The Western Way

The Western Way

Author: Caitlin Matthews

Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)

Published: 1988-11-01

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9780140190694

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How It Is

How It Is

Author: V. F. Cordova

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2007-12-06

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9780816526482

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Viola Cordova was the first Native American woman to receive a PhD in philosophy. Even as she became an expert on canonical works of traditional Western philosophy, she devoted herself to defining a Native American philosophy. Although she passed away before she could complete her life’s work, some of her colleagues have organized her pioneering contributions into this provocative book. In three parts, Cordova sets out a complete Native American philosophy. First she explains her own understanding of the nature of reality itself—the origins of the world, the relation of matter and spirit, the nature of time, and the roles of culture and language in understanding all of these. She then turns to our role as residents of the Earth, arguing that we become human as we deepen our relation to our people and to our places, and as we understand the responsibilities that grow from those relationships. In the final section, she calls for a new reverence in a world where there is no distinction between the sacred and the mundane. Cordova clearly contrasts Native American beliefs with the traditions of the Enlightenment and Christianized Europeans (what she calls “Euroman” philosophy). By doing so, she leads her readers into a deeper understanding of both traditions and encourages us to question any view that claims a singular truth. From these essays—which are lucid, insightful, frequently funny, and occasionally angry—we receive a powerful new vision of how we can live with respect, reciprocity, and joy.


The Way We Lived

The Way We Lived

Author: Malcolm Margolin

Publisher: Heyday

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13:

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A collection of reminiscences, stories, and songs that reflect the diversity of the people native to California.


The Ohlone Way

The Ohlone Way

Author: Malcolm Margolin

Publisher: Heyday.ORIM

Published: 1978-08-01

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 1597142174

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A look at what Native American life was like in the Bay Area before the arrival of Europeans. Two hundred years ago, herds of elk and antelope dotted the hills of the San Francisco–Monterey Bay area. Grizzly bears lumbered down to the creeks to fish for silver salmon and steelhead trout. From vast marshlands geese, ducks, and other birds rose in thick clouds “with a sound like that of a hurricane.” This land of “inexpressible fertility,” as one early explorer described it, supported one of the densest Indian populations in all of North America. One of the most ground-breaking and highly-acclaimed titles that Heyday has published, The Ohlone Way describes the culture of the Indian people who inhabited Bay Area prior to the arrival of Europeans. Recently included in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Top 100 Western Non-Fiction list, The Ohlone Way has been described by critic Pat Holt as a “mini-classic.” Praise for The Ohlone Way “[Margolin] has written thoroughly and sensitively of the Pre-Mission Indians in a North American land of plenty. Excellent, well-written.” —American Anthropologist “One of three books that brought me the most joy over the past year.” —Alice Walker “Margolin conveys the texture of daily life, birth, marriage, death, war, the arts, and rituals, and he also discusses the brief history of the Ohlones under the Spanish, Mexican, and American regimes . . . Margolin does not give way to romanticism or political harangues, and the illustrations have a gritty quality that is preferable to the dreamy, pretty pictures that too often accompany texts like this.” —Choice “Remarkable insight in to the lives of the Ohlone Indians.” —San Francisco Chronicle “A beautiful book, written and illustrated with a genuine sympathy . . . A serious and compelling re-creation.” —The Pacific Sun


Walkers Between the Worlds

Walkers Between the Worlds

Author: Caitlín Matthews

Publisher: Inner Traditions / Bear & Co

Published: 2004-01-14

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 9780892810918

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Beneath the orthodox religions that lay claim to the soul of Western man runs an esoteric current that has preserved the lore and hermetic traditions of our ancestors. "Walkers Between the Worlds" explores the ancient earth wisdom of the shaman, and the Gnostic and Egyptian mysteries of the East. Practical exercises drawn from these traditions are included.


Red Medicine

Red Medicine

Author: Patrisia Gonzales

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2012-11-01

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 0816599718

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Patrisia Gonzales addresses "Red Medicine" as a system of healing that includes birthing practices, dreaming, and purification rites to re-establish personal and social equilibrium. The book explores Indigenous medicine across North America, with a special emphasis on how Indigenous knowledge has endured and persisted among peoples with a legacy to Mexico. Gonzales combines her lived experience in Red Medicine as an herbalist and traditional birth attendant with in-depth research into oral traditions, storytelling, and the meanings of symbols to uncover how Indigenous knowledge endures over time. And she shows how this knowledge is now being reclaimed by Chicanos, Mexican Americans and Mexican Indigenous peoples. For Gonzales, a central guiding force in Red Medicine is the principal of regeneration as it is manifested in Spiderwoman. Dating to Pre-Columbian times, the Mesoamerican Weaver/Spiderwoman—the guardian of birth, medicine, and purification rites such as the Nahua sweat bath—exemplifies the interconnected process of rebalancing that transpires throughout life in mental, spiritual and physical manifestations. Gonzales also explains how dreaming is a form of diagnosing in traditional Indigenous medicine and how Indigenous concepts of the body provide insight into healing various kinds of trauma. Gonzales links pre-Columbian thought to contemporary healing practices by examining ancient symbols and their relation to current curative knowledges among Indigenous peoples. Red Medicine suggests that Indigenous healing systems can usefully point contemporary people back to ancestral teachings and help them reconnect to the dynamics of the natural world.


Western Structures Meet Native Traditions

Western Structures Meet Native Traditions

Author: Cheryl Woolsey Des Jarlais

Publisher: IAP

Published: 2008-10-01

Total Pages: 108

ISBN-13: 1607529971

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As Western educational practices have become global, the cultural aspects and the problems associated with them have become more apparent as they are contrasted with local ways of learning and knowing in the widely diverse societies around the world. The Western world has tended to assume that its concepts of progress and development should be universally welcomed, especially in countries that are struggling economically. Most cultures tend to feel a similar preference for their own world views. However, the West has had a history of not only ethnocentrism, but colonialism, in which it has forcibly attempted to reshape the cultures, societies, politics, and economics of conquered territories in its own likeness. Though some of the more overt, political colonialist practices have been abandoned, colonial ways of thinking, thinking about thinking, and training in how to think, are still practiced, and these in turn, through the education of each nation-state’s children, affect every aspect of economics, politics, and social development in the global village that our world has become. It is critical to examine the basic assumptions of Western education in order to trace their effects on local ways of knowing in many areas which may not share these assumptions, and which may be threatened and destroyed by them as global interaction in politics, economics, and education increases. The argument that education is primarily a moral endeavor may have been forced into the background for a time by rationalism and secularism, but it is reappearing as an important consideration in education once again. The question remains, however; whose morality should be institutionalized by compulsory educational programs—that of the individual, the family, the professional, the elite, the state, or the nation? And if the rules of science are no longer the single authority in identifying truth and reality, who decides the authorities we should rely on?


The African Dwelling

The African Dwelling

Author: Epée Ellong

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2019-09-06

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 1476634890

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Housing has changed in Sub-Saharan Africa since the Europeans arrived. Africans no longer live in traditional homes. This historical transition from "hut to house," from traditional to Western style, reflects slavery, colonialism and other social influences. This book focuses on Cameroon, known as "Africa in Miniature" because of its geographical and cultural representation of the continent at large. Architectural styles, materials and construction techniques are discussed within a larger context, examining how lifestyle changes and architectural trends influence each other. This work is a rich examination of the challenges and opportunities for a new generation of African architects to integrate the lessons of the past and create a future more responsive to the region's needs.