THE RECOGNITION OF NATIVE WISDOM
- A synthesis of David Suzuki and Peter Knudtsons’ work
The total Aboriginal world population is now only 4% of the total human population and this is threatened with extinction.
| man - a strand in the web of life |
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Aboriginal people around the world are in the final stages of an assault by conquerors that are intent on exploiting their land and resource base. Of course, the history of our species is one of conquest and takeovers of territories. But like the current spasm of species extinction, the destruction of indigenous people is now occurring with frightening speed. Once these peoples have disappeared, their body of priceless thought and knowledge, painstakingly acquired over thousands of years, will disappear forever. And like a species that has lost its habitat and survives only in zoos, indigenous people who have lost their land and eke out a living in tiny reserves or urban slums lose their uniqueness and identity.
[A Landmark 1987 report by the World Commission on Environment and Development acknowledged our collective responsibility to protect indigenous societies from abuse – the Brundtland report.[1][2]]
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Traditional Native knowledge about the natural world tends to view all of nature as inherently holy rather than profane, savage, wild or wasteland. The landscape itself is seen as sacred and quivering with life. It is inscribed with meaning regarding the origins and unity of all life, rather than seen as mere property to be portioned legally into commercial and real estate holdings.
Native wisdom sees spirit; however one defines the term, as dispersed throughout the cosmos or embodied in an Inclusive, Cosmos-sanctifying Divine Being.
Native wisdom tends to assign human beings enormous responsibility for sustaining harmonious relations within the whole natural world rather than granting unbridled license to follow personal or economic whim. And it tends to view the universe as the dynamic interplay of elusive and ever-changing natural forces and accepts without undue anxiety the probability that nature will always possess unfathomable mysteries.
“Even the most atheistic scientist doesn’t know how the world got started, nor does anyone know what was there before the Big Bang. Just look at the incredible quality of our molecules: nucleic acid molecules that replicate so beautifully; phosphates that transfer energies; proteins, enzymes, that facilitate all sorts of metabolic processes… There is much that the scientist cannot explain.” -Ernst Mayr, Evolutionary Biologist.
Native wisdom tends to honor as its most esteemed elders those individuals who have experienced a profound and compassionate reconciliation of outer- and inner-directed knowledge, rather than virtually anyone who has made material achievement or simply survived to chronological old age.
In Native societies genuine wisdom is attributed to those with the capacity to feel, to exhibit compassion and generosity toward others, and to develop intimate, insightful, and empathic relationships not just with fellow human beings but, in some sense, with the entire membership of the natural world. It tends to reveal a profound sense of empathy and kinship with other forms of life, rather than a sense of superiority over them. Each species is seen as richly endowed with its own singular array of gifts and powers, rather than as somehow pathetically limited compared with human beings.
To indigenous peoples around the world, the sacred is, and always has been, waiting to be witnessed everywhere- diffusely scattered to the four directions of the winds- and “everywhen”- continually, throughout all time.
Modern science looks out upon the same universe through a very different lens. Through an often laborious process of debate and discussion, the “community” of scientists itself agrees for a time upon an interpretation of some aspect of the world- a view, more intellectually satisfying paradigm, or model of reality, the latest in a long, lurching succession of ever- provisional scientific “truths”.
However, eco-scientists speak knowingly of the genetic and evolutionary kinship of all species and of our fundamental dependency upon the systems of nature. And they plead for a new global environmental ethos based on this scientifically documented unity- one that may grant all forms of life an inherent value and right to exist and burden human beings with a greater sense of responsibility for maintaining long-term ecological balances in the biosphere.
[It is important to note and understand that Native knowledge and spiritual values are not simply “natural resources” (in this case, intellectual ones) for non-natives to mine, manipulate, or plunder. They are, and will always be, the precious life-sustaining property of First Nations peoples: sacred symbols encoding the hidden design of their respective universes; mirrors to their individual and collective identities; and ancient and irreplaceable maps suggesting possible paths to inner as well as ecological equilibrium with the wider, ever-changing world].
[End synthesis David Suzuki and Peter Knudtson]
The Ancient Druids
The Triskele |
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Here will honor the fact that everyone really is native, i.e. indigenous to earth and all cultures at some point lived harmoniously and respectfully with the earth. And we cite the example of the ancient Europeans.
The roles of the Druids in ancient Celtic society were varied. They were not really priests or priestesses [although they did oversee religious functions], but consisted of philosophers, judges, teachers, historians, poets, musicians, physicians, astronomers, natural scientists, prophets, and political advisers or counselors.
Druids were mystics, worshipped nature, particularly trees, and who gathered in stone circles to perform rites at the time of solstice. Of much importance were sacred wells [and rivers like the Danube “water from heaven”] which represented the female creative principle and related to the mother of all [shunyata; the void]. Oaks [and other tress] represented the male creative principle [protection, provision and warmth].
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This culture like all native ones imparted knowledge from mouth to mouth, not via the written word, as only a system of transmission from master to disciple was trusted [because by only reading a book there is a high likelihood of an error in understanding].
The Druids always considered ownership collective and they included women [they were also Druids] in their political and religious life.
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