Indigenous Philosophy Quotes

Many Indians have told me that the most basic difference between Western and indigenous ways of being is that Westerners view the world as dead, and not as filled with speaking, thinking, feeling subjects as worthy and valuable as themselves.

Ancient wisdom and quantum physicists make unlikely bedfellows: In quantum mechanics the observer determines (or even brings into being) what is observed, and so, too, for the Tiwis, who dissolve the distinction between themselves and the cosmos. In quantum physics, subatomic particles influence each other from a distance, and this tallies with the aboriginal view, in which people, animals, rocks, and trees all weave together in the same interwoven fabric.

Being is a spiritual proposition. Gaining is a material act. Traditionally, American Indians have always attempted to be the best people they could. Part of that spiritual process was and is to give away wealth, to discard wealth in order not to gain.

The peoples of the Andes believe in the concept of 'living well' instead of wanting to 'live better' by consuming more, regardless of the cost to our neighbors and our environment.

Take care how you place your moccasins upon the Earth, step with care, for the faces of the future generations are looking up from the Earth waiting their turn for life.

So many indigenous people have said to me that the fundamental difference between Western and indigenous ways of being is that even the most open-minded westerners generally view listening to the natural world as a metaphor, as opposed to the way the world really is. Trees and rocks and rivers really do have things to say to us.

An Eskimo shaman said, Life's greatest danger lies in the fact that man's food consists entirely of souls.

And what they believe in real life is complicated. Theodor Koch-Grunberg wrote in his diary that indigenous peoples in the Amazon see these outsiders following in each other's footsteps as the same person, a single soul traversing across several lives. They also see time as something that doesn't proceed inexorably into the future.