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I came across a small article in the Focus section of The Globe and Mail on Saturday,
May 23, 2003. It reported on a study by Duke University and University of
Wisconsin Professors. The study examined the brain scans of long term practitioners
of Buddhist meditation. The scans indicated that certain areas of the brain light up
constantly in Buddhists which indicate positive emotions and good mood. The
principle investigators conclude: We can hypothesize with some confidence that
those apparently happy, calm Buddhist souls one regularly comes in places such as
Dharamsala, India really are happy. Interesting statement on how we come to know
something and what we know.
In one sense the statement says something about the nature of knowing and the
privileged place that we in North American universities, and I would dare say in
western society in general have given western science in determining what we know.
In another sense, it says something about the rather late coming to understand of
western science. It also says something about indigenous knowledge, in this case,
Buddhist indigenous knowledge.
I start with this example because it illustrates the difficulty that we face when we
begin to talk about indigenous knowledge. We must first of all talk in the plural:
indigenous knowledges. We, who work in universities, governments and live in
society in general, must recognize the privileged place that we have given to
methods of knowing derived from the European enlightenment. This is not to say
that we ought to dismiss these methods or ignore what has been learned from them.
It is to say that it is a revolutionary act to place indigenous methods of knowing and
knowledge along side them.
Part I - The contemporary context
Our contemporary discussion about indigenous knowledge takes place within a
particular context. It is this context that I want to talk about first, to try to place the
desire for the protection, preservation and advancement of indigenous knowledge in
its political and social context. To do so, I want to talk about the some of the
changes that have occurred over the last three decades within Aboriginal
communities in Canada as well as the link between governance and scholarship. In
particular, I want to focus on the emergence of indigenous scholarship and what it
might bring to the table.
Indigenous peoples in all nation states continue to occupy positions of marginality
and unfortunately also continue live in poverty with all of its attendant problems. I
am highly cognizant of the huge iniquities that continue to exist between indigenous
peoples and other Canadians. Our work as scholars and policy makers is informed by
these differences in living conditions and by our desire to do what we can to improve
them. I want to acknowledge those who are less fortunate than us, whose lives are
lived under very difficult circumstances. I hope that our work will contribute in some
way to improving their life circumstances.
I believe also that in our work to create places of respect and dignity for indigenous
peoples within Canada, we also need to recognize and add to our understanding the
hidden achievements and successes that have always been a part of the aboriginal
landscape and are emerging into the light across the country. While there are
tremendous problems within some of our communities, we do not build strong
communities by focusing exclusively on the story of woundedness. We also need to
show a history of people doing things for themselves, of taking actions, both as
individuals and as collectives, to improve their lives.
On January 7, 1998, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the
Honourable Jane Stewart, stood up in a room in the House of Commons and read a
Statement of Reconciliation. We can debate whether or not it was an apology and
what the words meant. However, if we step back a bit and look at the statement in
another light, this is how we could see it: This is the first statement by a government
of the New World which acknowledges that it has been wrong in its treatment of the
people that it encountered:
The Government of Canada today formally expresses to all Aboriginal people in
Canada our profound regret for past actions of the federal government which have
contributed to these difficult pages in the history of our relationship together.
No other government in the New World: the United States of America, Mexico,
Brazil, Argentina, Peru nor any government of the Old World: England, Spain, France,
Portugal has made any official statement which comes close to the sentiments
expressed here.
What is also important is the view of history that the statement contains. It says
explicitly that Aboriginal peoples have lived here for thousands of years, had their
own forms of government, were organized into nations with distinct national cultures
and made contributions to the development of Canada. It also says that there has
been a deliberate attempt, based upon attitudes of racial and cultural superiority, to
suppress Aboriginal cultures and values and to dispossess Aboriginal peoples of their
lands and territories. And that this was wrong. It vows to change that. It also
paints a picture of Aboriginal peoples as having remarkable strength and endurance.
We can be cynical about the statement, questioning whether it will change anything
but we should know that at least in its ideas it conforms to the position held by
many Aboriginal peoples. We should also know that it was prepared mostly by
Aboriginal peoples working within one of the major Aboriginal political organizations.
This is the remarkable thing: a statement of apology prepared with Aboriginal peoples
read in a public forum by a Minister of the Crown-in-Canada. Three decades ago in
1969, this would have been inconceivable.
