On Indigenous Knowledge & Natural Intelligence
There is a powerful anthology of indigenous voices entitled Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future (edited by Melissa K. Nelson, with contributions by John Mohawk, Winona LaDuke, John Trudell, and other eloquent indigenous scholars.
According to Nelson, “This book is focused on illuminating the Indigenous Knowledge intrinsic within the Original Instructions and oral traditions of the first nations.”(OI, Nelson, xix) It is an “intersection of traditional and modern expressions of Indigenous Knowledge.”(OI, Nelson, xix)
“No matter where you go on this planet, traditional cultures regularly refer to the ‘Original Instructions’ or ‘First Teachings’ given to them by their Creator(s)/Earth-Maker/Life Giver/Great Spirit/Great Mystery/Spirit Guides.”(OI, Nelson, 2) “’Original Instructions’ are blueprints for how to live sustainably within our home ecosystems…they also describe how to interact with ‘all our relations’.”(OI, Nelson, 290) “They are the literal and metaphorical instructions passed on orally from generation to generation for how to be a good human being living in reciprocal relation with all of our seen and unseen relatives. They are natural laws that, when ignored, have natural consequences.”(OI, Nelson, 3)
“Individually and collectively and since time immemorial, people have been instructed by their teachings to strive and conduct themselves in ways that create positive relationships.”(OI, Settee, 46) “In the Cree language, this is called pimatissiiwan…which means having good relations.”(OI, Settee, 46) “Collectivity is central to Indigenous being and the collectivity of Indigenous.”(OI, Settee, 46)
“Indigenous Knowledge represents the accumulated experience, wisdom and know-how unique to cultures, societies, and/or communities of people, living in an intimate relationship of balance and harmony with their local environment.”(OI, Settee, 45) And “This traditional knowledge is no different from either the Aborigines of Austrailia or the Indigenous Peoples from Africa, or the Sami from the Artic regions” of Scandanivia.(OI, Goldtooth, 222)
On Primal Peoples
“What defines an Indigenous person is the fact that we predate any other groups in our territories. But also equally important is our spiritual link to the land…our connection that is deeply embedded…in understanding and in relating to our land.”(OI, Adamson, 29) “We grew up loving the land. We grew up loving each other on the land and loving each plant and each species the way we love our brothers and sisters.”(OI, Armstrong, 67) “That doesn’t just happen as an intellectual process…as a process of needing to gather food and needing to sustain our bodies for health. It happens as a result of how we interact with each other in our families…in our extended family’s…in our communities…outward to other people who surround us on the land.”(OI, Armstrong, 67) “the land is us. In our language, the word for our bodies contains the word for land.”(OI, Armstrong, 67) And if you think about it, and we do, “our food literally becomes our flesh and our flesh gives to our minds and spirits after we die, our flesh then becomes the earth, the ‘environment’ which grows food, and the whole cycle flows all over again. This is a primal and sacred cycle of birth, growth, death, regeneration that most of us now take completely for granted.”(OI, Nelson, 180)
As Kenny Ausubel, founder of Bioneers, put it, “What we do to the earth, we do to ourselves…what we do to each other, we do to the earth. We’ll have peace with the earth only when we have peace with each other.”(OI, Ausubel, 2007, xxi)
We call such peoples primal in the sense that it was them who came first in the realm of all the wisdom traditions who have inhabited this earth. They learned their wisdom in many diverse environments from the lessons of daily living, rather than being taught by other traditions that came before them. And they passed on what they learned to those who came after.
