[News] Stop believing this myth: No, Native Americans are not “anti-science”

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.salon.com/2016/10/09/stop-believing-this-myth-no-native-americans-are-not-anti-science/ 



  Stop believing this myth: No, Native Americans are not “anti-science”

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitaker - October 9, 2016

*/Excerpted from “’All the Real Indians Died Off': And 20 Other Myths 
About Native Americans” by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitaker 
(Beacon Press, 2016). Reprinted with Permission from Beacon Press/.*

Few people in the world have more reason to be anti-science than 
American Indians, given the history of the way science was used in 
service of U.S. political agendas to dispossess them of their lands and 
subjugate them. It was a point alluded to in 2012 by Jason Antrosio, a 
professor of anthropology at Hartwick College, in a blog on an 
anthropology website. Specifically, Antrosio expressed his understanding 
about why many Native Americans refuse to participate in genetic 
studies. He was responding to a post on another anthropology blog in 
which the author, writing under the pseudonym Dienekes Pontikos, claimed 
that the “big hole” in genetic sampling of Native groups in the United 
States is due to “petty identity politics contra science.” Echoing this, 
a commentator at the Discover magazine blog wrote that “Native Americans 
are not special snowflakes” (because they are not the only ones who have 
been subject to historic injustices) and that “holding a grudge is no 
excuse for anti-science.” The arrogant condescension of these and other 
science writers reflects a belief that Indigenous Americans somehow owe 
their DNA to genetics studies and that when they disagree, they are 
automatically deemed to be against science.

While experience has taught Native Americans that there are very good 
reasons to be leery of genetic testing, flippant statements about being 
anti-science are at best unfair and at worst not just incorrect, but 
also inflammatory and provocative. These statements are irresponsible 
and only build obstacles between Native peoples and Western-based 
science communities, and genetic science is only the most recent realm 
to exhibit such anti-Indian antagonism. There is an abundance of 
evidence embedded in Native cultures — and scholarship to back it up — 
that is the opposite of these vitriolic claims, highlighting the fact 
that Native people have always had their own forms of science and modes 
of knowledge production, even if they aren’t recognized as such by 
positivist, Cartesian-based Western systems.

One of the biggest challenges for Indigenous people in North America 
(and elsewhere) is being seen by dominant populations as peoples with 
legitimate systems of knowledge, a problem thanks to centuries of white 
supremacy that constructed Indigenous peoples as inferior in every way. 
As one of the preeminent scholars on Native science, Gregory Cajete, 
points out, elders, activists, scholars, and intellectuals have told a 
different story. The word “science” as it is commonly used refers 
narrowly to complex, specialized, and mechanistic systems of measurement 
to understand what we call reality. Literally translated, however, 
science refers simply to systematized knowledge. In this sense, all 
Native peoples have their own structures of empirically based knowledge. 
>From their observations they developed technologies that made their 
lives easier, in characteristically sustainable ways. The following are 
five of the most ancient, well known, and influential of those 
Indigenous technologies.

*Astronomy***

Astronomy is one of the oldest forms of science. Consistent with Native 
worldviews that recognized the interdependence of all life, even the 
stars and other celestial bodies were seen as relatives who guided the 
lives of the people in tangible ways. The movement of celestial bodies 
could determine ceremonial cycles and festivals, or war and other events 
of political or religious significance. They also figure prominently in 
the creation stories of many peoples. Like peoples all over the world, 
Indigenous peoples read the heavens to keep track of time.

Calendar systems like Plains peoples’ winter count and other forms of 
pictographs, drawings, and rock art (such as those found throughout the 
American Southwest and the painted caves of the Chumash) were records 
that allowed people to maintain important traditions year after year. 
Some, like the Nazca geoglyphs in Peru, are thought to possibly be 
manifestations of geometry and mathematics. One of the most pragmatic 
applications of astronomical knowledge was its ability to guide cycles 
of planting and harvesting.

*Hydraulic engineering *

Many Indigenous cultures in pre-contact North and South America were 
known to have complex irrigation systems that could sustain communities 
of thousands of people. Archaeological evidence from the Hohokam culture 
(ancestors of the Tohono O’odham people in today’s Arizona) and 
Peruvians in pre-Incan and Incan times suggests irrigation technology 
that includes canals, pipelines, aqueducts, dams, reservoirs, and check 
valves dating back to 300 B.C., far earlier than European technological 
advances.

*Agriculture*

Contrary to the popular colonial myth of Indians as nomadic wanderers, 
many (if not most) Native nations were agriculturalists of the highest 
degree. What we today call “permaculture” is, as Cajete wrote, “in 
reality applied Indigenous science.” Indigenous knowledge of bioregional 
sustainability sometimes even included game management. Great Lakes 
peoples cultivated rice, cattails, and pond lilies. All over North and 
South America, Indigenous peoples experimented with farming techniques, 
resulting in many of the world’s most widely consumed food crops today. 
For example, Iroquois and other Native North Americans planted the Three 
Sisters — corn, beans, and squash — together to ensure long-term soil 
fertility and maximum output. Growing these crops in small mounds 
prevented soil erosion compared to linear plowing, and the technique was 
adopted by some European immigrant farmers.