Over the past three decades we have seen the emergence of an aboriginal modernity
that forms the context and foundation of modern aboriginal societies: confident,
aggressive, assertive, insistent, desirous of creating a new world out of aboriginal
and western ideas and self-consciously and deliberately acting out of aboriginal
thought. This desire and the actions of the last three decades have shaped modern
Behind this notion is a strongly held desire to use ideas, theories, notions, traditions,
customs, ceremony emanating from traditional thought either as the basis for or as
key informing aspects of contemporary aboriginal institutions, organizations,
structures, processes and actions.
This does not mean a rejection of ideas
emanating from what we have come to call the west. What is desired is to see
aboriginal ideas are moved to a position of primary importance in aspects of public
policy affecting the core elements of aboriginal life.
A society that is desirous of using traditional thought then requires these ideas to be
made visible. It establishes means of seeking them out, exploring, examining,
analyzing, discussing, debating them and experimenting with ways of turning them in
into everyday actions. This is the work of scholars as well as the work of individuals
and groups charged with building communities. Over the last decade in particular
there has developed within Canadian universities and Aboriginal educational
institutions small groups of aboriginal scholars who are doing this important work. A
huge cadre of consultants and public servants who are tackling the difficult but
important tasks of thinking through these ideas in action. A large group of aboriginal
organization managers, policy analysts, program officers are similarly engaged in the
practicalities of this desire. All are engaged in a set of tasks devoted to the central
desire for aboriginal stewardship.
Indigenous scholarship rooted in traditional aboriginal thought is a fundamental part
of the governance landscape. The ability and capacity to decide for oneself what is a
problem, the parameters of the problem, the nature of inquiry into the problem, the
inquiry itself including the definition of method, the data to be gathered, the analyses
to be done, the interpretation of data, the construction of options and solutions, the
dissemination of results, the translation of these results into action and the eventual
re-examination and reappraisal of the scholarship and its ideas is central to governing.
Indigenous scholarship comes to the table with its central notion of complex
understanding. Complex understanding occurs when we begin to see a phenomenon
from various perspectives as well as the relationships among these perspectives.
Complex understanding doesnt seek to replace one view with another but to find a
way of ensuring that all views are given due consideration. It doesnt work in an
either-or fashion. A phenomenon is not one thing or another but all things at one
time. Complex understanding allows for our understanding to change depending
upon where we stand to see or upon the time that we look or who is doing the
looking. Complex understanding is grounded in a view of a constantly changing
reality that is capable of transformation at any time.
Complex understanding is based on dialogue rather than dialectic. In this sense, it is
deeply rooted in traditional aboriginal notions of how one comes to understand. The
notion can create a broader and deeper understanding of a phenomenon. It fosters a
conversation among different disciplines, perspectives, knowledge systems, methods
of inquiry. It fosters understanding without necessarily inviting competition.
Challenge is present through the attempt to understand and explain the sometimes
differing, sometimes similar views.
Aboriginal health is wholistic, and includes the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual
and cultural aspects of life. Through this understanding of self, a vision of wellness
which balances body, mind and spirit is promoted throughout the healing continuum
In its statement of objectives, the strategy says:
AHWS promotes a traditional and culturally appropriate approach to healing and
wellness in Aboriginal communities while ensuring Aboriginal people have better
access to the type of health care and services most other Ontarians take for granted.
As a result of the efforts of the Strategy's participants, more and more Aboriginal
people are receiving the kinds of wholistic health care they have sought for many
years and are enjoying an improvement in the quality of care they receive.
An important feature of the Strategy is that services and programs are Aboriginal
designed, delivered and controlled, with government primarily playing an
administrative role. Empowerment is a key aspect in promoting wellness in Aboriginal
communities striving for self-reliance by using traditional and cultural teachings and
values that kept them strong in the past.
What the effort reflects is a bringing together of knowledge based upon traditional
social science research from the west and indigenous knowledge derived from
traditional knowledge. It has not rejected one or the other although it has taken
much effort and patience to bring traditional aboriginal knowledge to the table.
The promise of indigenous scholarship is in what it brings to the table and how it can
contribute to the furthering of aboriginal governance. Indigenous scholarship, rooted
in, informed by and bringing forward indigenous ideas doesnt promise easy
solutions. It does hold much promise to help build aboriginal societies that are
consistent with indigenous ideas.