“This book…attempts to do that…by sharing profound teachings from diverse Indigenous individuals coming from distinct lands, cultures, languages, worldviews, philosophies, and ways of life…”(OI, Nelson, 3) It offers us the “native insider perspectives,” points of view that may sometimes appear to contradict one another, but together give us a multidimentional view of more of the whole truth. Indeed, Nelson argues, “for humans to get along with each other…we must embrace and practice of cognitive and cultural pluralism (value diverse ways of thinking and being). We need to not only tolerate difference but respect and celebrate cultural diversity as an essential part of engendering peace.”(OI, Nelson, 4)
“Indigenous Knowledge systems…resist what Vandana Shiva calls ‘monoculture of the mind’,”(OI, Nelson, 290) which “encourage[s] the understanding of diverse points of view.”(OI, Nelson, 292) “This binary thinking has so thoroughly pervaded our minds that it has become an unconscious reflex in thought.”(OI, Nelson, 291) And “paraphrasing what Albert Einstein and many visionaries after [and before] him have stated, we cannot solve our global crisis with the same thought process that created it.”(OI, Nelson, 290) She adds, “Of course this cultural relativity argument does not mean we do not stand up against violations of human or indigenous rights.”(OI, Nelson, *)
We must also not make the mistake of thinking that all such cultures belong only to the past, for there are many living indigenous cultures from whom we still and always have much to learn (including our Native American neighbors, as well as those indigenous cultures living in Australia, Southeast Asia, Africa, Siberia, and the South Pacific).[1]
“Globally there are 350 million Indigenous Peoples recognized by the United Nations…” who identify as Indigenous Peoples. By some counts, “Aboriginal Peoples in the world currently number in the range of five hundred million,” and some say the numbers are closer to 600 million. There are 550 Native American nations, 175 distinct languages, and Native population is 4.1 million in the U.S., 1.5% of U.S. population.(OI, Manitonquat) Indigenous peoples “comprise 8 percent of the global population living in over one hundred countries.”(OI, Settee, 44, see p.339, Burger, 1998) This “represent 86 percent of the worlds cultural diversity…cradled in 87 percent of the world’s last remaining pristine ecosystems…sacred places where life and medicine are abundant.”(OI, Thomas-Muller, 240)
And because such cultures are so rich in diversity, they should not be oversimplified and lumped into any single category with all others, lest we make the mistake of taking that classification too far, to the point that it negates important differences. Indigenous peoples “represent thousands of language groups and have developed varied existences based on their natural surroundings. They are as diverse as the lands they live in.”(OI, Settee, 44) “We are people of the land, we are people of the waters and the lakes, we are the river people, we are the desert people, we are the plateau people, we are the mountain people, and we are the people from the forests“ and the islands.(OI, Goldtooth, 222)
But with this in mind, they might also be the first to encourage us to recognize that there are common insights that all people who live close to nature understand and would have us remember for the sake of that earth we have grown too insensitive to as time goes on, as well as for the sake of our own sensitivities, because an inability to appreciate what is truly and intrinsically good cost us each and all, individually. Still, in the same way that many of us might remember having understood better in our own childhood what we have since forgotten, humanity in its relative youth and spiritual innocence perceives more clearly basic truths that are obscured by corrupted learning.
So “There’s a responsibility that comes with being here first in trying to make other people understand that we’re all part of this phenomena, of this cosmos.”(OI, Gilbert, 38) Marlow Sam tells what this means to his tribe: “As Okanagan people, we are from the land, we are a part of it; therefore, we have an obligation as sqixw (original people who learned to live together on the land in place), as we call ourselves, to protect and speak for this land that can’t speak for itself.”(OI, Sam, 40) At least not in a voice most are listening for.
Goldtooth says, ”The Web of Life is part of the Circles of Life that sustains everyone of us – humans, animals, fish, birds, plants, and all things within the rich biological diversity that is part of our Mother Earth.”(OI, Goldtooth, 221) “Our circle of life…biological diversity, and the Indigenous concepts of the Circle of Life are one and the same.”(OI, Goldtooth, 225) “We have a duty to maintain this relationship. I have a duty to try to do what my ancestors did for me to survive, for me to be alive.”(OI, Gilbert, 38) Our instructions are that “we are to maintain those cycles of continuous creation. Life exists on a continuum; it is all about the continuity…the key message is respect for life.”(OI, Cook, 165) So “we contribute our energies to keeping alive that vision of our primeval mother, sky woman. That’s our duty on this earth.”(OI, Cook, 165)
So it is no wonder that both “Place-based spiritual responsibility and cognitive pluralism are imbedded in most Original Teachings.”(OI, Nelson, 11) Indeed, the reality of these relationships is manifest in the fact that most people are “mixed-race,” “not ‘half and half but ‘all and all’.”(OI, Nelson, 17) Identifying who is and who is not Native American may be less important than recognizing that we all came from those who were Indigenous not long ago, and re-indigenization would be good for us all.
