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Foreword May we add more beauty to the world . . . We come to a place in the history of the First Nations of the Americas wherein a confluence of intellectual and political movements affecting academe has brought some of our indigenous students, faculty, and local knowledge bearers to the forefront of gate keeping. On one hand, more than ever before, members of our indigenous communities are entering academic professions and assuming positions whereby we can speak for ourselves. On the other, our ever precious local indigenous knowledge, as it spans throughout the world, has come to the attention of those who would seek to use and thereby profit from it. Laurie Whitt, among other scholars, has for many years addressed this commodification and expropriation of global indigenous knowledge. This series is begun at a time when the global economy crumbles before the eyes of the world. It comes at a time when eyes focus upon the future of our planet in all the wonderment of our situatedness within larger galaxies. It comes at a time when alternative ways of being in the world are announcing their presence. Solar panels and wind turbines are dotting the landscapes of Western Europe and the United States. The love affair with gasoline engines and super fast cars is coming to a close, as people reach for a better way to use planetary resources. Some are even questioning whether thinking of the earth’s gifts as “resources” is appropriate. Most automobile engines are now made in Japan, and China now leads the world in manufacturing new technologies of everything from solar panels to LED lights. Indigenous communities occupy sensitive and contradictory positions in this global landscape. Often at the forefront of risk, with our ways of being literally demolished, our communities also respond with strong undertones of resilience and adaptability. In spite of centuries of genocidal aggression, indigenous ways of thinking have not been destroyed but xi xii Foreword rather transmuted. New technologies enter our indigenous communities at this same time that a tremendous economic upheaval is occurring. This upheaval is due to the ambitious greed of gangs that seek to extract billions and trillions of dollars through large global corporations without so much as a hint of responsibility. It is perhaps time to ask a few questions and seek some input from our traditional indigenous philosophers, and in so doing, once again ask some of those centuries old on-going questions that philosophers are known to ponder. Some may ask, “Why philosophers?” Are there any traditional indigenous philosophers? And how could western oriented and indigenous scholars even begin to meet on a horizon to communicate across diverse cultural variances of time and space? Vine Deloria reminds us that academic philosophers have long been held out as those who hold keys to the gates of philosophy, the “capstone discipline” of the western academy. And the western academy has, for a long time, yielded access to only a biased history of the development of intellectual thought. Yet to the extent that there has been any dialogue among western philosophers with traditional indigenous philosophers, it has been only after long travels, in quiet corners with patient questions, and contemplative responses found in the backloads of our global countryside. Traditional indigenous scholars, and living indigenous philosophies, come in small doses to the western academic world. Such ideas, whether about pharmaceutical herbs, emotional healing ceremony, or communal ways of being, have been shared thus far only in small circles. These circles have begun to expand, as Gregory Cajete tells us, since our students have taken up the task of drawing together, for example, western and indigenous science. Circles of knowledge sharing among indigenous scholars however, have generally not been accessible to academe, much less the general population . And perhaps the time has come to change this, and make some efforts to share those things that individual indigenous communities would like to share with others. The question why particular indigenous groups might want to share information about various ways of being, living, and acting in consonance with the world we inhabit has many answers, perhaps as diverse as the numbers of communities that exist. But one clear answer is that there may be a need to move toward a global culture in order for humans to survive. This does not preclude the continuance and development or retention of some of our traditional knowings or ways of being. Rather it is merely a recognition that it may take some cumulative knowledge of...

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