Belonging to Land: Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the Natural World
![handle is hein.journals/okcu26 and id is 709 raw text is: BELONGING TO LAND: INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE
SYSTEMS AND THE NATURAL WORLD*
LAURIE ANNE WHIT'**
MERE ROBERTS***
WAERETE NORMAN****
VICKI GRIEVES*****
INTRODUCTION
Some years ago, the Cherokee mounted fierce resistance to the
construction of the Tellico Dam and the subsequent flooding of the Little
Tennessee Valley.' Many of their objections were based on the threat that
it posed to their cultural heritage Ammoneta Sequoyah, a medicine man
who gathered healing plants in the Valley several times a year, explained
that [his people] believe that all a person knows is placed in the ground
* An earlier, abbreviated version of this essay, entitled Indigenous Perspectives
appeared in A COMPANION TO ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOsOPHY 3-20 (Dale Jamieson ed.,
2000).
** Laurie Anne Whitt teaches philosophy in the Humanities Department at Michigan
Technological University, Houghton, MI 49931. She is of Choctaw descent.
*** Mere Roberts teaches Maori Environmental Perspectives at the School of
Environmental & Marine Sciences, University of Auckland, New Zealand. She is of Tainui
(Ngati Apakura) descent.
**** Waerete Norman taught Maori language and culture in the Maori Studies
Department, University of Auckland, New Zealand. She was of Muriwhenua (Ngati Kuri)
descent.On November 30, 1999, her family and her friends around the world mourned the
loss of Waerete to cancer. At the time of her death she had almost completed her Ph.D.
thesis on Maori women and their cultural responsibilities both historically and today. We
dedicate this essay to her. Pa marire, Waerete.
* * *** Vicki Grieves teaches Aboriginal Studies at the University ofNewcastle, Wollotuka,
NSW, Australia. She is of Worimi-Kattang descent.
1. See Sequoyah v. Tennessee Valley Auth., 620 F.2d 1159, 1160 (6th Cir. 1980).
2. See id.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/okcu26&div=23&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Belonging to Land: Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the Natural World
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