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Abstract

Rolling Thunder, a biography of a Native American medicine man of the same name by Doug Boyd, is a comprehensive document on Native American view of nature. The representation of relationship between culture and nature inspires affection and respect for nature, and spirit of supporting the practice of environmentalism and spreads ecological wisdom. For Glotfelty the place is a significant subject because it shows whether imagination is earth centered or not. Native Americans are the most natural of people; they call the earth the mother and the sun the father. They have an ecocentric experience of life and their relation with nature is marked with respect, not domination or superiority, harmony, not competition. Rolling Thunder bears out Lynn White's view that Judeo-Christian belief system establishes man's superiority over nature that allows man to exploit nature while the Native American animistic belief system. protects nature from man. Native Americans do not believe in the Great Chain of Being, they believe that the same spirit breathes in every object of nature and rules both humans and nature. For them it is a sin to have a desire to master nature. Britto thinks that Classical Greek Humanism that claims man's superiority over animals and nonhumans because of his rational faculties, Cartesian dualism that accepts man's superiority to animals on the basis of having soul, Judeo Christian concept of Great Chain of Being are the sources of ecological crises. Rolling Thunder offers Native American approach to man-nature relationship which guarantees survival of all living species on this earth.