Traditional Knowledge Quotes

Not a single man on earth knows from his own experience the how and where of his birth, only from tradition, which is often very uncertain.

The land was ours before we belonged to the land.

The First Nations Financial Transparency Act insulted the integrity of the very people in our communities who guide our economic policy and act as our mediators with provincial and federal governments.

Folklore used to be passed by word of mouth, from one generation to the next; that's what makes it folklore, as opposed to, say, history, which is written down and stored in an archive.

While most of the world's information is beginning to be stored electronically, most of the world's expertise still resides in books.

Music was the medium through which knowledge was passed from generation to generation.

Corn and bean people, I'm afraid, have extremely specialized minds.

The children, each of those kids is in touch with nature and traditional aboriginal culture so a very important part of getting performances from them was just letting them be and trying to capture the unique spirituality that was in each of them.

Our efforts are to be directed towards narrowing the gap between the study of shastras and science.

I talk to children in schools all over the world, and I've found that both boys and girls are fascinated by how hunter-gatherers manage to survive entirely on what's around them in their environment: trees, rocks, animals and plants.

Aboriginal people have much to celebrate in this country's British heritage

One of the first things that the First Nations are going to have to decide is, is it going to 640 communities, or is it, in fact, going to be some 50 to 60 nations.

my Mamá Grande, a tiny Mayan woman, took me aside when I was an adolescent and told me several things that didn't make a bit of sense to my young and inattentive ears, and as young people tend to waste all attempts of our elders to relay to us wisdom accumulated over the decades, I thought my Mamá Grande had a few mice in the attic.

I support the indigenous people anywhere in the planet.

The island is named Oooguruk, an Inupiaq word meaning 'bearded seal,' an animal plentiful on the shores of Alaska's North Slope.

I was interviewing an elder, Chief Fool's Crow, who was the ceremonial chief. He was 103 years old. I was getting his information on the history of Lakota horses. He told me the story of Hidalgo and Frank Hopkins.

I view Indigenous Canadians as an integral part of our society, proud of their contribution to Canadian history, great deal of respect for all they did pre-Confederation, the way that they have been partners in building this society we have, and I'm very proud to represent a dozen First Nations communities in my own riding.

Food sovereignty is an affirmation of who we are as indigenous peoples and a way, one of the most surefooted ways, to restore our relationship with the world around us.

Pay heed to the tales of old wives. It may well be that they alone keep in memory what it was once needful for the wise to know.

I learned from my community how to shoot a gun, how to shoot it well. I learned how to make a damn good biscuit recipe. The trick, by the way, is frozen butter, not warm butter. But I didn't learn how to get ahead.

Our Indian neighbors are advancing, many of them with spirit, and others beginning to engage in the pursuits of agriculture and household manufacture. They are becoming sensible that the earth yields subsistence with less labor and more certainty than the forest.

Wise guy, he not go against wind. In Chinese we say, Come from South, blow with wind -- poom! -- North will follow. Strongest wind cannot be seen.

But do not despise the lore that has come down from distant years; for oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know.

If we had been less reliant on technology and the security that we enjoy in being divorced from what we used to know, maybe things would have turned out differently.

Although yoga is commonly portrayed as a popular fitness trend, it's actually the core of the Vedic science that developed in the Indus Valley more than 5,000 years ago.