“This helps us to remember who we are, that we were all Indigenous to a place not so many generations ago. They invite us to re-indigenize ourselves to our common home, Mother Earth.”(OI, Ausubel, 2007, xxii) “Re-indigenization” is “a return to the past,” not to get rid of all changes since, but to remember our original and arguably, better selves who might still live as we would have others do. To this end, meny are “Working to regain that equilibrium for me and for those who are yet to be born.”(OI, Ross, 205)
Simply put, “Part of our spiritual preparation…is as ancestors. It’s the challenge that all of us face who are alive on earth today. How do we prepare to be ancestors of future people?”(OI, Parhuli, 316)
As Devaney puts it, “This effort to protect Mother Earth is all Humanity's responsibility, not just Aboriginal People. Every human being has had Ancestors in their lineage that understood their umbilical cord to the Earth, understanding the need to always protect and thank her. Therefore, all Humanity has to re-connect to their own Indigenous Roots of their lineage -- to heal their connection and responsibility with Mother Earth and become a united voice... All Nations, All Faiths, One Prayer.”(2012 Jacob Devaney, Idle No More: Hints of a Global Super-Movement, Huffington Post, January 3, 2013
Belief vs. Understanding
“The Great Creator” is “the intelligence that created everything.”(OI, Nelson, xix) It is the “first teacher of the Original Instructions given to us by our Creator, Gitche Manitou, the Great Mystery.”(OI, Nelson, 1)
Linguist, Dan Moonhawk Alford wrote… ‘God is Not a Noun in Native American…not simply a transcendent, divine force or power, outside of our human experience…the divine or the sacred is…a new; it is active…a creative process that…all peoples have a right and obligation to participate in on a moment to moment basis throughout our actions, thoughts, and behavior…a very different world view from the Eurocentric perspective of a monotheistic Divinity, of a single God that is a noun, and authority, a…transcendent entity separate from our world.”(OI, Martinez, et.al., 109) “That nature is within us as well.”(OI, Parhuli, 314)
“Power is not a man-made device or structure, power is not a political, religious, or social system. That’s not power. These are systems of authority. The real power is an entirely different reality, and that reality is us – human beings; the power of the human being.”(OI, Trudell, 320) And “Our original instruction is that we have intelligence so we need to use it clearly and coherently. We need to take responsibility for our lives and think. We must use our intelligence to think, to create the reality that must be created.”(OI, Trudell, 320)
“So this deal about being powerless or feeling powerless is all a lie.”(OI, Trudell, 321) How bad can you make yourself feel through your fears, your doubts, and your insecurities and how does that affect the people around you? If you have the ability to do that, that’s your power.”(OI, Trudell, 321) “This is the power of a human being.”(OI, Trudell, 321) “The human is temporary but being just is. Being is being.” It’s like being on a ride at Disneyland – when the rides over, we go back to being…because everything is about energy.”(OI, Trudell, 319)
"Where I come from,” Paula Gunn Allen says, “we like to think our god is a woman and her name is Thought. We believe that the entire cosmos is thinking."(OI, Allen, 138)
And this true Intelligence we can discern only when we “put our minds together as one mind.”(OI, Nelson, xix) This is why “Communities rather than individuals hold it.”(OI, Settee, 45)
Still, individuals advance our collective intelligence by reminding us of things we know to be true, but may have forgotten to remember, or simply forgotten to view from relevant points of view. So “we have the responsibility to use our intelligence.”(OI, Trudell, 321) “In a society where the accumulation of knowledge is one of the reasons why Elders are revered, it was a good idea for a person who passed forty to start paying attention to things….so people, as they got older, actually became more and more responsible for being a repository of knowledge of the group.”(OI, Mohawk, 173)
Unfortunately, “We’ve not been encouraged to think. We’ve been programmed to believe.”(OI, Trudell, 322) Not necessarily maliciously, but because conditioned minds don’t know better. “You did to us what they had done to you.”(OI, Trudell, 322) Native Americans experienced this when Europeans arrived, the full force attempt “to change and alter the spiritual perception of reality and turn it into a religious perception of reality, because there’s a difference between spiritual and religious. Religion is about submission and obedience and authoritarianism. Spiritual is about taking responsibility.”(OI, Trudell, 322)
“An interesting thing about pre-Christian Native American thought – it did not require you to have faith. In fact, it discouraged it. You don’t need to be a believer but you can be an appreciator. You can appreciate the gifts of nature, but it doesn’t ask you to believe in anything,” you just “have to be there for it.”(OI, Mohawk, 134) Which is important, because “You cannot believe and think simultaneously.” In fact, “belief limits thinking.”(OI, Trudell, 322)
“Tribal people worship the sacredness of creation as a way of life, not as a religion. In fact, none of the Native languages have words…synonymous with religion. The closest expression of belief literally translates to the way you live.”(OI, Adamson, 35) “The fundamental thing about being Iroquois,” for instance, John Mohawk says, “is that people will not argue about beliefs or religions. Inside our traditional religion are all kinds of different beliefs, and not everyone shares all those beliefs.”(OI, Mohawk, 48) But “Whatever our beliefs are we are encouraged to maintain the tradition of clear thinking. Clear thinking is the foundation of the Great Law.”(OI, Mohawk, 48)
