable lifestyle,
and the untamed landscape they lived in.
But were we correct to praise the Sioux and
their “wilderness”? Or were we guilty of
buying into what William Cronon calls “the
wrong nature” (Cronon, 69)?
William Cronon, in his essay “The
Trouble with Wilderness”, argues that “For many Americans wilderness stands as
the last remaining place where civilization, that all too human disease, has not fully
infected the Earth.” (69) Cronon continues by stating that one reason for such
disdain towards human settlement is the American “myth of the frontier” (76).
Cronon turns to historian Frederick Jackson Turner to summarize the appeal of the
frontier:
As Turner described the process, easterners and European
immigrants, in moving to the wild unsettled lands of the frontier, shed
the trappings of civilization, rediscovered their primitive racial
energies, reinvented themselves with a vigor, an independence, and a
creativity that were the source of American democracy and national
character. Seen in this way, wild country became a place not just of
religious redemption but of national renewal, the quintessential
location for experiencing what it meant to be an American. (76)
Dances with Wolves was released in 1990, but continued to play on the idea of the
frontier with the story of war-weary Union soldier John Dunbar. When Dunbar
attempts suicide by running in front of the Confederate lines, he unintentionally
becomes the battle’s hero and is given his choice of postings by the army. Dunbar
elects to be posted on the frontier, saying that he wants to see it “before it’s gone”.
This line is interesting because it was not until 1893 that Turner claimed that the
frontier was closing (76), but in 1990 the concept of disappearing wilderness is
much more common. Dunbar is the perfect example of what Cronon calls the
“mythic frontier individualist” who is “almost always masculine” and who believes
that “civilization contaminated its inhabitants and absorbed them into
the…contemptible life of the crowd” (78). The “wilderness” that Cronon describes is
also visible in the awe Dunbar expresses at his surroundings, strikingly similar to
the “welcome ecstasy” expressed by Muir in Yosemite (75).
Dances with Wolves encourages the idea of “wilderness” described by Cronon
in many ways, but the strongest current running throughout the movie is the
idealization of the Sioux Indians. After living alone for a while Dunbar meets and
begins to live with a nearby tribe of Sioux Indians. As he becomes more and more a
part of the tribe, he learns the ways of the Sioux and becomes more and more
disenchanted by the wasteful and violent ways of his former life. Soon after meeting
the Sioux, Dunbar writes in his journal that “Nothing I have been told about these
people is correct…they are not thieves or beggars…On the contrary, they are polite
guests and I enjoy their humor” (IMDB). As events unfold in Dances with Wolves and
Dunbar comes to be a part of the Sioux, my Dad and I come to admire them just as
Dunbar does. One of the most dramatic comparisons in the movie is the buffalo
hunt. The Sioux rely heavily on the buffalo for their tools, clothes, food, and shelter,
and they use nearly every part of the buffalo. Their hunting techniques only kill a
few buffalo and it provides
more than enough for their
entire tribe. Then later in the
movie the Sioux discover what
is left of a white pioneer hunt.
The scene shows the entire
herd of buffalo massacred and
skinned, leaving the rest of the dead carcasses to rot. The blatant disrespect
towards life and the wastefulness of the pioneers creates a harsh contrast between
the Sioux and the white “civilized” pioneers. The apparent cruelty of the pioneers
and the close ties between the Sioux lead Dunbar to praise their way of life.
They were a people so eager to laugh, so devoted to family, so
dedicated to each other. The only word that comes to mind is
harmony. (IMDB)
It is hard to disagree with such Dunbar’s claim when we feel like there is so
much evidence of the wrongs committed by our civilized culture. However,
Cronon brings to light several very important questions. He asks, “Why in
the debates about pristine natural areas are ‘primitive’ peoples idealized,
even sentimentalized, until the moment they do something unprimitive,
modern, and unnatural, and thereby fall from environmental grace?”
(Cronon, 85) These questions are especially relevant to Dances with Wolves,
which portrays the Sioux as a utopian society yet portrays the rival Pawnee
as overly violent for attacking peaceful settler and scalping them. Although
many Native American cultures can provide guidelines for a better use of our
resources, Cronon points out that we cannot value “wilderness” more than
anything else. He points out that by doing so “too many other corners of the
earth become less than natural and too many other people become less than
human, thereby giving us permission not to care much about their suffering
or their fate.” (85) I chose Dances with Wolves as my artifact for study
because it is a movie I love; yet it carries this underlying bias that I readily
agreed with and adopted as my own. Cronon’s points are that much more
relevant because the “problem with wilderness” is still very alive today, and
it is hiding where we least expect it.
Works Cited
Cronon, William. Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature.
New York: W.W. Norton &, 1996. Print.
"Dances with Wolves: Memorable Quotes." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 04 Mar.
2012. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099348/quotes>.
Images
http://apastdenied.ca/2009/12/23/dances-with-wolves-in-space-akaavatar/
http://www.nativeamerican.co.uk/dances.html