In a cramped little kitchen
filled with laughter and smiles
I sit at the table with 2 nokomisinonnig
Their long, straight, grey hair
pulled loosely behind them
while wrinkled round faces
look sweetly down at me
One of them begins by drawing the eye
to a beautifully quilted, coat that she wears
running her fingers along stitched designs
of silver grey stars over universe seams
The other now shows me the coat that she wears
soft to the touch with an apricot hue
and shaking the coat and making it billow
I see a new story begin to unfold
Some people write books while others may carve
some people sing, while others might dance
but these little old ladies who sit in their kitchen
show me the way, they share their own stories
* Nokomisinonnig (Grandmothers)
Showing posts with label Indigenous knowledge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indigenous knowledge. Show all posts
Thursday, 3 January 2013
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
7. Strength through love
Lack of compassion filled my heart with fear
forced my eyes shut and made me play nursery rhymes
about god in my ears
Lack of compassion saw nights of terror
endless days filled with worry
and impending horror with the setting of the sun
But love and compassion - that's a different story
Love and compassion now made me laugh and take pity
on shadows that screamed and howled all around me
Love and compassion made me reach out and guide
the lost and forlorn to safety and rest
But love and compassion now give me the strength
to ask - if good or bad, is its actual intent....
forced my eyes shut and made me play nursery rhymes
about god in my ears
Lack of compassion saw nights of terror
endless days filled with worry
and impending horror with the setting of the sun
But love and compassion - that's a different story
Love and compassion now made me laugh and take pity
on shadows that screamed and howled all around me
Love and compassion made me reach out and guide
the lost and forlorn to safety and rest
But love and compassion now give me the strength
to ask - if good or bad, is its actual intent....
Sunday, 17 July 2011
4. Kete o Te Wānanga
The grandfather of western philosophy 16th century german Immanuel Kant said "Science is the organisation of knowledge, wisdom is the organisation of daily life" thereby shaping the minds of western society's greatest scholars and it's universities.
With the imposition of colonial states, indigenous bodies of knowledge became supplanted by western philosophy, indigenous knowledge theory and ideas appropriated and incorporated into western knowledge thereby contributing and expanding it.
Māori and indigenous people worldwide now became dispossessed - not only of their knowledge, but their claims to knowledge itself, their knowledge now labelled as 'information' and they themselves now re-labelled as 'wise' or 'people with wisdom' but never having any notions of science let alone information or knowledge management systems.
Even when Io said to Tāne 'kia mau ki ō ringa ngā Kete o Te Wānanga' (hold fast to the Baskets of Knowledge) - words which have been sung, woven, and spoken of over many hundreds of years to Māori and non-Māori alike, there has been the pervading assumption that Māori do not have knowledge nor ways of organising it.
What is even more concerning though is our own reliance on western philosophy, on the way we contribute to the further development and expansion of it, and the prejudice and contempt we ourselves have for our own knowledge.
With relative ease we will employ western methodology to study Māori subject matter albeit with an outcome ameliorating Māori economic, social or political life, but in doing so we re-affirm the place and importance of western tools of enquiry over our own, we substantiate it's place of importance, and contribute to it's growth through the innovative use of it's methods.
So what were the methods or ways of attaining knowledge and what is the place of rituals like tauparapara, waere and karakia? We currently see karakia used in all sorts of situations so I suspect one of the next major steps will be establishing which karakia or kawa and tikanga are used with each specific practice enabling a person to become enlightened. After that, we might as well have a look and see if there are any commonalities which run right across them pointing us to a set of 'conditions' or 'ways of knowing'.
Insurmountable task? Nah - not really. If we just jump across to 'the other camp' i.e western philosophy, we see the derivation of all the disciplines from a core set of principles or even one singular truth - measurement; Arts and Humanties from the Social Sciences, Social Sciences from Science, Science from Mathematics.
Could all Māori knowledge be descended from one singular principle itself? Watch this space....
Reference Link
With the imposition of colonial states, indigenous bodies of knowledge became supplanted by western philosophy, indigenous knowledge theory and ideas appropriated and incorporated into western knowledge thereby contributing and expanding it.
Māori and indigenous people worldwide now became dispossessed - not only of their knowledge, but their claims to knowledge itself, their knowledge now labelled as 'information' and they themselves now re-labelled as 'wise' or 'people with wisdom' but never having any notions of science let alone information or knowledge management systems.
Even when Io said to Tāne 'kia mau ki ō ringa ngā Kete o Te Wānanga' (hold fast to the Baskets of Knowledge) - words which have been sung, woven, and spoken of over many hundreds of years to Māori and non-Māori alike, there has been the pervading assumption that Māori do not have knowledge nor ways of organising it.
What is even more concerning though is our own reliance on western philosophy, on the way we contribute to the further development and expansion of it, and the prejudice and contempt we ourselves have for our own knowledge.
With relative ease we will employ western methodology to study Māori subject matter albeit with an outcome ameliorating Māori economic, social or political life, but in doing so we re-affirm the place and importance of western tools of enquiry over our own, we substantiate it's place of importance, and contribute to it's growth through the innovative use of it's methods.
So what were the methods or ways of attaining knowledge and what is the place of rituals like tauparapara, waere and karakia? We currently see karakia used in all sorts of situations so I suspect one of the next major steps will be establishing which karakia or kawa and tikanga are used with each specific practice enabling a person to become enlightened. After that, we might as well have a look and see if there are any commonalities which run right across them pointing us to a set of 'conditions' or 'ways of knowing'.
Insurmountable task? Nah - not really. If we just jump across to 'the other camp' i.e western philosophy, we see the derivation of all the disciplines from a core set of principles or even one singular truth - measurement; Arts and Humanties from the Social Sciences, Social Sciences from Science, Science from Mathematics.
Could all Māori knowledge be descended from one singular principle itself? Watch this space....
Reference Link
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