Native American Stories as Scientific Investigations of Nature PDF Download

Author: Calandra Skye McCool
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Indians of North America
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Author: Gregory Cajete
Publisher: Santa Fe, N.M. : Clear Light Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Cajete examines the multiple levels of meaning that inform Native astronomy, cosmology, psychology, agriculture, and the healing arts. Unlike the western scientific method, native thinking does not isolate an object or phenomenon in order to understand it, but perceives it in terms of relationship. An understanding of the relationships that bind together natural forces and all forms of life has been fundamental to the ability of indigenous peoples to live for millennia in spiritual and physical harmony with the land. It is clear that the first peoples offer perspectives that can help us work toward solutions at this time of global environmental crisis.

Author: T. J. Ferguson
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816532680
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Arizona’s San Pedro Valley is a natural corridor through which generations of native peoples have traveled for more than 12,000 years, and today many tribes consider it to be part of their ancestral homeland. This book explores the multiple cultural meanings, historical interpretations, and cosmological values of this extraordinary region by combining archaeological and historical sources with the ethnographic perspectives of four contemporary tribes: Tohono O’odham, Hopi, Zuni, and San Carlos Apache. Previous research in the San Pedro Valley has focused on scientific archaeology and documentary history, with a conspicuous absence of indigenous voices, yet Native Americans maintain oral traditions that provide an anthropological context for interpreting the history and archaeology of the valley. The San Pedro Ethnohistory Project was designed to redress this situation by visiting archaeological sites, studying museum collections, and interviewing tribal members to collect traditional histories. The information it gathered is arrayed in this book along with archaeological and documentary data to interpret the histories of Native American occupation of the San Pedro Valley. This work provides an example of the kind of interdisciplinary and politically conscious work made possible when Native Americans and archaeologists collaborate to study the past. As a methodological case study, it clearly articulates how scholars can work with Native American stakeholders to move beyond confrontations over who “owns” the past, yielding a more nuanced, multilayered, and relevant archaeology.

Author: Vine Deloria, Jr.
Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing
ISBN: 1682752410
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Vine Deloria, Jr., leading Native American scholar and author of the best-selling God is Red, addresses the conflict between mainstream scientific theory about our world and the ancestral worldview of Native Americans. Claiming that science has created a largely fictional scenario for American Indians in prehistoric North America, Deloria offers an alternative view of the continent's history as seen through the eyes and memories of Native Americans. Further, he warns future generations of scientists not to repeat the ethnocentric omissions and fallacies of the past by dismissing Native oral tradition as mere legends.

Author: Wendy Makoons Geniusz
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815632047
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Traditional Anishinaabe (Ojibwe or Chippewa) knowledge, like the knowledge systems of indigenous peoples around the world, has long been collected and presented by researchers who were not a part of the culture they observed. The result is a colonized version of the knowledge, one that is distorted and trivialized by an ill-suited Eurocentric paradigm of scientific investigation and classification. In Our Knowledge Is Not Primitive, Wendy Makoons Geniusz contrasts the way in which Anishinaabe botanical knowledge is presented in the academic record with how it is preserved in Anishinaabe culture. In doing so she seeks to open a dialogue between the two communities to discuss methods for decolonizing existing texts and to develop innovative approaches for conducting more culturally meaningful research in the future. As an Anishinaabe who grew up in a household practicing traditional medicine and who went on to become a scholar of American Indian studies and the Ojibwe language, Geniusz possesses the authority of someone with a foot firmly planted in each world. Her unique ability to navigate both indigenous and scientific perspectives makes this book an invaluable contribution to the field of Native American studies and enriches our understanding of the Anishinaabe and other native communities.

