"American Indian thought, Philosophical Essays", Edited by Anne Waters, Blackwell Publishing, 2004.
From the Introduction, pg.xxxii, on an essay by Laurie Ann Whitt.
"Whitt points out that Indigenous knowledge and knowledge systems were initially deprived of cognitive standing by colonial agents. However, ..."commodification of Indigenous spiritual knowledge ..specialty of New Age industry...traditional medicinal knowledge...specialty of pharmaceutical industry, commodification of plant genetic resources and indigenous agricultural knowledge...specialty of commercial seed industry...traditional knowledge ...collectively known for generations...is being privatized and commodified at accelerating rates."
This is sad as we must come to the terms of how much we have literally allowed to be stolen or absconded by bad intent from settler societies. I am guilty of assimilative practices in my lifestyle, knowing the value of what my family had given, gifted to us in our CELANEN, our ancestral heritage, I am ashamed of myself. Each of us as individual Indigenous persons have to come to terms with loss at one point or another...coming to terms with loss in regard to territorial inheritance, cultural and disciplines of ritual in relationship with ALL MY RELATIONS. It is in this unification of life processes, the symbiosis between all living things that we have relevance and responsibility. We learn we are not alone...we learn to make our own way and we learn to help others.
Surely these losses provide reason to fight for what rightfully belongs to us and our future generations. We have learned well the teachings of hypocrisy and have lost many of the teachings of IY SKWULUWUN, and IY WILNEW. With the current state of world affairs, I believe our Indigenous nations must deliver ourselves from the "conformity deformity" we have had to experience at the hands of colonialist empiricist, we must recognize how essential our land and water bases are to us and our relatives. We have to recognize by our own contemporary lifestyles, that we have an opportunity for our nations to stand up WETSUWETEN STRONG, CHILCOTIN STRONG,
MOHAWKS, WSANEC STRONG. IN RECLAMATION of territory and lifestyle, we must CLEAN UP OUR OWN ACTS. We cannot continue to be big contributors to the dumps, that leech their toxic wastes into our waters. Our waters still provide us with wonderful food most nutritious for our way of life.
Mainstream media and politics always find a way to quiet the people...make us forget. I am here to remind you to wake up, stop forgetting our history, before and after colonization. Much is owed our people. Chief and councils in bed with the province and the Feds cannot truly speak for the people as evident by how many of our members actually vote. As I have always said, I speak for myself and they do not represent me.