A Discussion of Major Tenets and Assumptions of Anishinaabe and Western Philosophy and Aboriginal Educational Methodology Concepts

Concept Paper

Introduction

This concept paper is a “first-step” attempt to set out some ideas so that there is a better understanding of what I mean by an “Aboriginal” method of education based on the assumption that learning and teaching includes more than an investigation of the external world; they include an inner awareness of the wonders of life and Creation as well. It seems really important to speak of “traditional” Aboriginal methods of learning and teaching. I am aware that these ideas, many of which I have been taught directly by Elders and Traditional teachers, are rather complicated (since we are talking of philosophical traditions that date back to the beginning of time); so keep in mind that this is just a first-step paper. I have been very fortunate to have the opportunity to sit with those wise men and women who still know and remember the collective wisdom of Anishinaabe culture, and I have been doubly fortunate because I received an excellent education in the history of western thought and philosophy during my undergraduate studies.

The first thing I want to say is that I am referring specifically to Anishinaabe (a term that refers to a multi-national group that have a common language: Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomii, Mississauga, Algonkin, Cree, etc) worldview because that is what I know. The time may come when other Indigenous traditions and cultures are also included, but for the time being let’s stick with the Anishinaabe.

Second, by “Western” I mean predominately Western Europe (esp. France, Spain, Italy and Germany) and England, and particularly those countries influenced by Catholic/Christian ideology.

I guess the main thing I hope everybody to takes away from this is an understanding that Traditional Anishinaabe culture always values high mental ability. There is even a society of learned ones called the Chinshinaabe (The Great Good Beings) who have been and remain the philosophers and great thinkers of the Anishinaabe world.

In essence this is written with two different audiences in mind: Aboriginals who may not have an in-depth understanding of western culture and non-Aboriginals who may not have an understanding of some Anishinaabe cultural philosophies and practices. My main concern is to set out explicitly the many cultural assumptions we carry around without even thinking about them. We do this, and it defines our worldview. We each have varying degrees of these assumptions, in most cases western with some Aboriginal influences (here in North American anyway). Anyway, here we go.

I will present a short history of “Western” culture and philosophy (well my take on it anyway) as well as Anishinaabe culture and philosophy so that we can better compare and contrast the two. Of course I am making broad strokes with the historical (and philosophical) brush, but I feel this is a fair overview.

It is also necessary, due to the comprehensive nature of this concept paper, for me to elaborate on my understanding of the term “academia” in order that my distinction between traditional (Aboriginal) and academic (Western) methods are clearly set out. I will discuss some of the developmental aspects that have contributed to the Western academic system, and a general belief in the separation of human beings from a natural environment.

The West

Well, let me be direct, western philosophy and culture begins in Greece. But before the birth of philosophy, there existed a cultural worldview not unlike the Anishinaabe.

Long ago, at the time of Hesiod and Homer (about 2800 years ago) these two great Greek poets and storywriters wrote about the Sky as Father and the Earth as Mother. In Hesiod’s Theogony, it is made known that Sky and Earth are the parents of the first generation of gods and, either directly or indirectly, of all natural beings. The very act of birth and death points to this basic and sacred truth, since, for the Greeks, the idea of dead matter had not yet been invented (this came a few hundred years later with a philosopher named Democritus and his theories on “The Little World-system”, i.e., atoms. (the idea of DEAD MATTER (rocks, etc.) was invented by a man, before that time ALL was alive)

Early people were of the opinion that if there was a beginning then there had to also be something that gave it birth. Homer was quite clear when he said, “Nobody can say that something came from nothing.” For the early Greeks, this ultimate power was “the Divine.” Again in Homer we find that early Greeks saw Creation as such an awesome reality that there could be no understanding or equalling of the power. But this same awe gave rise also to a sense of certainty. They never asked “Why?” For them to ask why would have been asking the Divine to account to humans, and since the why was ultimately beyond human comprehension, even a small understanding of the infinite power of Creation was beyond them and they just accepted reality as it was. When we read Homer and Hesiod today we still find this truth since Greek Creation stories only deal with the how of creation and not the why.

