Chrissy Jaeger- Native American Religions

I was reading the explanation of the Zuni faith in the seven golden cities and how that was understood so much differently when told to Spaniards. You can see that the cultural influences both peoples perspectives and their desires. The seven golden cities had meaning to both the Spaniards and the Zuni, but different meanings.
The Zuni saw it as a place of meaning symbolically. It was seven villages that may have had a golden hue, but they "also embodied meanings fully as precious as was gold to the Spanish." For the Spanish it was simply about the gold, about the money. This could be because of the cultural influences. The difference primal religions have is with the meaning of things being deeper than what they appear.
This difference also could be due to the difference in oral and literate cultures. The oral culture would focus more on the why, and importance underlying through stories and such. Whereas the literate would focus more on the what, and importance of what they see. A literate society might emphasize sight more than an oral society which would emphasize hearing. The sight would bring the focus on "what" and the materialistic view. The hearing would bring a focus on the "why" or whats implied, what's important not what is on the surface.