Indigenous Knowledge (IK) can be broadly defined as the knowledge and skills that an indigenous (local) community accumulates over generations of living in a particular environment. IK is unique to given cultures, localities and societies and is acquired through daily experience. It is embedded in community practices, institutions, relationships and rituals. Because IK is based on, and is deeply embedded in local experience and historic reality, it is therefore unique to that specific culture; it also plays an important role in defining the identity of the community. Similarly, since IK has developed over the centuries of experimentation on how to adapt to local conditions. That is Indigenous ways of knowing informs their ways of being. Accordingly IK is integrated and driven from multiple sources; traditional teachings, empirical observations and revelations handed down generations. Under IK, language, gestures and cultural codes are in harmony. Similarly, language, symbols and family structure are interrelated. For example, First Nation had a …show more content…
The IK embedded in the stories reveal how such knowledge is instrumental in ushering in and mitigating ecological catastrophe (Woollett, 2007). Cajete (2000) observes that “ultimately, the goal of Indigenous education is to perpetuate a way of life through the generations and through time. The purpose of all education is to instruct the next generation about what is valued and important to a society” (p. 184). In Canada, Native schools have begun to emerge where Native people (of particular tribal groups) conduct education for children in their own languages and develop a curriculum which is based on reclaiming traditional knowledges and worldviews, for example, the importance of land and environment and what land and environment means to Aboriginal
Winona Wheeler’s essay, “Cree Intellectual Traditions in History” analyzes the oral history of First Nations Elders. She specifically questions the identities of the Elders telling their story and how they have attained the stories that they are telling. Wheeler’s thesis is that the Elders are not mere storages of knowledge, they are humans. And as the days go on, few of them remain which makes it even more relevant to take in what they have and pass it on to the newer generations.
The novel “Indian Horse” by Richard Wagamese demonstrates the many conflicts that indigenous people encounter on a daily basis. This includes things such as, the dangers they face and how they feel the need to flee to nature, where they feel the most safe. Another major issue they face is being stripped of their culture, and forcibly made to believe their culture is wrong and they are less of a human for being brought up that way, it makes them feel unworthy. Finally, when one is being criticised for a hobby they enjoy due to their indigenous upbringing, they make himself lose interest and stop the hobby as it makes them different and provokes torment. People who are trying
Throughout ancient history, many indigenous tribes and cultures have shown a common trait of being hunter/gatherer societies, relying solely on what nature had to offer. The geographical location influenced all aspects of tribal life including, spirituality, healing philosophy and healing practices. Despite vast differences in the geographical location, reports show various similarities relating to the spirituality, healing philosophy and healing practices of indigenous tribal cultures.
For the Kwakiutl People of the northern part of Vancouver Island, Canada, and the adjacent mainland, recorded history starts approximately in the year of 1792 when Capitan George Vancouver first made contact. As with many first encounters with Europeans, disease developed and drastically reduced the population of the Kwakiutl by an estimated 75% from the time of 1830 to 1880. In 1990, the Kwakiutl was around 1500 and pre-contact estimates are in the range of ten times that (Native Languages of the Americas website 1998). No other accounts had been made on the Kwakiutl for almost the next century and knowledge in that time must be gathered from the Hudson's Bay Company and the reports of the Canadian government and British Colombia even though in 1849 a trading post was established in their territory (Codere 1950). On Vancouver island, Fort Rupert was built and four Kwakiutl groups moved their winter towns there, “establishing the largest largest of the Kwakiutl settlements and becoming the center of Kwakiutl culture.” (Native Languages of the Americas website 1998) Beginning around the 1880's, Franz Boas, George Dawson and other notable early anthropologists began an effort to collect and catalog ethnographic field work on the tribe because they “feared that Indians were “vanishing” as a consequence of the colonial legacy of genocide, Christian evangelization, and legislation that sought to displace indigenous traditions and assimilate native peoples into settler society.” (Zovar 2010) Because of this “salvage anthropology,” after that period, they are well documented and many artistic examples are now in museums.
Across Canada and the United States there are many First Nations languages which are a part of the Algonquian language family, all of which with varying states of health. Although these languages share many characteristics of the Algonquian language family, the cultures, systems of beliefs, and geographic location of their respective Nations differentiate them. In being shaped by the landscape, cultures, and spirituality of the First Nations, the language brings the speakers closer to their land and traditions while reaffirming their identity as First Peoples. Using the Blackfoot Nation to further explore this concept, this paper will show that while language threads together First Nations culture, spirituality, traditions and land, as well as their identity, each of these essential components also maintain and revitalize the language.
The religion of the Ojibwe is centered on a belief of a single creating force but according the Minnesota Historical Society the religion also, “Incorporated a wide pantheon of spirits that played specific roles in the universe.” These different spirits took on different roles, some to protect the Ojibwe hunters, protection from illness and while in battle. Each person had a personal guardian spirit which was one of their most important. Their guardian spirit would come to them in a dream or vision and could be called on for protection and guidance. The tribe also had spiritual leaders, which were feared and respected because of their supernatural powers that could be used for good, or evil. Dreams were related to religion and spirit guides. Natives believed dreams carried great significance and that they would provide visions of their future and how to live their lives. The Ojibwe would go on annual fasts to renew the vision of their lives and reflect.