The central power of Creation nurtures the life that it creates. Existence is totally dependent, and early Greek Creation stories account for this fundamental dependence on the divine power. As shown by Homer, the two central expressions of this dependence are first, a general sense that nothing that exists can be taken for granted since the divine power creates and can also destroy. Second, he also shows that there is an understanding of trust and hope that the divine will continue to maintain creation in a good way. These two points made the people take nothing for granted. There was a continuous sense of gratitude since every moment was precious.

In early Greek society there were large extended families that made up the community. No individual enterprise was more important since everything was by and for the community. There was a great sense of kinship since everything was divine by the very act of Creation. The relation between humans and non-humans was not one of resource but of kin, of fellow people. Homer states clearly that if one takes, one must give back in kind. There must always be a balance or else the web of life, of Creation, can unravel into a primal chaos.

The change from mythology to philosophy, in Greece, happened about 2600 years ago. It is considered the most important Cultural Revolution ever to happen in the West. Everything that marks Western philosophy starts here. Nevertheless the change was not a tidy intellectual process. (Let me take this opportunity to remind you to think of contemporary Anishinaabe life and the “breakdown” of traditional life and values due to assimilation and acculturation as you read the following)

For mythological cultures, initially, the biggest change may have come from a realisation that the gods were ultimately subject to the same laws of the universe as the people. There was no longer a hope that the gods could make things better, and without hope there began a cultural decay. When a people loose hope that the spiritual can and will make life better and safer, there is a gradual breakdown in cultural and spiritual cohesion.

This philosophical revolution came out of a people’s need to understand the world they lived in. It became a world based on “physical” realities rather than “spiritual” realities. The first Greek philosopher, a man named Thales of Miletus, looked at the world and wondered what it was “all’ made up from. His answer was water. It is not important that he decided that water made up the world (liquid water, ice and vapour as various states of physical reality), but that he didn’t look to the spiritual for the underlying “reality.” Philosophy, for the first time, tells people that they can aspire to understand reality, thus asking “WHY?”:- a question never asked before. This is evident in the meaning of the word “philosophy” (from the Greek: philia, which means an intellectual love; and from Sofia, who is the goddess of wisdom, thus an intellectual love of wisdom). The term Philosophy is the bridge between the rational (philia) and the mythological (Sofia)

In a sense, philosophy freed humans from a very crowded world: one full of divine beings, spirits, gods and other non-physical beings. As they moved away from the spiritual, humans began to depend on their own resources, becoming accountable for their actions. For the first time humans, in this tradition, became moral agents, that is, responsible for their individual actions. In pre-philosophical cultures, where one was never alone since the divine was everywhere and everything, a person had to be good at personal relationships. The balance of Creation was at stake since relationship was the central spiritual reality. Everything received was a gift and at each level it was based on an immediate personal relationship. In other words everything was personal in the most intimate way possible

With the development of philosophy there was not so much of a need for this sort of behaviour since the development of a philosophical way of living became the highest goal. And this goal was a rational one, that is, one’s ability to think was more important than one’s ability to live with others. The rational became the central tenet of this way of life since the “new reality” (a non-spiritual way) could only be understood by the mind. Wisdom became the excellence of knowledge. In philosophy, with the impersonal world, the personal texture of life was lost. The water well was no longer seen as divine but just a place to get water, the deer no longer a cousin but simply prey, and the trees not as keepers of knowledge but firewood, etc. The final outcome was a separation of the mind, the body, the spirit and the emotional, of logic above intuition and a general de-personalization of the world.

With this general introduction to the development of Greek philosophy, we now jump ahead many centuries to the European renaissance (1500’s and later). One of these Europeans was a French philosopher by the name of René Descartes recognised in the West as the father of modern philosophy. Descartes made it quite clear in his writings that humans were above animals. He states that reason, one’s ability to think, is what separates humans from animals. He defines these “beasts” as inert, material, unfeeling, mechanical objects (like machines). It is also interesting that he doesn’t even mention rocks and clouds and trees, etc. since the idea of dead, inert matter is now an unquestioned part of western assumptions.

