The Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples

The Problem: Destruction of Indigenous Peoples

Reflections by Mike Seymour

• “In every world region, minorities and indigenous peoples have been excluded, repressed and, in many cases, killed by their governments,” said Mark Lattimer, executive director of the nongovernmental organization Minority Rights Group International (MRG) at a press conference in January 2006.
• “What faces indigenous people and minorities today is not at all new. Throughout human history, the cultures and livelihoods – even the existence – of indigenous peoples have been endangered whenever dominant neighboring peoples have expanded their territories or settlers from far away have acquired new lands by force. Despite claims that the world has entered a new era of human rights and democratic representation, this process of attrition and discrimination continues today.” United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
• Some anthropologists and historians estimate that the native population in North and South America could have been as high as 90-110 million people. What is known for sure is that by 150 years after Columbus arrived on Hispaniola, 95 percent of all indigenous peoples in the Americas had perished, mostly through disease contracted from Westerners against which they had no natural immunity.
• According to Mark Cohen in his book Health and the Rise of Civilizations, pre-historic, indigenous peoples lived longer, were taller, healthier, peaceful and had more leisure time than when human populations became more agriculturally based, war-like and obligated to work longer hours. 

At one time the only humans on Earth were indigenous, usually living in small, roving bands in an area as long as anyone in their group could remember. Our ancient ancestors were all native, or indigenous, to some area. So in that sense, we all come from indigenous roots.

 That was more than 8,000 years ago for most in the Western world, or around 6,000 years B.C. Up to that time most human groupings were small and nomadic, meaning they didn’t stay in one place for long but moved from place to place, often covering a fairly large geographic area looking for food. They would kill and eat animals and harvest edible plants, roots, nuts or fruit—whatever was available. The nomadic life wasn’t too bad. Anthropologists claim nomads had more leisure time than we do today, and were healthy and lived with relatively little stress. Perhaps they would work looking for food an average of two hours a day, and then “hang out,” as we say, in the community telling stories about the hunt that day or making jokes.

 There is a video, The Great Dance, about the San people of the Kalahari Desert in South Africa that gives some flavor of an indigenous life, since the San people are as close as any people today living indigenously. (http://kalaharipeoples.org/). One of the things that impressed me was the San men hunting, especially their connectedness to the land and the animals they hunted. They were expert trackers and could tell from a split branch on a bush or animal droppings and footprints exactly what animal they might find, how big it was, where it was heading and whether it had eaten recently. 

 These hunters were hoping for rain, but not just for the water the rains supply. After a heavy rain, animals leave footprints that make the hunt much easier. In The Great Dance, a particular rain was followed by several hot days. The hunters were equally excited about the heat because although it can make the hunt difficult, the heat is harder on animals like the kudu, an animal that resembles deer. The kudu and other animals have no way to sweat or release heat. After the hunters chased a kudu for about five hours, the animal overheated and was unable to move. The lead hunter said that he could feel the kudu in his “embrace” and in his body.  He was in touch with the kudu’s mind, and the kudu knew it didn’t have long before it was caught.  At that point, the hunter said the kudu gave itself to him by stopping and allowing itself to be killed for the benefit of the hunter and his small clan of people.

 When the animal lay down to die, the hunter said a prayer of thanksgiving. He bled the kudu, saving the blood to drink as because it is very nutritious. When his hunting companions finally came on the scene, he retold the story of how the hunt ended. This story would be retold many times among the clan members receiving the meat from this kill.

 This story gives a typical picture of how indigenous peoples live and think. They live in a sacred world that they know intimately and respect. Their livelihoods depend on this knowledge, care and respect. They live meal to meal, dependent on nature and the spiritual forces underlying the natural world. Some, if not all members, of a small indigenous community must know everything about all the plants in their environment—which can or cannot be eater, and what plants are good for certain medicinal purposes and what plants hold spiritual value in their culture. The practice of burning sage, cedar and other fragrant woods or plants is still used widely in many sacred indigenous—as well as formal religious practices—to please spirits or God, or to purify a place or person.

 Knowing their lives are intricately connected to the natural world, indigenous peoples take care to preserve and not overuse or abuse the environment that feeds them. For example, members of the Snohomish tribe were the original people to walk the ground 150 years ago where my house on Whidbey Island, Washington currently stands. The Snohomish women used cedar tree bark to weave baskets and clothing but were careful not to harm the tree by stripping too much bark. With this care, they could return to the same trees another year for more bark.

