#indigenous

The Australian aborigines, reckoned to be among the most primitive of races upon evidence that is far from conclusive, have a region that is well-developed. They worship the Earth Mother, and recognise in their graceful, plaintive stories the prior existence of culture heroes as well limned as any in Valhalla. To an amazing degree they feel the reality of the metaphysical world they have created––the dream-time, which is neither a dream nor a period, or if it is a period is one which has no dimension, so that the past and the present exist together. ↗

— Olaf Ruhen

#indigenous-peoples #dreams

English is so hierarchical. In Cree, we don't have animate-inanimate comparisons between things. Animals have souls that are equal to ours. Rocks have souls, trees have souls. Trees are 'who,' not 'what. ↗

— Tomson Highway

#indigenous-peoples #language #nature #equality

Let's all understand that these guiding principles cannot be discarded for short-term political gains. They represent what this country is all about. They are indigenous to the American idea. And these are principles which are not negotiable. ↗

— Barbara Jordan

#american #american idea #cannot #country #discarded

In 2006, I entered the presidential palace in the main square of La Paz as the first indigenous president of Bolivia. Our government, under the slogan 'Bolivia Changes,' is committed to ending the colonialism, racism and exclusion that many of our people lived under for many centuries. ↗

— Evo Morales

#centuries #changes #colonialism #committed #ending