The following is taken from "The Story of a Forest: Growth, Destruction and Renewal in the Upper Delaware Valley," by Robert Kuhn McGregor.
"Native Americans saw nature differently from the Europeans who came much later—tens of thousands of years of differing cultural trajectory will have that effect—but the harmony with nature we perceive was with a world they did much to create. Leaving aside the debate over the paleolithic extinctions, the fact remains that the prehistoric peoples manipulated nature to secure an environment conducive to their own survival. In the Northeast, this meant more open forest, more edge habitat, more deer. Fire was the primary tool. Foodways brought further changes to the Upper Delaware woodlands. Population growth would exert greater pressures on the environment. Eventually would come agriculture, and the extensive reorganization of the natural world cultivation implies.
"Among the folk traditions of the Algonquians who once hunted the lower reaches of the Upper Delaware Valley are stories suggesting that the harmonious relationship with nature was an approach learned the hard way. One folk tale preserved by the Lenapé (Delaware) Indians tells of 'When the Animals Left Lenapé Land.' One day, the animals, especially the larger game species, simply disappeared from the forests. After much searching, an owl discovered the animals were living in an 'enclosure of trees' protected by a race of giants. Determined to stage a rescue, the Lenapé attacjedm fighting bitterly for days while the animals stood by, indifferent to the outcome. Finally came a truce and parlay, in which the people asked the Elk, spokesman for the animals, why they made no effort to assist in their own escape. The Elk contradicted the assumption—the giants had not forced the animals into the enclosure, did not imprison them. The animals had migrated voluntarily, glad of the giants' protection. Because the people had treated the animals poorly, taking their lives without respect, without gratitude. 'You have wasted our flesh; desecrated our forest homes, and our bones; you have dishonored us and yourselves. We can live without you, but you cannot live without us!' Native Americans came to respect their prey only when the animals (in some ecological fashion) demanded as much. The perceived Native American harmony with nature was not instinctive, natural. It was a learned behavior, born of hard lessons lived in the forest. Prehistoric peoples were not ecological saints, no more than they were savages. They were human beings, the same mix of traits good and bad, hopeful, intelligent, determined to survive—the same as every other collection of human beings to grace any corner of the earth, any time in history."