 People like the San and others, such as the Hopi and Navajo of North America, the Ik of Uganda or the Kogi of the Sierra mountains on the East coast of Columbia, have a partnership with nature and the spirits which underlie all life. These relationships between humans and the spiritual and natural worlds are considered a sacred trust not to be broken. The relationships are usually closely guarded by elders, medicine and holy people who receive, hold dear and pass on from one generation to the next the often intricate teachings, rituals, blessings and remembrances that assure fertility of the land, plentiful food and game, as well as health and happiness of the tribe. For the most part, this was a peaceful and sustainable world where many indigenous societies existed for tens of thousands of years. That’s a lot longer than the modern civilizations we see around us today.

 This is not to say that all indigenous life—past or present—was a bed of roses. It wasn’t. Life could be hard, subject to changing climates and altering food supplies. Hunger could always be just around the corner. As a result, indigenous peoples do not have the same notion of “regular meal times” as we do. They eat what food there is, when it’s available and are happy to have a food supply.

 I have never met a person who is still living a purely indigenous life. But I have met many natives in the United States, Africa and India who are closer to their indigenous roots than most in Western society. One person, Prosper Ndabishuriye from Burundi, Central Africa, is a good example of the common qualities I find in most people who are closer to their native, indigenous origins.

 I met Prosper at a peace conference that took place on Whidbey Island in 2003. After discovering our mutual work for world peace and his efforts to help Hutu and Tutsi refugees rebuild homes after ethnic wars, I traveled to and lived near Burundi on three separate occasions to learn more from Prosper’s peace-building project.

 One of Youth for a New World’s original projects is the AfricaAmericaExchange, which connects students in Burundi and Washington state through a pen pal program. Visit www.youthnewworld for more information about AfricaAmericaExchange.

 If you met Prosper, right away you would feel his open, gentle and caring qualities. He’s a down-to-earth, unpretentious person with no real personal agenda. You sense that you are in the presence of someone who is real and authentically at peace with himself and the world, in spite of the fact that his life has been one of incredible challenge and personal tragedy coming from a country that lived through horrific ethnic killing between Hutus and Tutsis.

 The gentle, authentic and earthly quality of indigenous peoples comes from the wisdom of their worldview and their holistic way of living. The indigenous wisdom sees the world and everything in it as connected and working together in a delicate balance. And so the human role is to be part of that web of life—not above and separate from it like we are in the modern, technology-oriented world.  Indigenous peoples are, for the most part, at peace with themselves and each other.

 For this reason, many in the modern world are waking up to the importance of indigenous wisdom as they see their own lives and nature being chewed up through the modern dream of consumption, growth and power over nature and others “not like us.” We see in this ancient wisdom not so much a life to go back to, but a model to learn from as we imagine a more sustainable, just and spiritually fulfilling world for all people. As part of that view many in the modern world have made it their mission to assist the world’s current indigenous peoples in their fight to preserve their lands, way of life and culture against the encroachment of corporations and governments bent on development at all costs.

 The Fight for Indigenous Justice

 The fight today for justice for indigenous peoples follows a long and heart-breaking history.

Group after group of indigenous peoples in all parts of the globe have lost their native lands, cultures and traditions through expansion, conquest and domination by more powerful neighboring countries.

 Because this scenario is so pervasive throughout the histories we read, we have come to assume that domination, aggression and wars are inevitable and that humans are inherently violent. These assumptions have become part of the legacy of “civilizations” from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. These assumptions are passed along from generation to generation in the way we write history books.

 This is a legacy of unexamined assumption about separation—that we are separate from others and from the natural world and its resources—which we come to regard as commodities or things to be used as we want. There is a saying that “might makes right.” The idea behind this comes from theistic religions, or god-centered beliefs that if some person, tribe or nation wins over some other person, tribe or nation, that the deities and powers must have been on their side—otherwise, they would not have won. So, the belief itself is a seed of self-deception allowing conquerors to feel justified and honored in their conquest. For example, the Chinese invaded and took over Tibet in 1959 and said that were doing Tibet a favor by liberating them from their ignorance. The United States justified the Iraq war to “make the world safe for democracy” and bring democracy to an oppressed people.

