RE: Wild Earth - 3: Cheyenne Dog People, the Liquid of Language, and Death
A thoughtful, provocative post. Interesting, how the Cheyenne would eat the animals they admired, while for the Hindus of India, eating their sacred cows is forbidden.
I once had a conversation with a religious friend of mine about animal consciousness and vegetarianism. (Neither of us were vegetarians and I'm not particularly religious.) She said that God made animals for us to eat, and therefore they weren't sentient. I told her they were sentient, but it was okay. However, wasting food was one of the greatest sins you could commit against God. I think I kind of blew her mind.
On Language - we have a Wampanoag tribe in the area. It's interesting to me that they're so protective of their culture, and will not let anyone without a certain percentage of Native American blood study the language. As a result there are only a couple of speakers left, and it's not likely to survive the decade.