To translate this promise into reality, indigenous scholarship needs to be supported
by research granting agencies, university research committees, research institutions,
government policy researchers, among others. It also needs to be supported by
aboriginal organizations who use it in their work and researchers who are willing to
devote their careers to using its methods and by communities who use the
knowledge gained as the basis for social action. The translation from promise to
reality will be tested by communiities: does it make a difference?
Part II: A bit about indigenous knowledge
Now I want to talk a bit about indigenous knowledge itself. As a way of starting, I
want to tell you three stories: the first is a story of twins, a story which is central to
Iroquoian cosmology. The daughter of Sky-woman, ie the woman who fell from the
sky and who was taken in by the various animals and provided with a place to live
through the collective efforts of the various animals inhabiting the earth, became
pregnant after a visit by a man. The man lay next to her and placed two arrows
within her, one tipped with flint and the other not. In due course, she gave birth to
twins, one of whom was born in the usual fashion a handsome and good young man
who was called sapling (some versions call him: The Older Brother, The Good Twin,
The Good Minded One, Sky-grasper); the other, ugly and evil, was born in a highly
unusual fashion which resulted in the death of the woman, was called flint (some
versions call him The Younger Brother, The Evil Twin, Ice or Crystal). My preference
is The Good Twin and the Evil Twin.
In grief, The Good Twin created the sun from his mothers face. The Evil Twin made
darkness to drive the sun west. The Good Twin drew the moon and the stars from
his mothers breast, and created great mountains and straight rivers to grace the
land. The Evil Twin jumbled the mountains and made the rivers crooked. The Good
Twin set forests on the hills and fruit trees in the valleys, but Flint gnarled the forests
and hurled stones against the land. The Good Twin created human beings, and
planted maize, tobacco and other useful plants. The Evil Twin created monsters, and
made weeds and vermin to attack the plants made by the Good Twin.
The Evil Twin built a fire, which made the Evil Twins legs flake. The Good Twin
threw more wood on the fire and soon The Evil Twins entire body began to flake
and he ran away. Eventually The Good Twin defeated his brother, striking him with
deer antlers, and banished him to an underground cave. Yet the Evil Twin could still
send out wicked spirits, and their persistence ensures that there is both good and
bad in all things.
The second story doesnt involve twins but does involve a Creator. The Creator was
walking about inspecting the earth and all that has been made. He happened upon a
spirit who claimed to have made the earth and who claimed dominion over it. They
agreed to a challenge to see who was the more powerful. The challenge was to
move a mountain that was some distance away. Both stood with their backs to the
mountain. The Hadoui, as he is called, strained to move the mountain. After a bit of
time, he invited the Creator to look at what he had accomplished. The mountain had
moved towards them. He looked to the Creator as if to say: Look at what Ive been
able to do. Can you do better? The Creator said: look. The Hadoui turned to look at
the mountain, and in doing so, hit his face on the mountain, disfiguring it, distorting
his nose and mouth into an awful shape. Reluctantly, he agreed that the Creator
was more powerful. Hadoui as a result of the loss of challenge to the Creator, was
charged with protecting the humans of the earth: In times of trouble, sickness or ill
heath, humans can call upon you and you will come to their aid and make them well.
The third story isnt so much a story but a statement concerning or describing the
Iroquoian view of mind. Human beings have mind; mind is comprised of two parts: a
reasoning part and a feeling part: what we today would call reason and passion.
These two aspects of mind exist, somewhat uneasily within ourselves and are the
basis for thought, feeling and action. Passion could overwhelm reason and likewise,
reason could overwhelm passion. Passion however was the stronger and could drive
reason from the table, so to speak. A good mind in Iroquoian terms was a mind that
was balanced between reason and passion. To strive to achieve good mind is a
constant and consistent goal of Iroquoian humanity. I like to say that reason and
passion dance with each other, sometimes gracefully, sometimes clumsily but always
together.
One of the central tenets of Iroquoian psychology is the idea of peace. Peace is a
cognitive as well as a social process. It is based upon reason, upon the application
of the good mind to human affairs. We achieve peace through the application of
reason balanced with passion to our affairs. It is reason however that makes peace
possible. One of the central ceremonies in Iroquoian life is the condolence ceremony
which is designed to bring reason back to table after it has been driven away by
grief.