 “Manifest Destiny” in our history reflects a similar ideology. After conquering the First Peoples of North America, Manifest Destiny refers to the moving of immigrants from East to West in search of land and destiny. But this move also resulted in the displacement of native peoples that had lived on these lands for up to 10,000 years.

 Manifest Destiny was a phrase that expressed the belief that the United States was destined to expand from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. It has also been used to advocate for or justify other territorial acquisitions. Advocates of Manifest Destiny believed that expansion was not only good, but that it was obvious (“manifest”) and certain (“destiny”).

 Through ideologies such as “Manifest Destiny” and “making the world safe for democracy” humans have taken up spears, swords, ships, guns, tanks, planes, napalm, biological agents and other weapons of destruction and wreaked havoc on the gentle and peaceful, and destroyed the natural world with equal vigor and disregard for the well-being of the whole.

 In all these belief systems the aggressor always believes they are right and more civilized compared to native cultures portrayed as backward, barbaric and not fully human. The dehumanization of people makes it morally possible to inflict the most horrific crimes against humanity with a veneer of a clear conscience. So, when European slave traders invaded the villages of West Africa from the 1600s onward, nobody questioned the rightness of enslaving people of dark skin who wore loin cloths and lived in grass huts, because they were considered little more than animals and “not like us.” 

 These kinds of self-righteous attitudes in regards to the First Peoples of North America persisted throughout the American culture well into the 1960s. I recall plenty of “Cowboys and Indians” movies on TV in the 1950s and early 1960s that consistently showed Indians as bad, backward and savage. Often, the opposite was true. Did you know that the practice of scalping a victim was actually a practice of a white people and did not originate with the First Peoples?

 In fact our view of First Peoples, and even our words to describe them, only began to change in the 1960s and 1970s, along with a huge shift brought about by the civil rights movement, the cultural revolution of the 1960s, the green environmental movement and women’s liberation. The term first changed from Indians to Native-Americans, which is the standard term used today by many people of European descent. But soon, it became apparent to a few that the term Native-American had a white person’s bias, because this land we’re on was never known to them as America—that’s a European term. Now the better term to use and one most accept is First Peoples, as they were the first to occupy this land we now call America.

 Why the dominator and taker cultures began is not really well known. We know there was a shift around 8,000 years ago from the indigenous, hunter-gatherer communities to ones that were agricultural. As a result, people didn’t have to forage or hunt for food but could instead grow and store it. Hunter-gatherers began to understand the seeds in the grasses, fruits and vegetables they harvested could be saved and planted. And they discovered certain animals could be domesticated and built enclosures to keep the animals for future needs.

 Whatever the sources, the conditions for an agricultural society arose and for the first time humans were able to live stably in one place without the need to be nomadic. This gave rise to larger villages and in time cities. With food and livestock on hand and a growing number of other possessions—like tools, pots and baskets—humans now had belongings that could be taken and, therefore, had to be protected. As humans became separated from their dependence on and connection with nature, they were increasingly reliant on stored food. Thus, one theory is that wars between villages, cities and civilizations for food, slaves and other resources began from these conditions.

 When ancient history is studied in school today, all we see is the agricultural society and its pattern of domination, war and suffering.  As I’ve noted, we’ve inherited the unexamined assumption that humans are inherently aggressive and that war is inevitable. Thinking that way makes it necessary and a virtue to be war-like and well prepared to fight. A nation can even preemptively strike a supposed enemy, even before any attack from them is assured.

 What we have not studied in our history books is the time before the dominator cultures appeared. This period is simply called pre-history and accorded no significance. But the fact is that for perhaps 30,000-50,000 years before the agricultural revolution, bands of indigenous humans of varying size roamed the earth, living with each other and the earth in relative peace.  We are grateful that some of these indigenous societies have miraculously survived to present day, even though most are under extreme siege in a modern world greedy for land and natural resources.

 We will now take a look at some of these current indigenous peoples and their fight for survival. All who care for the earth and a world of peace can take the opportunity to learn more about these brave initiatives and can play a variety of roles to serve the greater good.

