Our western Values are backed by our Beliefs. Today, our Western beliefs are very similar to the ones we had in the 19th Century.
In this respect, the First People from all Continents are no different from us : their Values were/are backed by their Beliefs.
Their Beliefs generally are ‘’Animist’’ : in short, there are 2 key elements:
1- They generally consider that there was a ‘’Creator God’’ who created everything and then retired in a remote place, where He still stays.
2- All living (& non-living) beings have a spirit. All spirits deserve equal respect.
As a consequence, Humans are living among other living & non-living beings, NOT above.
That is the Key Things we ought to try to learn from them. But it is quite difficult to do so, because we do not know how to change our perspectives & Beliefs. And, even if we did so, this would imply to change central pillars of our Societies.
There was an interesting Religion, which the Judeo-Christians were partially inspired by : Zoroastrians. They considered that each animal (including humans) had a soul, but only humans had capacity of discernment and free will. Therefore, God created a Covenant/ Alliance between Humans and Animals, by which Humans have the duty to protect animals.
Unfortunately, we picked some key concepts from them, but misunterpreted many others…