Author: Douglas L. Medin
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262026627
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
Analysis and case studies show that including different orientations toward the natural world makes for more effective scientific practice and science education. The answers to scientific questions depend on who's asking, because the questions asked and the answers sought reflect the cultural values and orientations of the questioner. These values and orientations are most often those of Western science. In Who's Asking?, Douglas Medin and Megan Bang argue that despite the widely held view that science is objective, value-neutral, and acultural, scientists do not shed their cultures at the laboratory or classroom door; their practices reflect their values, belief systems, and worldviews. Medin and Bang argue further that scientist diversity—the participation of researchers and educators with different cultural orientations—provides new perspectives and leads to more effective science and better science education. Medin and Bang compare Native American and European American orientations toward the natural world and apply these findings to science education. The European American model, they find, sees humans as separated from nature; the Native American model sees humans as part of a natural ecosystem. Medin and Bang then report on the development of ecologically oriented and community-based science education programs on the Menominee reservation in Wisconsin and at the American Indian Center of Chicago. Medin and Bang's novel argument for scientist diversity also has important implications for questions of minority underrepresentation in science.

Author: David Suzuki
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 0553372637
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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An in-depth, meticulously documented exploration of the ecological wisdom of Native Peoples from around the world Arranged thematically, Wisdom of the Elders contains sacred stories and traditions on the interrelationships between humans and the environment as well as perspectives from modern science, which more often than not validate the sacred, ancient Wisdom of the Elders. Native peoples and environments discussed range from the Inuit Arctic and the Native Americans of the Northwest coast, the Sioux of the Plains, and the Pueblo, Hopi, and Navajo of the Southwest to the Australian Outback, to the rich, fecund tropics of Africa, Malaysia, and the Amazon. “Our technological civilization is speeding toward a violent collision with nature, and we are threatening the ability of the Earth—our home—to support life as we know it. Suzuki and Knudtson’s extraordinary work powerfully reminds us that we are indeed one with the Earth. We are truly indebted to them for charting for us the course toward a healthy and sustaining relationship with our planet.”—Vice President Al Gore

Author: Julia Darrow Cowles
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Indian Nature Myths is a classic collection of Native American nature stories by Julia Darrow Cowles. The stories of this book have been chosen for the purpose of showing how the early Red Men accounted for the phenomena of nature-the presence of the birds, the moaning of the wind, the whispering of the leaves. The nature myths of the North American Indian are full of poetry, and occasionally of a rich humor. In retelling the stories for children the author has sought to retain the original spirit of the tales, and through them to give to the reader a better understanding of the inner life and thought of the primitive Red Man at his best. The tales have been gathered from many sources, and are representative of many tribes. It is well known that the same tale in varying form is told among many different tribes, just as the folk tales have been carried in early times from one nation to another and are variously accredited. It is not always possible to determine the original source.

Author: Michael J. Caduto
Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing
ISBN: 9781555913861
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Using stories to show the importance of wildlife in Native American traditions, this book gives parents and teachers an exciting way to teach children about animals.

Author: Robert Lake-Thom
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101141778
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
An extraordinary compilation of legends and rituals about nature's ever-present signs. From the birds that soar above us to the insects beneath our feet, Native American healer Bobby Lake-Thom shows how the creatures of the earth can aid us in healing and self-knowledge. “There are ancient secrets and lessons hidden in nature. If you seek for guidance, you will discover truth.”—Bobby Lake-Thom Much of the ancient knowledge that has been passed down from Native American medicine men, or shamans is in danger of being lost. Bobby Lake-Thom, a Native American healer known as Medicine Grizzly Bear, has sought to preserve this powerful heritage by sharing his wisdom and experience learning from the world around us. What does it mean if a hawk appears in a dream? What are the symbolic interpretations of a deer, a skunk, a raccoon? Lake-Thom, who has studied with the elders of many tribes, explains the significance of animal figures as manifestations of good or evil, and shows how we can develop our own powers of awareness and intuition. The first book of its kind, this practical and enlightening resource includes dozens of fascinating animal myths and legends, as well as exercises and activities that draw upon animal powers for guidance, healing, wisdom, and the expansion of spiritual influences in our lives. You'll discover here: • How animals, birds, and insects act as signs and omens • The significance of vision quests • How to make and use a medicine wheel • The role of spirit symbols—and how they affect the unconscious • Exercises for creative dreaming • The power of the earth-healing ceremony • How to increase your spiritual strength and create sacred spaces • And more....