 Some Solutions: Learn About & Preserve Indigenous Cultures

 As the modern, technological world is careening toward breakdown, many people are awakening to the calls and pleas from indigenous peoples to change the dream of the modern world to one that will sustain—not destroy—the earth community.  Many prophecies from indigenous cultures speak about this special time in history that is perhaps the most important epoch in all of human history.

 As far back as the eighth century A.D. in the region now known as Tibet, an Indian master named Padmasambhava, who first brought Buddhism to Tibet, spoke of our time prophetically:

When the iron bird flies in the sky and horses run on wheels, the Tibetan people will be scattered across the earth, and the Buddha dharma will spread to the land of the red-faced man.

 More than 1,200 years ago this prophecy spoke about a time of airplanes (iron bird flies) and cars (horses run on wheels) when the people of Tibet would be spread around the earth—and they are today due to the conquest of Tibet by China and the dispersal of Tibetans around the world.

 The spread of Buddhism to the modern world, inspired by the world-known leader His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, has been one of many influences in awakening people to the world’s deep suffering and the need for change. Some people say the “land of the red-faced man” is here in the Americas referring to the First Peoples who made their home here for thousands of years. Certainly the spread of Buddhism to the United States and the world has contributed to a heart-opening and the possibility of a new vision for humanity.

 John Perkins in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man writes about this global movement joining the traditions and wisdom of indigenous, more holistic peoples with that of the modern, scientific world:

Nearly every culture I know prophesies that in the late 1990s we entered a period of remarkable transition. At monasteries in the Himalayas, ceremonial sites in Indonesia, and indigenous reservations in North America, from the depths of the Amazon to the peaks of the Andes, and into the ancient Mayan cities of Central America, I have heard that ours is a special moment in human history, and that each of us was born at this time because we have a mission to accomplish.

The titles and the words of the prophecies differ slightly. They tell variously of a New Age, the Third Millennium, the Age of Aquarius, the Beginning of the Fifth Sun, or the end of old calendars and the commencement of new ones. Despite the varying terminologies, however, they have a great deal in common, and “The Prophecy of the Condor and Eagle” is typical.

It states that back in the mists of history, human societies divided and took different paths: that of the condor (representing the heart, intuitive and mystical) and that of the eagle (representing the brain, rational and material). In the 1490s, the prophesy said, the two paths would converge and the eagle would drive the condor to the verge of extinction. Then, five hundred years later, in the 1990s a new epoch would begin, one in which the condor and the eagle will have the opportunity to reunite and fly together in the same sky, along the same path. If the condor and eagle accept this opportunity, they will create a most remarkable offspring, unlike any seen before.

 This is where we are today, with the Eagle (or the scientific modern world) learning to fly with and learn from the Condor (the spiritual, indigenous world).

The Pachamama Alliance http://www.pachamama.org/

An organization I’m associated with, the Pachamama Alliance, was born out of the meeting of the Eagle and the Condor. People of the modern world, specifically from the United States, responded to a call from the Achuar, a dream-culture people representative of the Condor living in the rainforests of Ecuador. Pachamama refers to the whole world, cosmos and all time—or everything. The Achuar saw in their dreams a great danger from encroachment on their two million acres of pristine rainforest by the government and corporations seeking oil and other resources. This dream-culture people invited representatives from the modern world—a world they did not fully understand—to work with them. Their call was very specific: the Achuar were seeking help from but also wanted to join with people from the north who understood the destiny of the Achuar people and others like the Achuar.

 A small group of people from the United States went to visit with the Achuar, and from that initial journey sprang the Pachamama Alliance. Its goal is to provide technical and legal training regarding surveying the Achuar’s indigenous lands, and to create advocacy and a voice to counter government and corporate efforts. The Pachamama Alliance has also helped the Achuar start an ecotourism business that in turn supplies additional funding for their projects.

 Equally important was the Achuar request that their new friends help “change the dream of the North, the dream of the modern world.” The Achuar realized any efforts to stem the tide of development on their lands would be hard to accomplish without a significant shift in modern world attitudes and thinking. From this came the “Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream” symposium, a community presentation to help people wake up and start dreaming a new dream. There are now over 300 people around the world trained to give this four to eight hour presentation within their own communities, with a purpose to create an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just human presence on planet Earth.

