THE VIRUS OF PROGRESS #3

Each group of people on Turtle Island has its own account of its history, origins, and relationship to the land… it is only within Western society that our Aristotelian logic demands a single, unambiguous account of an origin. Some nations, such as the Haida and Blackfoot, speak of having occupied their land forever, while others, such as the Ojibwaj, tell of a great migration to their present land. In all cases, however, it is made clear that the land itself is sacred, that it was created for the People, that they have a special relationship to it, and that there are obligations that must periodically be renewed.

For hundreds and thousands of years these stories have been passed on. They are the heart of Indigenous science and metaphysics. They are what bind a people together and relate them to the powers and energies of the universe. They are what give meaning to the ceremonies of renewal. Within these stories can be found the origins of time, space, and causality. Just as the human body is kept healthy and coherent by its immune system, a field of active meaning that permeates the body, so, too, a people and the land they care for are sustained by the relationships and renewals contained within these maps and stories… Western science is one of those stories that we repeat to ourselves in order to validate our society.

- F. David Peat, Blackfoot Physics