Land
“To our people, [land] was everything: identity, the connection to our ancestors, the home of our nonhuman kinfolk, our pharmacy, our library, the source of all that sustained us. Our lands were where our responsibility to the world was enacted, sacred ground.” -Robin Wall Kimmerer
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. by Call Number: Audiobook and ebookISBN: 9781515925903Publication Date: 2016-07-05As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowing together to reveal what it means to see humans as "the younger brothers of creation."
Roots of Our Renewal: Ethnobotany and Cherokee Environmental Governance by Call Number: Ebook and Print bookISBN: 9781452944524Publication Date: 2015-01-01In "Roots of Our Renewal, " Prof. Clint Carroll tells how Cherokee people have developed material, spiritual, and political ties with the lands they have inhabited since removal from their homelands in the southeastern United States. Although the forced relocation of the late 1830s had devastating consequences for Cherokee society, Carroll shows that the reconstituted Cherokee Nation west of the Mississippi eventually cultivated a special connection to the new land, a connection that is reflected in its management of natural resources."
Ecocriticism and Indigenous Studies: Conversations from Earth to Cosmos by Call Number: EbookISBN: 9781317449119Publication Date: 2016-08-05This book addresses the intersections between the interdisciplinary realms of Ecocriticism and Indigenous and Native American Studies, and between academic theory and pragmatic eco-activism conducted by multiethnic and indigenous communities. Includes a book chapter by CU Scholars, Clint Carroll and Angelica Lawson.
Ute STEM Video Exhibit | History ColoradoIn 2017, Ute youth and elders filmed nine videos about the history, culture, and traditional knowledge of the Ute people of Colorado, including Ute knowledge and science, ethnobotany in the San Luis valley, and connections between traditional knowledge and science.
Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming by Call Number: Norlin Library Stacks - E98.R3 L33 2005ISBN: 9780896087132Publication Date: 2005Winona LaDuke (White Earth Reservation) is a writer and activist working on environmental and human rights issues, including environmental justice, climate change, renewable energy, sustainable development strategies, and protecting Indigenous plants and heritage foods.
In this book, LaDuke examines the connections between sacred objects and the sacred bodies of her people. The indigenous imperative to honor nature is undermined by federal laws approving resource extraction through mining and drilling. Formal protections exist for Native American religious expression, but not for the places and natural resources integral to ceremonies. Under what conditions can traditional beliefs be best practiced?
“The legacy of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), the intellectual twin to science, has been handed down in the oral tradition for countless generations...Like scientific information, traditional knowledge arises from careful system observation of nature, from the results of innumerable lived experiments. Traditional knowledge is rooted in intimacy with a local landscape where the land itself is the teacher.” - Robin Wall Kimmerer
Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Natural Resource Management by Call Number: Norlin Library Stacks - GF501 .T73 2006ISBN: 0803283199Publication Date: 2006Professor hagwil hayetsk (Charles Menzies) is a member of Gitxaała Nation and a member of the Tlingit and Haida Tribes. He is a professor of Anthropology. This edited book collection examines how traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is taught and practiced today among Native communities.
Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future by Call Number: ebookISBN: 9781591439318Publication Date: 2008Melissa K. Nelson is Anishinaabe/Métis, member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. She is a Native ecologist and professor of Indigenous sustainability. In this edited book collection, Indigenous leaders suggest solutions to today's global crisis.
Weaving Traditional Ecological Knowledge into Biological Education: A Call to Action by Publication Date: 2002Professor Robin Wall Kimmerer is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a professor of Environmental Biology. In this article she highlights how “new directions in applied biology … have direct parallels and precedents in traditional knowledge include ecosystem management, medicine, pharmacology, agroecology, wildlife, fisheries, and animal behavior. Biological research is moving to explore these approaches, yet acknowledgment or understanding of traditional ecological knowledge is rare in the scientific community.” “Thus, college biology graduates have a high probability of encountering issues involving indigenous cultures and TEK. However, the majority of scientific professionals and educators have little understanding of the value of TEK or its cultural context.” The article argues that higher education should exposure students to TEK.
Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Call Number: Request It!ISBN: 0870714996Publication Date: 2003Professor Robin Wall Kimmerer is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a professor of Environmental Biology. In this book, Kimmerer weaves traditional knowledge and scientific information together to explore the lives of mosses.
Plastics in the Gut: A Search for Sand on a Rocky Shoreline Upends Colonial Science by Publication Date: 2020Liboiron (Métis) is an Associate Professor in Geography and founder of founder of Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR), a feminist, anti-colonial, marine science laboratory whose methods foreground values of humility, equity, and good land relations. This article outlines Liboiron’s anti-colonial environmental research philosophy: “Starting from your place and moving toward research, rather than starting from research and terraforming the environment, lets knowledge breathe and lets the landscape move into scientific spaces on its own terms.”
Pollution Is Colonialism by Call Number: ebookISBN: 9781478021445Publication Date: 2021Liboiron (Métis) is an Associate Professor in Geography and founder of founder of Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR), a feminist, anti-colonial, marine science laboratory whose methods foreground values of humility, equity, and good land relations. Focusing on plastic pollution, “Pollution is Colonialism” models an anticolonial scientific practice aligned with Indigenous, particularly Métis, concepts of land, ethics, and relations.
Working With Tribes To Co-Steward National Parks by Publication Date: 2022Interview with Charles F. "Chuck" Sams III (enrolled member, Cayuse and Walla Walla, of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation), the first Native American director of the National Park Service. Sams discusses how the National Parks are incorporating Traditional Ecological Knowledge.
Edward (Redbird) Willie (Pomo/Wailaki/Wintu) is a native ecologist with many years’ experience teaching Traditional Ecological Knowledge, fire ecology, permaculture, and ancestral skills. In this workshop presentation he discusses the basics of fire ecology in California and the longstanding relationship natives have had with the land, including through fire ecology. He describes practices that helped steward the land and gives actions that we can take as a community to help contribute solutions to the current fire situation in the west.
The Retention, Revival and Subjugation of Indigenous Fire Knowledge through Agency Fire Fighting in Eastern Australia and California, USA by Publication Date: 2014Don Hankins (Miwko and Osage) is a Professor of Geography and Planning. This article explores the potential impact of training and employment with wildfire management agencies on the retention of Indigenous fire knowledge. It focuses on the comparative knowledge and experiences of Indigenous Elders, cultural practitioners, and land stewards in connection with ‘‘modern’’ political constructs of fire in New South Wales and Queensland, Australia, and California in the United States of America. This article emphasises the close link between cross-cultural acceptance, integration of Indigenous and agency fire cultures, and the ways in which knowledge types are shared or withheld. While agency fire fighting provides an opportunity for Indigenous people to connect and care for country, it simultaneously allows for the breaking of traditional rules surrounding what knowledge is shared with whom in the context of Indigenous cultural burning. By highlighting how privilege intersects with ethnicity, class, gender and age, this article demonstrates how greater cross-cultural acceptance could aid ongoing debates on how to coexist with wildfire today.
Wild Tending Series: Ali Meders-Knight on Integrating Traditional Ecological Knowledge into Landscape Management by Publication Date: 2020Ali Meders-Knight is a Mechoopda tribal member, traditional basketweaver, and practitioner of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), collaborating on environmental education and land restoration projects with Chico State University and the City of Chico. This podcast conversation covers TEK, evolving ecosystem knowledge and land tending techniques acquired by Indigenous peoples over hundreds or thousands of years through direct contact with the land, and issues around forest management in California and the U.S.