 Native Planet: Preserving Cultures, Empowering People http://www.nativeplanet.org/index.shtml

 Similar to the Pachamama Alliance, the Native Planet initiative is a volunteer effort to help preserve indigenous cultures. Their purpose statement echoes many of the sentiments I’ve expressed in this article:

Native Planet is a non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to the self-empowerment of indigenous peoples and the preservation of world ethnic cultures. The future of our planet depends on saving both the remaining biologically diverse ecosystems and the cultural, credible diversity of the tribal peoples of the world. The ancient cultures of native peoples, threatened by modern assimilation, are the only known, proven time-tested models for the sustainable consumption of the Earth’s threatened natural resources.

They have projects among the Mentawai in the rainforests off the coast of Sumatra and Indonesia, as well as among a variety of ethnic groups on the border of Pakistan and Rajasthan, India who are struggling to preserve their cultural identities. Native Planet is looking for volunteers and will gladly accept donations for their work. They also sponsor tours to their project areas.

EarthWorks for Humanity http://www.earthworksforhumanity.org/

EarthWorks for Humanity is another wonderful initiative that is part of the global movement for peace and harmony. They offer gatherings for people from all over the world. They expressly cherish and celebrate indigenous elders from many traditions whom you can read about on their Web site. Their recent March 2007 gathering of elders at Lake Titicaca in Peru is a prime example of their work. This initiative is one of several sponsored by the Institute for Cultural Awareness in Cornville, AZ ( http://www.ica8.org/index.shtml) that also promotes EarthDance—a dance of unity for all peoples—along with humanitarian projects in Ecuador.

Nature’s Laws http://www.albertasource.ca/natureslaws/index2.html                      Learning More about the Indigenous Way of Life    

If you are relatively new to the whole subject of indigenous wisdom and why it is so important today, it would be a good idea to learn more. One quick entry point is the Web site Nature’s Laws that talks about the indigenous world view, spiritual life, governance, culture and traditions. This provides an excellent quick and easy overview of the subject. The writings apply to virtually all indigenous groups, even though they were written by Canadian native peoples and scholars.              

Tierra y Vida Project http://tierra-y-vida.blogspot.com/2006/08/tierra-y-vida-project-of-aztlan-mexica.html

Another good resource is the Tierra y Vida (Earth & Life), a project of the Aztlan Mexica Nation/Harmony Circle. The writings on their Web site provide a very direct and deep critique of the European-based modern world view from an indigenous perspective. There is also a wonderful list of links to articles on indigenous prophecy about our times, as well as other articles relating to the need for a new world order.

Indigenous Teachers and Teachings

I have had the good fortune of being exposed to a wide variety of indigenous teachers and teachings in the last 20 years, so I would like to share some of those with you.

One of my first contacts was Dr. Lesley Gray who has started the Woodfish Insatitute (http://www.woodfish.org/). About 20 years ago I did a workshop with her in Seattle where we discovered our “power animal” or the animal who is considered by many First Peoples as well as other indigenous groups to be one of your spiritual guides and mentors. Notice various animals, such as birds and fish, in many native art forms like totems and other designs. Lesley is a gifted leader, an academic as well as a psychotherapist, so she combines the spirit of the Eagle and the Condor in mixing her indigenous roots and training with a western-style education.

Much more on the wild side, but a tremendously brilliant, charismatic man is Martin Prechtel (http://www.floweringmountain.com/index.html). Son of a Canadian Native-American and a Swiss paleontologist, Martin grew up and lived on a Pueblo reservation in New Mexico until the time when he felt like he didn’t fit in and needed to change his life. A dream image he had about a medicine man in the village of Santiago Atitlan in Guatemala finally drew him to this small village. There he apprenticed under this holy man and became one of the village’s spiritual leaders until civil wars and death squads in Guatemala forced him and his family out and back to the United States. Martin is a gifted writer, painter and teacher and has many workshops around the United States.