Around this time (early 1600’s) we also find the development of an idea about “civil society.” Civil Society, basically, is an idea put forward during the breakdown of Feudalism to a new enlightened idea about individuality and rights. Each man is his own end; he is only concerned with his success in the world. There is no longer a feeling of kinship. This has been replaced by a “state”: a group of people with a common interest (usually territorial). There is a government that is supposed to oversee certain things like a military to protect the territory and other “services” that individuals are unable to do. Individuals pay a service fee for this (through labour etc.), and this allows them the freedom to pursue their individual selfish desires. This is the beginning of nation-states and the end of Tribal or kinship based tribes, etc. It is of note that this whole “political revolution” in Europe happens shortly after Columbus lands on America and Aboriginal peoples are met and colonisation begins in earnest. It is also interesting to note that the concept of Civil Society (a very un-Aboriginal idea I may add) is the basic foundation for all self-government agreements in Canada, and probably why they are all doomed to fail politically.

The idea of Civil Society is rooted in liberal democratic theory. It was Adam Smith (1723-1790, British) who first articulated the classical understanding of it as a market economy-organised area of necessity that is driven by the self-interested motion of individual property owners. The key ideas behind civil society are property, labour, exchange, and consumption (still with us today, and each, fundamentally alien concepts within Anishinaabe culture). Also of interest is the development of a private property idea after the discovery of America, where the notion of Private property went hand in hand with Manifest Destiny and other European excuses to take over Tribal territories. Were Civil Society and Liberal Democracy ways of explaining the colonialisation of America or was the colonialisation of America the reason for these political ideas? Good question huh?

As early modern European attitudes later took root in 1800’s America we find that nature was seen as very machine like; that it works like a big clock (Sir Isaac Newton, etc.). Nature in itself is basically a self-sufficient, self-enclosed complex of merely physical forces acting on dead matter. That is the mechanical view of nature and it was popularly accepted in the circles of the educated [white Americans] in the nineteenth century. This attitude, although beginning to change in present Western thought, still finds itself as the main foundation of contemporary Western science and culture. The heart transplants and the polluting of the Earth are good example of this attitude.

Of particular interest to this paper, is the fact that this scientific view of the world did not apply to the human mind. Everything else fell under this idea of the world as a big machine, but the human mind, rationality itself, escaped to find its own place in Western philosophy.

So here we are presented with the basic assumptions that hold up western culture: CIVIL SOCIETY and LIBERAL DEMOCRACY (the mother of market-economy capitalism) built on the four pillars of private property, labour, exchange, consumption. A belief that the HUMAN MIND is separate from the world and that reality is de-spiritualizated is also an important assumptions. Finally I must mention the western preoccupation of always trying to figure out how things work and WHY they are the way they are. This leads directly today to the new scientific interest in cloning and genetic research (playing god as many would put it)

Anishinaabe

To begin this section let me say that basically the traditional Aboriginal method that I want to examine can be termed a “primary experiential knowledge” method. My concern here is of the value of this approach in education. At the very core of this discussion is a reference to the appropriateness of this approach in developing and examining and teaching a variety of subjects (Philosophy, Identity, Self Government, Cultural Revitalisation, Natural Resources Management, Education and Health and Social Services, etc.) These issues are expressed with the understanding that the worldview of a people has a direct impact on any research done by and about those people. As we will see, unique to a potential Aboriginal method of education is a way and place where Aboriginal people are able to investigate and discover their own culture and personal identity, and for non-Aboriginal people to have a clearer understanding of Aboriginal peoples and all aspects of their respective cultures, spirituality, philosophy, ceremonialism, etc. By exploring a traditional method of education and ultimately using it in teaching and learning, the identity of a person is expanded and expressed in a traditional way. Rather than using only a Western system of teaching and/or learning, we must use an Aboriginal specific system for varying Aboriginal worldviews. In the end I think it is essential to recognise that any assumption that Aboriginal worldviews can be adequately explained by a totally alien western worldview is the very essence of intellectual imperialism. Well, enough of the intellectual sovereignty stuff, let’s look at Anishinaabe philosophical assumptions.

When I say that learning and teaching for an Anishinaabe person includes more than an investigation of the external world, I am stating a general Anishinaabe understanding of teaching and learning. For the Anishinaabe, the aliveness of natural entities, what the Western tradition defines as dead, material objects (rocks, clouds, mountains, water, etc.), means that they have the same kind of consciousness and self-awareness that humans have. This is based on the simple fact that since humans have a body and an associated spirit, all other bodily beings (physical and spiritual) are also similar in this respect. For the Anishinaabe, there is a general assumption made of consciousness in others based on the similarity that they have with oneself. Of course, for the Anishinaabe, the very concept of the ‘other’ is much broader than standard Western conceptions.

