Alaska Native Wisdom for Modern Times

There is a single place in the United States where indigenous peoples still live on ancestral lands, consume over four hundred pounds of wild foods annually per capita, and indigenous elders still remember the arrival of the first Westerners in their regions. That place is Alaska. Despite daunting challenges to cultural integrity and ways of life, Alaska’s Native peoples retain vast storehouses of their traditional knowledge, wisdom, and lifeways. Thus, many traditional Alaska Native lifeways and understandings about how human beings fit into the bigger matrix of creation remain relatively intact. These ways have allowed our cultures to survive and thrive for thousands of years, even in the face of many daunting ecological and economic crises. In today’s challenging times, such ways, having evolved through an intimate and profound relationship to lands, waters, and all life, have much to offer the American people and the entire human family.

via www.yesmagazine.org

Cathie's notes: Great article at Yes! by Ilarion Merculieff, a member of the Aleut Community of the St. Paul Island Tribe.