Some tribes are reluctant to share environmental wisdom

November 29, 2018 2:53 AM

For one thing, they want their knowledge to be employed in the right way ... without exploitation. Hard experience has led to cautions and created resistance. On the other hand, the Wisdom Weavers of the World, who have made 30 hours of films on native ideas. "With Earth's living systems being stressed and dishonored in new extremes", in their view, "we must come together to weave a new story and new awakened presence as one Earth family."
posted by Twang (3 comments total)

For those who are not part of an active indigenous culture and want to rekindle the wisdom from their own ancestral pre-Christian/pre-colonial traditions- this is something I hoping to have more help from at the "magical mefites" facebook group. I'm trying to help kindle relations with nature, including forest gardening, foraging, and crafts from the earth, but having to learn from scratch. If you want to help build a community that is sharing techniques on how to do these things without burdening native tribes for their wisdom, we are about asking our own spirit ancestors and ancestral spirits and deities to help guide us and connect with nature in a deeper way.

If you're into that, message me and I'll add you to the group!
posted by xarnop at 8:17 AM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

I was just reading about the St Lawrence project last month here, it really has been disastrous ecologically.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:06 AM on November 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

@poffin boffin: "St Lawrence project".
Thanks for that, hadn't ever seen that subject addressed in any detail.

For the record: Another 'power-generating' example (from a long, long list): The 1956 creation of ginormous Lake Sakakawea as a reservoir for Bismarck's 'Garrison Dam' (580MW capacity) displaced and inundated two reservations and three towns.

Lake Oahe, below it in So. Dak., flooded 200,000 acres of two reservations to create the Oahe Dam (just north of Pierre, 786MW capacity). WP sez: "The displaced populations in the Dakotas ...are still seeking compensation for the loss of the towns."

Both were part of 6 dams built on the Missouri in that era. (Don't get me started on the thousands of mounds destroyed in the two centuries before.)

While these are (relatively) green power-sources, US citizens have yet to show much 'great appreciation' for the forced sacrifices. Last year's NoDAPL debacle was just one more manifest of the same 'wašin icu' mindset ... which, now we can more clearly see, is destroying the environment which gives us everything.
posted by Twang at 11:29 PM on November 29, 2018