The metaphysics and ontology of the Anishinaabe place them in a large, all encompassing social, physical, spiritual and environmental reality. Community is one of all life, all relations. In other words, the Anishinaabe are constantly preoccupied with the way one exists in reality, how one “is” when one is alive (and even before and after life). This is expressed fully in the name of the people - Anishinaabe: The Good Beings. Thus we Anishinaabe are concerned with the Good in life, how to be good while living.

During a discussion with Shirley Williams (Trent U.), I was taught an Anishinaabe system that reveals four aspects of knowledge, and how the sources of knowledge allow a person to gain an understanding of the complex of reality. I will here reproduce the diagram that Shirley has constructed to illustrate the complexity of the Anishinaabe knowledge system.

This diagram shows a working model for the development of an Aboriginal educational method. It is inclusive of all the sources that are considered essential in the development of knowledge. Of particular interest to the development of an Aboriginal methodology of education is the section dealing with revealed knowledge that is gained through Vision Quests, dreams and intuitions that are considered spiritual. The Anishinaabe lives in a world which is peopled not only with human beings, but also by persons and personalities that are other-than-human. All beings possess a consciousness, reason, volition and spirit. In dreams and visions, these other-than-human persons are directly encountered and develop a personal relationship with the dreamer. It is in the dream and the vision that a person interacts with others as spirit, as a pure essential self.

Joe Couture a Cree pipe-carrier and psychologist, when discussing Aboriginal ‘knowing’ states that

A corollary to the issue of “knowing” is that of mysticism. From an Aboriginal spiritual standpoint, as I see it, mysticism is a question of becoming/being rooted or grounded in relationships with all constituents or dimensions of reality. I like Fox’s description of mysticism because it is congruent with my understanding of Aboriginal spiritual experience. He holds that “… the essence of the mystical experience is the way we are altered to see everything from its life-filled axis, to feel the mysteries of life as they are present within and around us.” That’s Indian!

To arrive at a direct experiential understanding of that definition is a primary learning task. To discover how ceremonies, for example, mediate helping energy and teachings takes some doing. Prayer, ritual and ceremony ground one in life …. (Couture, 1996: 212)

This philosophical reality allows the people to find their place in a very complex world. It also allows the people to learn about that complex world, situating themselves directly in the web of Creation. A primary experiential knowledge method is a personal method. In the case of any form of education dealing with philosophy, identity and cultural revitalization and other areas of study, it not only develops the necessary structures for an investigation, but also ultimately reveals something about the investigator.

This method is necessary so that a fuller investigation of the role that Anishinaabe world-view has in developing an educational method is fully understood. Anishinaabe tradition already has an educational method as part of its structure. In traditional and contemporary times the Elders and the Traditional Teachers are the teachers that guide the student on their path of learning, since the education of an Anishinaabe person occurs throughout the lived-experience of that person.

Joe Couture explains this when he states that

The doing that characterizes the Native Way is a doing that concerns itself with being and becoming a unique person, one fully responsible for one’s own life and actions within family and community. Finding one’s path and following it is a characteristic Native enterprise which leads to or makes for the attainment of inner and outer balance. (Couture, 1996: 207)

The Elders and Traditional Teachers are the embodiment of the traditional education system used by the Anishinaabe. They are the teachers in the school of life.

When reflecting on these aspects of traditional learning I become aware that a possible difficulty with my methodology within the framework of Western academia is that:

Regardless of what Indians have said concerning their origins, their migrations, their experiences with birds, animals, lands, water, mountains, and other peoples, [Western academics] have maintained a stranglehold on the definitions of what respectable and reliable human experiences are. The Indian explanation is always cast aside as a superstition …. (Vine Deloria, 1995: 19)

In comparing the differences between Western and Aboriginal methods of education and research Vine Deloria (Lakota) explains that,