All of which “requires a willingness to see through another’s eyes to overcome limited perspective of what is possible; to hear through another ears to develop joint strategies of action.” (OI, Cook, 156-157) This mutual respect for diverse ways of being engenders humility, an essential quality of character, for “It is when people think there is only ‘one place’ that is holy or only ‘one way’ that is right that hegemony rears it’s ugly head and societies get into trouble with conflict and war.”(OI, Nelson, 11) And “When people are at war, they are not thinking clearly…”(OI, Mohawk, 55)
Sadly, “prevailing culture still clings to a narrow conception of a distant holy land, the public is easily duped into righteous wars that are, in fact, ultimately aimed at control of distant natural resources. Correspondingly, we see heinous crimes against humanity enthusiastically committed by individuals and groups who” are bent on seeing “that their particular spiritual story…must prevail throughout the world.”(OI, Gray, 87) (*put after stories)
“The thing about hierarchies and heroes is that we accept it as THE main narrative to live by. But the truth is, there aren’t any main narratives… There are jillions of stories.””(OI, Allen, 139) “The thing about…the old, old stories is that they recognize multiplicity at every single level. It’s always interaction.”(OI, Allen, 119)
What we need now is to learn from all ways come from all places! Because “the earth itself is everywhere and in all parts sacred.”(OI, Gray, 86) And “When we include the perspective of the land and we include the perspective of human relationships, one of the things that happens is that community changes. People in the community change. Something happens inside where…material wealth and the security of it or being fearful and being frightened about not having ‘things’ to sustain you disappears. They start to lose their power. They start to lose their impact.”(OI, Armstrong, 72) “those things that are material loose their power over us.”(OI, Armstrong, 73) And “The realization that people and community are there to sustain you creates the most secure feeling in the world…fear starts to leave…you’re imbued with hope.”(OI, Armstrong, 72) And “for the young people who are having such a difficult time (all young people are having a difficult time) it heals them.”(OI, Armstrong, 74)
So the world needs to be “Okanaganized". (OI, Armstrong, 72) As Okanagan, “We are obligated and duty-bound to protect and caretake this land that we belong to. My people are not pacifists” But they are dedicated to conflict resolution… “For untold generations, we evolved from the land and we learned to come to an understanding that this is our basis of teachings…passed down orally from generation to generation…we were given methods and techniques…for how we are to live and interact with this land. It is through these stories, that we were shown how to settle disputes and how to get along with one another, and to do this in a manner that makes both sides comfortable, a process whereby each feels that they had an equal say in the resolution process.”(OI, Sam, 40) This is what they call the en’owkinwiwx process – “It’s hard to give words to it.”(OI, Sam, 41) “It is a powerful tool to be used in this way, it is a peace technology; it is a traditional Okanagan form of conflict resolution.”(OI, Sam, 41) “There is a healing process that happens…”(OI, Sam, 41) “It reaches down and deals with the unconscious part of their being, the life force of the being: their spirit.”(OI, Sam, 41) “It’s an empowering experience!”(OI, Sam, 41) And “Even when individuals do not totally commit themselves to” the powers, “they end up getting swept up into it anyway. The resistant individuals end up being strong proponents of the process!”(OI, Sam, 41) “That’s the power of our traditional teachings.”(OI, Sam, 41)
[2] (Plato, Parmenides, p.*)
[3] (Smith, p. 234)
[4] (Smith, p.234)
[5] (Smith, p. 234)
[6] (Plato, Seventh Epistle, p.*)
[7] Cratylus.
[8] (Smith, p. 234)
[9] (Plato, Laches 181d. Hamilton & Cairns, p.126)
[10] Find learned dialectic from Aspasia, and add Diotima*
[11] (Smith, p.10)
[12] (Smith, p.13)
[13] Smith, p.246)
[14] *
[15] (Smith, p.249)
[16] (Smith, p.13)
Gratitude for Indigenous Wisdom
This came as a powerful revelation as I discovered how much more we all have to learn from what Primal, Preliterate, and Indigenous Peoples have to teach us. I was astonished – perhaps because we so thoroughly ignore this wisdom source, even and especially in academia. I see now that these still-living cultures hold the true buried treasure we need most. I finally felt the full weight of what they have been saying for so long – about joy, gratitude, mutual respect, true democracy, and the full bounty of those intrinsic goods of food, friendship, love, laughter, music, dance, sensitivity and sexuality, and all the rest we learn to take for granted – I’ve come to see how these are truly the most important lessons that we have yet to learn in life, come around full circle from wisdom understood from very beginning of human culture, and the very beginning of every life. How could we not recognize, for instance, the analogous relationship between intercourse and discourse, and all the other complementary processes between mind and body? And how could we ignore the healing process that is a kind of the dance with nature we no longer enjoy? The mind/body connection is the source of true divine wisdom. And all this is why, as they ancients would say, the gods envy us!