Malidoma Some (http://www.malidoma.com/) is a healer and teacher representing the wisdom and spiritual practices of his village in Burkina Faso, West Africa. An initiated elder, Malidoma has come to the west to share the ancient wisdom and practices that have supported his people for thousands of years. I attended an event he put on at Rowe Camp in Western Massachusetts in 2000 at a time when I felt called to visit the graves of two of my ancestors in conjunction with a family history I was writing at the time. When Malidoma arrived at the camp, he had been hurrying through airports to pick us up and did not have time to plan the details of the kind of ritual we would do that weekend, which was an event for men. After each man spoke about his reason for coming, Malidoma said he received a signal from the spirit in the group that we ought to do an ancestor fire ceremony. Wow! You can imagine that I felt extremely blessed because that was the very reason I had come east in the first place. Needless to say, my whole trip—including tearful visits to family gravesites and the fire ritual itself—was a powerful intervention in my life.

Malidoma has a pretty active schedule and will bring events your area. He also has long-term trainings, trips to Africa and does individual work.

A New View of American History: The Iroquois Confederacy    http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/

Few Americans are aware of the profound influence of indigenous values and democratic ideals on our country’s Founding Fathers from the Iroquois Confederacy—a group from the Six Nations representing six tribes that called themselves the Haudenosaunee, meaning People Building a Long House. Originally, the group was five nations that included the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas. The sixth nation, the Tuscaroras, migrated into Iroquois country in the early eighteenth century.

 Together these peoples comprise the oldest living participatory democracy on earth. Their story, and governance that is truly based on the consent of the governed, contains a great deal of life-promoting intelligence for those of us not familiar with this area of American history. The original U.S. representative democracy, fashioned by such central authors as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, drew much inspiration from this confederacy of tribal nations. In our present day, we can benefit immensely in our quest to establish anew a government truly dedicated to all of life’s liberty and happiness, much as has been practiced by the Six Nations for more than 800 hundred years.

 Material from the Web site above is a must-see for all U.S. history teachers. The story of the Iroquois chiefs’ participation on June 11, 1776, when the question of independence was being debated at the meeting hall of the Continental Congress, is inspiring.

Advocacy and Native Rights in North America

There has been a significant movement for native ways, rights and justice among the North American First Peoples. Probably no other person more clearly symbolizes this than Russell Means, who is described as the most famous Native-American leader since Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse (http://www.russellmeans.com/). Russell was born an Oglala/Lakota Sioux on the Pine Ridge reservation  in South Dakota, the site of one of the most tragic and infamous massacres of native peoples by the American government and known as the 1890 tragedy at Wounded Knee.

He is founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM) that is “pledged to fight White Man’s injustice to Indians, his oppression, persecution, discrimination and malfeasance in the handling of Indian Affairs. No area in North America is too remote when trouble impends for Indians. AIM shall be there to help the Native People regain human rights and achieve restitutions and restorations.” AIM seeks first to be a spiritual movement, a religious rebirth of native peoples who have fallen into despair, poverty, and drug and alcohol addiction due to the brutality and injustice brought on First Peoples by the American government with the tacit acceptance of the American people.

 One of the landmark cases that AIM has been fighting for is that of Leonard Peltier, now serving 27 years of a life sentence unjustly handed out by the U.S. courts as a result of several deaths during an incident in 1973 at the Wounded Knee site on Pine Ridge. You can read about the criminal verdict handed down to Peltier (http://www.freepeltier.org/). Peltier is a citizen of the Anishinabe and Lakota Nations and is a father, a grandfather, an artist, a writer and an indigenous-rights activist. Amnesty International considers him a “political prisoner” who should be “immediately and unconditionally released.” You can write to Leonard Peltier at Leavenworth Penitentiary (the address is on the Web site).

What You Can Do

Steps to Take

Resources

Eisler, Riane. Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future. 1987. Harper Collins. NY.N.Y.

Hartmann, Thom. The Last Ancient Hours of Sunlight: the Fate of the World and What we Can do Before It’s Too Late. 2000. Three Rivers Press. NY, NY.

Local Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LINKS). UNESCO. This project builds dialogue amongst traditional knowledge holders, natural and social scientists, resource managers and decision-makers to enhance biodiversity conservation and secure an active and equitable role for local communities in resource governance. The survival of indigenous knowledge as a dynamic and vibrant resource within rural and indigenous communities depends upon its continuing transmission from generation to generation. The LINKS project strengthens knowledge transmission between elders and youth, and explores pathways to balance community-based knowledge with global knowledge in formal and non-formal education.http://portal.unesco.org/sc_nat/ev.php?URL_ID=1945&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201

Topics for Study