The major difference between American Indian views of the physical world and Western science lies in the premise accepted by Indians and rejected by scientists: the world in which we live is alive. Many scientists believe this idea to be primitive superstition and consequently the scientific explanation rejects any nuance of interpretation which would credit the existence of activities as having partial intelligence or sentience. American Indians look at events to determine the spiritual activity supporting or undergirding them. Science insists, albeit at a great price in understanding, that the observer be as detached as possible from the event he or she is observing. Indians thus obtain information from birds, animals, rivers, and mountains which is inaccessible to modern science. Indians also know that human beings must participate in events, not isolate themselves from occurrences in the physical world. (Deloria, 1995: 55-56)

Pam Colorado (Oneida) also explains that

For a Western-educated audience the notion of a tree with spirit is a difficult concept to grasp … the universe is alive. Therefore, to see a Aboriginal speaking with a tree does not carry the message of mental instability; on the contrary, this is a scientist engaged in research! (Colorado in Hill, 1994: 26)

Aboriginal methodologies present some special and unique features that perhaps go beyond “usual” academic requirements. As Joe Couture states in his discussion paper “Aboriginal Studies, Some Comments”

[A method based on Aboriginal methodologies] strives as responsibly as it can to present a way of perceiving and expressing these relationships (self, others, family, community and to the Cosmos), in fresh and novel ways perhaps, always congruent with authentic traditional processes and values. This demanding responsibility stipulates equally an able and sure grasp of contemporary conditions, together with a conscious experiential sense of the core or characteristic spiritual dynamic of Aboriginal life philosophy, in order to render, intentionally and systematically, a valid translation of culture-based knowledge, skills, and attitude. In other words, [it] seeks to develop a culture-rooted sense of both worlds in all their dimensions, in time and space, and to do so today in a bicultural mode. (Couture, 1993: 3)

The assumptions here are best expressed as: the world is home. The four pillars of Anishinaabe worldview are kindness, honesty, strength and generosity. Humans are not separate from the world. Kinship is the model of relationship. Concepts such as reciprocity, respect, sharing and caring are key to Anishinaabe ethics. This is the underpinning of an experiential learning (and teaching) model that reflects foundational tenets of Anishinaabe philosophy.

West and Anishinaabe

Joseph Couture explains that the foundation of a culture-based method can be better appreciated when certain key assumption are presented and explained.

The assumptions that Couture outlines are first that “it is believed that an [Aboriginal educational methodology], because of its roots in Aboriginal worldview, can and does present a philosophy that unifies learning”. As an outcome of this assumption comes the fact that an Aboriginal educational methodology seeks to “demonstrate the inherent validity and usefulness of a heritage and philosophy … which images visions, and voices “And all our relations”. Second, it “can and does bring an ancient understanding that learning leads to development of mind and attitude, and adaptation in conduct.”. [An Aboriginal educational methodology] as one facet of many “North American Aboriginal Traditions”, seeks to express a deep, comprehensive perception of all reality as sacred” and all beings in creation as sacred also.

He explains further that

At present, Tradition, manifest in its many tribal expressions, is being rediscovered, investigated and reclaimed. (Couture, 1993: 13)

The approach that I am proposing allows Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people who are sensitive to the complex of traditional knowledge systems to investigate the world in a more complete manner. By exploring a traditional method of learning and ultimately using it in research, the identity of a person, particularly an Aboriginal person, is expanded and expressed in a traditional way. When one uses Shirley Williams’ interpretation of the four sources of knowledge, one is learning in a complete and respectful way. Rather than using only a Western system of research, we are able to use an Aboriginal system for various worldviews. There are still Elders and Traditional Teachers out there who have traditional knowledge as part of their lives. In order that this method, or any Aboriginal method of education, is comprehensive it is imperative that the Elders and Traditional Teachers be sought out and learned from. It is with their guidance that we will be able to retrace our steps to find what was left by the trail, that is, learning about and actualizing traditional education, philosophy, identity and cultural revitalization.

In that way, once again, Elders and Tradition are primal givens. Our perceptions and grasp thereof can and do shape and influence our response to contemporary realities. This knowledge elicits an ethical attitude and response. Traditional viewpoint claims a “right” vision as conditional to seeing and understanding life in the “right” way. (Couture, 1993: 14)

Aboriginal people will then be able to examine and base their lives on the Traditional Teachings of their culture rather than only the teachings of the dominant society. There is no doubt that Aboriginal people will continue to share this land with Euro-Americans and other immigrants, but we are now beginning to realise that we do not have to base our lives on the assumptions, values and structures of that dominant society. And non-Aboriginal people will be exposed to non-western approaches. This method allows a process that is rooted in tradition and traditional learning, a process that presents a model for a more inclusive system of education.

