Earthen Spirituality or Cultural Genocide?: Radical Environmentalism's Appropriation of Native American Spirituality

The appropriation by non-Indians of Native American religious practices has become a highly contentious phenomenon. The present analysis focuses on the controversy as it has unfolded within the ‘Deep Ecology’ or ‘Radical Environmental’ Movement in North America. Taking as its central case study Earth First!, the radical vanguard of this movement, it describes the diverse forms such borrowing takes, the plural American indian and non-indian views shaping the ensuing controversy, and the threats this controversy poses to a nascent and fragile Indigenous-Environmentalist alliance. Concluding reflections address the ethics of appropriation with the aim of reducing the tensions attending these phenomena.