But steeped in extrinsic goods and strictly material wealth, little do we realize how much we are missing in the balance and interaction between the mind and body. We ignore the most fundamental of our Original Instruction – “to be grateful…and enjoy life.”(OI, Ausubel, 2007, xxii)
Long story short, this is also how I’ve been treating my cancer, as much as possible anyway, for twelve plus years now. As the book of changes, or I Ching, affirms, “One should always think positively, persevere, looking forward to the good… moving forward to do something productive.” “Even when sick, one should persist in the principle of keeping delight alive.” In this way, we “cure the cause, instead of dealing with the symptom.” Even in “the glow of the setting sun – like the end of one’s career or life. The sun is still shining and humility still has resonance.” So it is that, “with the quality of humility, one is able to deal with any kind of situation; no matter how difficult or dangerous.” And this is why I’m still here to tell this story and a big part of the reason that I am so passionate about this message.
(connect travel study?*)
So it’s no wonder students were struck to find that, almost anywhere we travel, that most people around the world tend to gather in town squares to enjoy each other’s company and share these goods in abundance when the days work is done. They are, in an important sense, simply more alive than those of us who retire to our living rooms to live vicariously through out televisions at the end of the workday. And it’s also no wonder that when we return home from our travels, Americans seem to be half asleep by comparison with those we’ve met along the way. (*connect intrinsic goods economy…)
Let me add how much people all around the world all have to gain from this dialogic understanding. Starting with the dialogue between capitalism and communism (as opposed to Capitalism and Communism, which barely resemble their original forms). Breaking down THAT single false dichotomy may be the only way to save our world economy, not to mention reconcile the conflict-ridden politics that has grown out of it. And how much would we each and all benefit by understanding the history of ideas behind one another’s ways of being and cultural psyches? How much do the Chinese need to understand the true origins of democracy in human dignity, rights, and voice? And how much do Americans, for instance, need to understand the eastern focus on inner wealth and healthy relationships that has been left out of our materialist/extrinsic goods upbringing? And if there’s little hope of religion opening to what science has to teach them, there might at least be hope that literalists will begin to take a lesson from lateralists, and instead of fighting like spoiled children over what God supposedly promised one or the other of them in some supposedly holy book, begin to comprehend the message behind mythology. What kind of a God, or good parent, for that matter, would set his children up for such a war in this way? And worse, would use Jesus – who gave his life for religious freedom – to feed this warring hate? And will we ever see the moral imperative to stop conditioning young minds into wants that will only insure their unhappiness? And, most urgent of all, when will we ever begin to hear those Indigenous voices who understand and can readily teach us what we’ve ignored for too long about raising healthy children in healthy relationships with one another and the natural world? And when will we come to understand the ecological backlash that is coming around, to our own peril, while we continue to assault our natural environment? These are all problems we have create for ourselves, and could resolve before they are the end of us, by finally hearing what the ancients tried to teach us.
All this is truly the knowledge we need most to help us appreciate and work with our better nature we have too long denied. Seeing that reciprocity and organic feedback are the nature of change itself – as many of our advances in science are coming to verify - this Indigenous wisdom has the power to heal our bodies, our human relationships, our political relationships, as well as our relationship with nature. And it is in this sense that the Socratic method is complementary to the scientific method when it comes to the search for the whole truth.
Paradise being my middle (and my mother’s maiden) name, I tend to think that the message God is said to have given Adam and Eve in that garden (as the story goes) was actually, still and always, meant for us. Because now, more than ever, we stand to be expelled from this beautiful garden, not for seeking knowledge, per se, but the wrong kind of knowledge - arrogant knowledge, that is, knowledge without humility - the kind that works against, rather than with nature’s processes.
The ancients tried to teach us about nonintervention, and that goes for the natural learning process as well. What Sugata Mitra calls “minimally invasive” method works (as Socrates long ago argued) because nature knows what it is doing. It makes sense, and for that reason, left to their own natural curiosity, aided by gentle feedback and guidance, children will figure out for themselves what is and is not true. The best we can do is to illuminate the many paths open to them.
On the other hand, the day may soon come (if it hasn’t already) when we will have missed our last best chance to do right by our children, their children, and all generations to come – who may never be born if we don’t act while there is still time. All evidence tells us we are teetering at that tipping point, the point of no return, when our final opportunity to listen and learn from our ancient betters will have come and gone. What better could we do with the time that we have than to learn from those who lived, and sometimes died, that we might remember the wisdom that was passed to and from them for all our sakes?