This has led to a process whereby we downplay the natural world and of native peoples in general who live in a more harmonious fashion with their surrounding world. While this process, especially during the Industrial Age, has led to dehumanization process and it has also led to a cheapening of human life in general as well. One can therefore see in New Age approaches to nature (and religion) that there is a hunger to rediscover an intra-natural balance that was lost in the last few centuries. By studying and internalizing these myths and their moral lessons, we can recapture this lost balance. The author compared these other approaches and built upon what we learned in class, especially by comparing and contrasting and them with the native American myths of animals, tricksters, and their roles in the creation of the natural world as the native peoples see it in a holistic way that is more wholesome, reflective of and in balance with the natural world we live in. Works Cited

Brightman, Robert Alain. (2002). "there was just animals before."...

38-76). Regina, Saskatchawan: Canadian Plains Research Center.
Ibid. (2002). "they come to be like human." Grateful Prey: Rock

Cree Human-Animal Relationships (pp. 38-76). Regina, Saskatchawan: Canadian Plains Research Center.

Castro, Eduardo Batalha Viveiros de. (2004). Exchanging perspectives: the transformation of objects into subjects in amerindian ontologies. Common Knowledge, 10(3), 463-484.

Kovacs, Maureen Gallery, & Carnahan, Wolf. (1998). The epic of gilgamesh. Retrieved from http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/tab1.htm.

Sikov, Nikolay. (n.d.). Time and cosmos: a zoomorphic cosmological monument of the late antiquity. Retrieved from http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol44/sivkov.pdf

Wilkinson, Richard H. (2008). Anthropomorphic Deities. Ucla encyclopedia of egyptology. Retrieved October 30, 2010, from http://escholarship.org/uc/item/5s54w4tc;jsessionid=6B8E02202328924B7E6D584A70F44397