Northern Plains Experience

• If, as Indigenous people, we do not make the conscious effort to address the effects of history contained within ourselves, we run the risk of finishing the colonization process.
• The only avenue to sustaining our culture and our role as the caretakers of this planet is not through adopting the non-indigenous systems, but through the creation of our own mechanisms of change based upon the values, beliefs and systems of our original teachings.
• Because we know that we are not alone in our concern for the health of the world, we are willing to share our ways of healing with other Indigenous people and with non-Indigenous people as well.
• Our traditional people have the teachings and the knowledge of the ceremonies, rituals and healing methods of our ancestors.
• The whole system of Indigenous thought is a reflection of this balance of mind, body and spirit.
• Access to land is central to Indigenous health and healing. The connection to land and the relationships and obligations that arise from that connection are the core of the Indigenous identity.
• A convergence strategy considers the ways in which the local economy can be organized to meet the local demand using local resources and labour.

--Clarkson, Morrissette and Régallet, authors of Our Responsibility to the Seventh Generation, 1992

Other Indigenous Experience:

Healing and Charisma - India: All night congregations are held in Pabu's memory at which his noble deeds are sung with great devotion. The Bhil community of the desert region cherishes Pabu's memory as a comrade and practices such as rituals which would bring them in direct communion with Pabu's defied soul, enabling them to extend Pabu's beneficiary to those in distress. Pabu's charisma still holds good and remains a major healing process to this day. Pabu's charismatic beneficiaries are known as Bhopa (a general term for faith healer) and they are highly revered in the community. Only a Bhil observing a strict ritualistic pure life can become Pabu's Bhopa.

Indigenous Forest Dwellers:

A group explained its struggles to regain control over its forest communal property after a 40-year lease to industries. They used legal measures, organized small production groups with a system of collective credit. After almost 12 years of struggle this community was able to build and maintain forest education involving all of its members from production to marketing to accounting, with a focus on evolving skills from school age to adulthood. This endeavor is aimed at educating youth and adults in a self-reliant way towards the respect of forest, within the framework of Indigenous knowledge and culture. This community strives to evolve agroforestry but experiences tremendous problems related to marketing the products. Source: Meeting with the Indigenous people in the state of Oaxaca (Mexico) March 1-5, 1992

Selected web sites

• Winds of Change
  
  

  "magazine published by and for American Indians [explores] such current topics as recovery and healing within Indian communities, monitoring, long-distance learning, and bridging traditional science with technology."

• Traditional Resource Rights
  
  

  "Dedicated to furthering the rights of all 'indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles"

© 2000 International Institute for Sustainable Development