Furthermore, Native peoples practiced hybridization techniques long 
before researchers like Gregor Mendel and Luther Burbank popularized 
them, resulting in many varieties of corn, chilies, beans, and squash. 
And the so-called Mississippian Mound Builders in the U.S. South, the 
predecessors to today’s Cherokee, Choctaw, and other Southeast peoples, 
have long been the subject of archaeological and anthropological study 
in complex pre-Columbian civilizations. Cahokia, located in today’s 
Illinois, is exemplary. A city at the time larger than London, it is 
thought to have supported a population of between twenty thousand and 
fifty thousand people at its height in around 1250 to 1300 because of 
the ability to produce surplus food.

*Transportation and road building *

In North America after the last ice age, Native peoples had no use for 
the wheel because species that might have been draft animals had gone 
extinct. But Native Americans were highly mobile and constructed a 
network of trails that are still evident today. What became pioneer 
wagon trails such as the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails, the Central and 
Southern Overland Trails, the Wilderness Road (through the Cumberland 
Gap), and the Natchez Trace are still visible on maps as highways.

In Mexico, the Mayans built a network of roads centered in the Yucatán 
city of Cobá around AD 623. These roads were remarkable for their 
rubble-filled raised construction that ranged from two to eight feet 
above ground and were lined with limestone concrete. Roads were as long 
as sixty-two miles, and archaeologists have found a five-ton cylindrical 
roller for packing the ground, similar to steamroller equipment used today.

In South America, the Incas constructed a 24,000-mile complex of roads 
centered around the city of Cuzco, roads that extended as far away as 
the Amazon and Argentina. These included suspension bridges, solid 
bridges with stone piers and wooden decking, and even tunnels cut 
through solid granite. Bridges crossed gorges, marshes, and other 
seasonally wet areas and incorporated culverts to prevent water from 
flooding them.

*Water navigation and vessels*

Wherever there was water, Indigenous peoples developed watercraft. In 
North America, canoes were common among coastal, lake, and river 
populations. Great Lakes peoples built bark-covered canoes, and Arctic 
peoples constructed sealskin kayaks. Pacific Northwest peoples 
constructed elaborate dugout canoes big enough to hold as many as 
20 people and thousands of pounds of cargo, and their maritime history 
is among the oldest in the world. The Chumash and Tongva peoples of 
coastal Southern California were known for their /tomol/, a sewn plank 
canoe that is considered one of the oldest forms of seafaring craft in 
North America. It is believed by some scholars to be influenced by 
ancient Polynesians. Recent discoveries on Santa Rosa Island off the 
coast of Southern California confirm the ancient ocean-navigating 
abilities of the Chumash people dating back at least eleven thousand 
years, far predating the seafaring cultures of ancient Egypt, Europe, 
and Asia.

As is true for peoples globally, the technological innovations of 
ancient Indigenous peoples were grounded in particular worldviews. They 
were formed by their experiences within specific places over millennia. 
Scholarship from Indigenous peoples everywhere emphasizes that there are 
different ways of knowing the world, beyond the dominant educational 
paradigms that privilege Eurocentric philosophical foundations. These 
foundations can be traced to (among other things) Judeo-Christian 
traditions that construct and continually reinforce social hierarchies 
and views through a lens of domination and alienation from the natural 
world. Indigenous knowledge construction broadly speaking, on the other 
hand, rests in a view of the world grounded in relational thinking, 
respect, and reciprocity, which translates as a sense of responsibility 
to life in all its many and diverse forms. Scholars actively assert 
these differences within contemporary academic discourses — even within 
the hard sciences — through associations, curriculums, and educational 
approaches that reflect these values.

Take as an example the American Indian Science and Engineering Society 
(AISES). Founded in 1977, the group sees no inherent conflict between 
American Indian values and those embodied in the sciences. Quite the 
opposite, in fact, says Cherokee engineer and educator George Thomas:

    I feel [science] is actually a natural thing for Native
    Americans because of our relationship to the Earth, our spiritual
    beliefs, and respect for The Creator’s great laws. Science is really
    just a way of understanding what The Creator has put here. It’s
    not just an academic pursuit for us; science and theology are
    one and the same. It is also a mistake to assume that technology is
    exclusive to one culture or another. Take for example the teepee.
    It’s a very aerodynamic shape that can withstand high winds and snow
    loading, with strong convection heating and cooling properties.

According to the AISES mission statement, the group sustains 186 
chartered college and university chapters, 14 professional chapters, and 
170 affiliated K–12 schools supporting American Indian students in the 
disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). 
Similarly, the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native 
Americans in Science (SACNAS) is a collaboration dedicated to supporting 
the educational success of Hispanic and Native American people in science.

Native American perspectives have woven themselves into college-level 
education throughout the United States as evidenced by the Native 
American Science Curriculum. The curriculum engages Indigenous research 
methods that are applicable in tribal contexts such as resource 
management, while also working to break down derogatory stereotypes and 
biases. And innovative projects at the K–12 level are infusing 
Indigenous traditional environmental knowledge (TEK) into conventional 
Western-based environmental education. With a multi-million-dollar grant 
from the National Science Foundation in 2010, for instance, the 
Indigenous Education Institute partnered with the Oregon Museum of 
Science and Industry to create a traveling exhibit called “Generations 
of Knowledge” that blends TEK with Western science, showcasing 
“culturally relevant contexts as valuable, complementary ways of 
knowing, understanding and caring for the world.”

<http://www.salon.com/2016/10/09/stop-believing-this-myth-no-native-americans-are-not-anti-science/>
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