I am in agreement with Joe Couture’s opinion that we can find a balance between academic methods and traditional methods, thus developing a system of education that is equitable and valuable to all.

At a minimum, I think that the education of students … must involve a very personal, critical reflection not only on one’s knowledge, but also upon one’s experience of self, others, and social contexts, for these are necessary to the fullest possible participation in a bicultural life context. (Couture, 11: 1993)

I believe that this approach is beneficial to learning and teaching. Moreover, an Aboriginal educational methodology is not limited to an objective study of Aboriginal people as separate objects of study. It also includes Aboriginal people as those who are studying and teaching. As we have seen, learning and teaching includes more than an investigation of the external world. It can, and many times is a personal journey of self-discovery. Thus it is necessary to be inclusive of many worldviews and cultural perspectives.

A characteristic aim then of the curriculum enterprise, an enduring and necessary propensity, is found both in the articulation of meaning and in the acquisition of skills necessary to initiate and sustain that search, drawing on and utilizing knowledge from many directions and areas, …. (Couture, 1993: 8)

As a further elaboration of this point, we find that the teachings of the place and role of a person in Creation present the knowledge necessary for the development of a balanced educational process. For the Anishinaabe the teaching of the Seven Directions (Seven Grandfathers), shows the inter-connectivity of Creation, one’s place and purpose within Creation, as well as one’s ethical duty in maintaining Creation’s integrity. J. Newbery expands on this sense of one’s place in Creation in his explanation of the teaching staff.

The teaching staff is composed of two sticks bound together at their centres and on a horizontal plane. To their point of intersection, then, is bound a vertical stick fastened at the centre. The horizontal sticks represents the four directions …. The vertical stick represents the two other power places, the power above and the power beneath. This makes six. At the place where they intersect is the seventh, the ‘here’ place. Thus, the staff in its way creates a kind of microcosm in which the powers of the universe are in evidence and made approachable by the gathering community.

There is a particular penetration, it seems to me, in the seventh point, the ‘here’ place of this septuagram. The teacher shows that this power place is within each celebrant. Within each one, in each one’s own experience, within the Self, meet all the six powers of the universe. East, South, West, North, Above, Below. It is not to say that I am the centre of the universe, but that the powers of the universe are flowing through me, are available to me and I can be a power with them. They come to me in visions and dreams, in the ceremonies and teachings, and work through me. (Newbery, 1980: 295-296)

The centre that Newbery refers to is understood as the focus of all learning. This seventh direction is the self, the person who directly, personally experiences reality.

As you can see the Anishinaabe and Western assumptions about the world and our place in it are radically different. The Aboriginal method that I am proposing has far reaching implications; from ways of learning and teaching to management of the educational process and how we each relate to one another as teachers and students. There is a wonderful opportunity here to create a new and vibrant educational method that will attempt to repair many of the problems that Aboriginals experience in academia and in the contemporary world, and it is also a way to help non-Aboriginals learn and understand the Aboriginal mind.

References

Colorado, Pam. “Bridging Native and Western Science.” Convergence XXI (2/3): 49-67. Toronto: International Council for Adult Education, 1988.

Couture, Joseph. “Native Studies and the Academy.” In Indigenous Knowledge in Global Context: Multiple Readings of Our World, ed. George Dei, Buod Hall and Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg, TMs [photocopy], 1-14. Toronto: University of Toronto, 1996.

________. “Native Studies, Some Comments, April 1, 1993”, TMs [photocopy]. Native Studies, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario.

________. “The Role of Native Elders: Emergent Issues.” In The Cultural Maze: Complex Questions on Native Destiny in Western Canada, ed. John Friesen, 201-217. Calgary: Detselig Enterprises, 1991.

Deloria, Vine, Jr. Red Earth White Lies. New York: Skribner, 1995.

Newbery, J. W. E., “The Quality of Native Religion.” Studies in Religion 9/3 (1980): 287-298