The indigenous Australian culture is one of the world’s oldest living cultures. Despite the negligence and the misunderstanding from the Europeans, Aboriginals were able to keep their culture alive by passing their knowledge by arts, rituals, performances and stories from one generation to another. Each tribe has its own language and way of using certain tools; however the sharing of knowledge with other tribes helps them survive with a bit easier with the usage of efficient yet primitive tools which helps a culture stay alive. Speaking and teaching the language as well as the protection of sacred sites and objects helps the culture stay...
All over the world, people have always sought for power, they have struggled to defend their culture; they have worked beyond imaginable to obtain economic prosperity and political freedom. A matter of fact equality is something that nowadays we are still fighting to obtain. Education has always been the key to power. In the twenty-first century education means a way to obtain the American dream, in other words, to achieve success. However, schools were never intended to empower people to think for themselves or to help them succeed. At the beginning of the American school, different groups of people wanted different things to come out of schooling, one of those things was to facilitate reading the bible in the text it states that “Schooling became important as a means of sustaining a well- ordered religious commonwealth” (Spring 22).
The Inuit people of Nunavik have used their incredible resourcefulness to survive in the harsh environment of the Tundra and have a rich culture, but with the arrival of European technology, government and environmental destruction, their way of life has been threatened and much of their old culture has been lost. They are working to preserve their culture by passing it through education, and negotiating for more control so that they can do that.
What is Identity? Is it what you think of yourself? Is it how others see you? Or maybe it is the way you present yourself. Stories like “Ain’t I a Woman?” by Sojourner Truth , “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, and “Indigenous Identity: What is it, and Who Really has it?” by Hilary N. Weaver give us a few examples of identity based on each one of the authors viewpoints. Both “Ain’t I a Woman?” and “The Story of an Hour”, focus on how women were viewed and placed in society before and during the suffrage movement. “The Lottery” opens our eyes to the identity issue of blindly following tradition. The author of the story “Indigenous Identity: What is it, and Who Really has it?” tells us that identity is based on; race, gender, social status, and the knowledge of one’s heritage.
Australia’s Indigenous people are thought to have reached the continent between 60 000 and 80 000 years ago. Over the thousands of years since then, a complex customary legal system have developed, strongly linked to the notion of kinship and based on oral tradition. The indigenous people were not seen as have a political culture or system for law. They were denied the access to basic human right e.g., the right to land ownership. Their cultural values of indigenous people became lost. They lost their traditional lifestyle and became disconnected socially. This means that they were unable to pass down their heritage and also were disconnected from the new occupants of the land.
Indigenous people have identified themselves with country; they believe that they and the land are “one”, and that it is lived in and lived with. Indigenous people personify country as if it were a person, as something that connects itself to the land, people and earth, being able to give and receive life (Bird Rose, D. 1996). Country is sacred and interconnected within the indigenous community,
Indigenous people believed that the revitalization of Indigenous knowledge would help to have a better development of the environment as a whole, due to their ancients had much closer relationship with the nature, thus, they knew how to respect the nature as well as having a certain way to keep the balance between the ecological environment. Specifically, when the members of the tribe were getting back from hunting, they would first offer a ceremony to the nature so as to show their thankful of the motherland who provided them this animals, then they would reveal their respect to the spirit of these animals which had dedicated their physical forms to feed the communities. With exhibiting the supreme respect to nature through praying in ceremonies, people learned the hard-won of food, as well as having to have a particular ideology of if you respect the nature, you would gain your reward from it. The revitalization was aimed as giving people around the world a preferable sense and understanding to the land that we were living in, also, it was an important step to embedded the idea of respect to particularly non-Indigenous people as a result of pursuing a better protection to the land. Furthermore, by revitalizing the Indigenous knowledge and ideologies could be a convictive evidence for them to prove to the white colonizers that the Indigenous
It is astonishing how humans as a species are able to form communities with their own practices, beliefs, and languages. The number of indigenous people in our world is diminishing everyday. The loss of these people may not be affecting us personally but it is affecting our world’s diversity that comes in many forms and makes us all unique. National Geographic Explorer, Wade Davis, talks about the many indigenous cultures in our world and the experiences he has had with some of them. Sadly, the point he is trying to get across is that these cultures are disappearing. This video complements our reading in the textbook because in our readings we come across how some groups are losing the practices and traditions of their ancestors. They still integrate some of the things they have learned in their own lives, but what is going to happen when their generation dies off and there is no one left to teach the language or beliefs of those who came before them? Watching this video made me realize how important it is to save these cultures because they have been around for many years and are some of the strongest models of how to be
When I first came into this class, introduction to indigenous studies, I was uncertain of what to expect but really interested. Part taking in my major towards history and noticed this class I immediately pounced on it as I was quite interested and very pleased. I have been paying attention to many circumstances going on with the indigenous people, their land and culture over the past few years. As even into the first day of class it opened my eyes to a whole new way of life, situations and much much more that indigenous people have went through and are still going through taking my perception much more in-depth, and I cant belief how astonished I am already only six weeks into the course.