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Mixed feelings on this subject. On paper I think they're based. I respect the hell out of their heritage an traditions, concepts like the honorable harvest and thinking of nature as an individual with their own set of rights similar to humans, etc. And I am sympathetic of their situation. Their culture underwent a quantum leap from late-paleolithic to early-modern in a few generations, that can't be an easy transition.
Having said that, many of them are less environmentally conscious than other groups I know, yet they cast stones at everyone else for any infringement. Much of their community embodies a "do as I say not as I do" policy though they seem to deny it. There are some, conspicuously usually ones that grew up in white communities, that are connected and serious about their heritage. Those ones are incredibly based. Only a small fraction are actually serious about environmental stewardship, a few more claim to care but are still worse on the environment in practice than the average person.
In the modern context I think they have a really unique and important potential role to humanity, they have the cultural wisdom of our ancestors in a sense, all cultures have a naturalistic past and their spirituality and identity based in that. An example is the Celts in europe, over written with advances in civilization which brought good things but forgot or even shunned important aspects of life. If natives wanted to share their culture they could have a valuable and constructive role in building a more graceful future. Some of them do. But a lot of them corrupt that role for personal gain, or treat that role as their ethno-exclusive property. If I talk about first Nations naturalism, I shouldn't sneered at. Some degree of appropriation or at least collaboration is the best thing first nation tradition could hope for, dollars to donuts most whites and Asians would connect to the concepts more than current gen natives.Just sad at the lost potential for their role.