And so what we have here is a starting point. The first two stories are stories that I
learned as a child growing up in the Longhouse religion at Six Nations. The second is
a statement that I created based upon remembrances of old stories, previous
discussions, interpretations of the Story of the Peacemaker, other academic writers
about Iroquoian peoples and my own desire to understand and to be guided in my
everyday life by my traditional understandings. It represents an amalgam of many
things.
The first two stories would be considered a part of traditional knowledge (at least
from where I come from). The statement would not. What I want to is ask why? In
asking why, we are forced to begin a conversation about epistemology, ie to raise
questions about how we acquire, organize and verify knowledge about the world. I
am working from the assumption that these things are knowable and discussable and
more importantly that there is a willingness and a desire to talk about them. It
seems to me that given Iroquoian premises about the centrality of reason to human
existence, that these seem to be reasonable premises.
Epistemology asks a series of questions about how we come to know things. How is
knowledge structured? How is it acquired? How is it evaluated? How do we know
something is true? These are the fundamental questions that we need to ask
ourselves. In addition, given our postmodern understanding of the world, we have to
ask questions about knowledge and power as well: who controls knowledge? Where
in society is special knowledge located? How is new knowledge integrated into an
existing system of ideology? (using kevins definition of ideology as knowledge with
power). We might also be interested in how philosophical knowledge is acted out in
ceremony and in activities of priests, medicine people and other intellectuals?
A few years ago, Frank Augustyn, a ballet dancer of some renown, came to Trent,
as he has done over the fall term. He gave a talk at the Peterborough Public Library
on Thursday evening in which he talked about the difficulty of transmitting a dance
from one person to another. There have been six different sets of notions that have
been developed to try to transmit a particular dance from one group of people to
another. All fail to capture and to transmit easily how the dance should be
performed. The only way to be able to do this to the satisfaction of those who are
dancers is to do it personally through personal instruction. The choreographer must
be present and must physically show how the dance is to be done. What cannot be
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Knowledge in the traditional world is not a dead collection of facts. It is alive, has
spirit, and dwells in specific places. Traditional knowledge comes about through
watching and listening, not in the passive way that schools demand but through
direct experience of songs and ceremonies, through the activities of hunting and daily
life, from trees and animals and in dreams and visions. Coming to know means
entering into relationship with the spirits of knowledge, with plants and animals, with
beings that animate dreams and visions and with the spirit of people.
As in all relationships, agreements must be made and obligations and responsibilities
entered into with the spirits. Thus, when a person comes into relationship with
certain knowledge he or she is not only transformed by it but must assume
responsibility for it.
This seems to describe an epistemology that has ethical and moral dimensions.
When one lives in a powered universe, a universe filled with life and sees knowledge
as alive, then it makes sense that one would have to think about ones relationship to
that knowledge and consistent with a fundamental value of respect, begin to think
of that relationship in terms of duty and obligation. Ceremony becomes a way in
which that relationship is carried out with respect. The proper performance of
ceremony in a sense allows for the learner to gain access to knowledge holders and
perhaps even allows the knowledge to be transfered from one to another.
Indigenous knowledge and its methodologies as we have seen before concerns itself
with the whole of human existence. It attempts to understand the nature of reality
as a complex whole. It eschews reductionism, ie does not believe that we can come
to an understanding of a complex system by studying each part in isolation from the
surrounding dependent and interacting milieu.
Its methods for constructing knowledge are different as a result of this different
epistemological foundation. Its methods are focussed not so much upon quantitative
data, ie upon measuring things but upon understanding the relations that exist
between things, not so much as attempting to understand linear cause and effect
but upon trying to understand the influences upon the system as a whole. This does
not mean that quantitative data are not important or rejected or no used. It means
that quantitative data becomes one of many data sources and one of many ways of
seeing into the complex social reality we inhabit.
The aboriginal scientist lives in a world of constantly reforming multidimensional
interacting cycles, where nothing is simply a cause and effect but where all factors
are influences impacting other elements in the system as a whole. It is an attempt
not to control the world through an understanding of linear cause and effect and
hence increasing the predictability of the future in order to manage the natural world
but to live more easily in a world defined by relationships and forces.
