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Apr 22, 2023 · Indigenous people have been standing up to protect water for decades — because to them, is more than just hydration. Water is alive and holds a spirit. Water is sacred. It's the lifeblood that...
This peer-reviewed article describes the worldview and sacred relationship of the Cree people in Alberta, as well as how colonial policy has created despair (pomewin) in Aboriginal communities and a state of disconnectedness from the water.
Mar 22, 2021 · But understanding water only as a resource is problematic. It often focuses on access to water in the present, without referencing its ties to history and colonization. In doing so, we erase the important foundational knowledge that many Indigenous Peoples around the world have about water.
- Water and The American West
- Water as Sacred Place
- Water as Life
- Rights of Mother Earth
The Great Plains of North America, home to the Lakota, the Blackfeet and other tribes, is a dry, arid place. The U.S. government spends billions of dollars to control and retain water in this “Great American desert,” as it was described in the early 19th century. Geologist John Wesley Powell, an early director of the U.S. Geological Survey, pointed...
For thousands of years, Native American tribes across the Great Plainsdeveloped their own methods of living with the natural world and its limited water supply. They learned both through observation and experiment, arguably a process quite similar to what we might call science today. They also learned from their religious ideas, passed on from gene...
Native American tribes on the Great Plains knew something else about the relationship between themselves, the beaver and water. They learned through observation that beavers helped create an ecological oasis within a dry and arid landscape. As Canadian anthropologist R. Grace Morgan hypothesized in her dissertation “Beaver Ecology/Beaver Mythology,...
Indigenous people from around the world share these beliefs about the sacredness of water. The government of New Zealand recently recognized the ancestral connection of the Maori people to their water. On March 15, the government passed the “Te Awa Tupua Whanganui River Claims SettlementBill,” which provides “personhood” status to the Whanganui Riv...
Many indigenous communities have been fighting for their right to clean water for decades and their struggles continue today. Despite facing many challenged, Indigenous peoples around the world continue to protect and defend water as a sacred and essential part of their way of life.
Jan 1, 2024 · For decades, Indigenous Peoples have opposed water privatisation (Arrojo-Agudo, 2022) which does not fit into Indigenous Peoples' value-based perspectives on water. For Indigenous Peoples, water is interconnected in a broader way with their environments, lives, cultures, cosmovisions and identities.
From the First Nations of Canada to the Saami peoples of the far north, the hunter-gatherers of central Africa to the many tribes living in the Amazon, the beliefs and practices of Indigenous...
