Center for World Indigenous Studies

To be healthy means to be rich. This reality is widely understood and accepted within contemporary western society. The trend is towards a healthy and sustainable lifestyle. Aspects that have been associated with traditional, alternative beliefs are turning into an exclusive “postmodern“ way of life which is uncritical of consumption and consumerism.Not to save the... more →

I was only nineteen when I first saw the tumbling falls of the upper Skagit from behind some huckleberry bushes that grew along a river path that I’d stumbled on while picnicking. Having just moved from the dusty pines of the Yakima where Peregrine falcons nest in the volcanic cliffs, I was still absorbing the... more →

Recent discoveries and interpretations of my ancestors’ graves in Southern France, associated with cave paintings from fifty thousand years ago, gave me pause to think about modern notions of what it means to be human. The enduring beauty of the depictions of animals that inhabited the region then — including bison and reindeer — is... more →

My World In My Kitchen Food and how we prepare food is one of the most central aspects of daily life. More intimate than our language can ever be, cooking expresses most eloquently our personal creativity as well as cultural mythologies and beliefs. When you take away the food you take away the culture and... more →

The Russians dump nuclear waste in the Arctic seas, the Republic of Congo sees companies with the consent of some government officials dump 20 metric tons of toxic waste into an old uranium mine and they succeed in contaminating the Mura river; and PCBs and mercury from coal fire electrical production contaminate the oceans.  China... more →