As we can begin to see, indigenous knowledge consists of both a stock of
knowledge and a set of methods for constructing knowledge as well as for evaluating
its truth and a set of rules describing its treatment.
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Now when we talk of indigenous knowledge, we need to talk about more than its
epistemology and methodologies. We need also to talk of the context within which
this talk is going on and to talk about the talk about indigenous knowledge. Here we
are confronted by questions: Why indigenous knowledge?? Why classify some
knowledge as indigenous? What does it mean to classify knowledge as indigenous?
Its only recently, ie within the last 2 decades or so that university researchers,
public policy developers, some aboriginal peoples the mselves, have begun to be
considered as important and valuable indigenous knowledge. Prior to the 1970's,
indigenous knowledge was viewed as inefficient, inferior and an obstacle to
development. Indigenous knowledge was viewed as inconsistent with western
modernity; it looked to the past rather than the future. In a world racing to a bright
future, it kept people prisoner of old outdated ways of living and doing things. Now
in the early part of the 21st century, we hold a much different view. Yet we still
make the distinction between aboriginal knowledge and scientific knowledge or
western knowledge as I have earlier. We now talk about indigenous knowledge as
something that exists and which more importantly that is good and valuable.
Some argue that the classification of knowledge as indigenous attempts to separate
and fix it in time and space, not just the knowledge but the systems that produce the
knowledge. This separation means that the two (western and indigenous) systems
developed separately and independently without much contact with each other This
attempt some would argue is an artificial one that the historical evidence does not
bear out. The two systems have been in continuous contact since the 15th century.
There is much evidence that suggests contact, variation, transformation, exchange,
communication and learning over the last several centuries.
Still others, investigating the differences between aboriginal science and western
science, suggest that the differences that are said to exist between are products of
arrogance and a sense of superiority rather than real differences, especially given the
difficulty in distinguishing between science and non-science in the west.
There is also a sense in which indigenous knowledge is also still viewed as inferior to
scientific or western knowledge: indigenous knowledge must still first of all be
checked and validated by western science before it is a accepted as valid. For all the
talk about value and legitimacy, it is still not well accepted on an equal footing.
It is difficult to do this even for those who are our greatest supporters. A few years
ago, we interviewed a number of people for a job as professor at Trent. One of the
applicants was investigating Mohawk ideas of nation and nationhood. She was
describing the complex political situation at Kahnawake. True to her anthropological
background, she described a community that was divided and engaged in a heated
debate about political objectives, classic description of political factionalism. I asked
her: If you looked at the situation through the lens of Iroquoian political and social
thought, can you describe to me what you would see? She responded: I would see
the struggle for the Good Mind. I would see a community that has not yet come to
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one mind. One of my colleagues, who has been a professor of Native Studies for
three decades, said, somewhat angrily: I dont care how you describe it, it still
remains factionalism.
Legitimacy for indigenous knowledge is hard to come by. At Trent, where I work, we
have made indigenous knowledge the foundation of our work in our PhD program in
Native Studies. We did this because we believe that there is something here that is
important. It is transforming how we approach research and inquiry, how we conduct
our research and teaching, how we understand data, how we present results and
how we act as human beings. We are able to give tenure to professors and to
promote them on the basis of indigenous knowledge. Living and working in a multicultural world requires that we grapple with each others cognitive universes and learn
how to see through the minds of others. This is the work of generations to come.
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Notes
1. Indigenous Planning and Tribal Community Development,Ted Jopola, Planners
Network Newsletter,January/February 2000
www.plannersnetwork.org/htm/pub/archives/139/jojola.htm
2. A survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada: A Report on Economic, Political,
Educational Needs and Policies in Two Volumes. H.B. Hawthrone, Editor, Queens
Printer, Ottawa, 1966.
3.Aboriginal Healing and Wellness Strategy,
http://www.anishinabek.ca/ahws/indmenu.htm
4. The Right to be Human, A Biography of Abraham Maslow, Edward Hoffman,
Jeremy P Archer, Inc, Los Angeles, 1988.
5.Indigenous Knowledges in Global Contexts, Multiple Readings of Our World,
George J. Sefa, Budd L. Hall, Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg, Editors University of
Toronto Press, Toronto, 2000.
6. Why Buddhas Smiling, Reuters News Agency, Globe and Mail, Page F9,
Saturday, May 23, 2004.
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