BECOMING 'INDIGENOUS'

When we talk about indigenous peoples, we usually mean the guys who got there first, who've been there forever. It was first used in this sense in the Americas in the 1600s. But technically it means native to a land, and that applies to most of us. So that can create confusion.

Take your pick, because I want to talk about what the word connotes as well as denotes. Its connotation is suggested by the etymology, coming from the Latin 'indigene' meaning 'sprung from the land'. What's not to like about that?

That, for me, is the real meaning of indigenous. You can be born in England and have lived there all your life, and yet not be 'sprung from the land'. Indigenous in this sense suggests a belonging to the land and to the natural world. It is the reclaiming of that felt belonging that I feel is at the heart of our modern shamanic enterprise.

In this way 'indigenous' becomes a universal attribute of being, that reflects the common world-view wherever you find indigenous people. And here's the thing: indigeneity becomes a way of relating to the whole natural world, such that if you transplant an Australian aborigine to North America, he or she would remain indigenous. They would not be indigenous 'to' North America, but they would embody the indigenous way of being nonetheless.

 

In our multicultural, globalist world, I think indigenous also has to mean sprung from the earth herself, so that you carry it wherever you go.

This post came out of a video course on the Medicine Wheel that I am constructing for Watkins publishers. I said that the purpose of the Medicine Wheel, and Shamanism more broadly, is to learn to relate to the world and to yourself as an indigenous person would. Which means living in balance with the world, and it is that which keeps you in balance within. Which is why going for a walk in nature can sort everything out. Mother Earth heals us and brings us back into balance if we expose ourselves to her, feel her with our hearts, give thanks to her, enjoy her.

Certainly the Medicine Wheel helps us find indigeneity, how could it not if approached through all 4 directions? As for the shamanic journeying side of things, to which some people try to narrow down the word shamanism, does that help make us indigenous? It can certainly fill us full of spirit, that same spirit that courses through nature. So yes. But it has its pitfalls, in that it emphasises just 2 directions: East and West, Spirit coming into matter. It does not, for example, involve much of the North, the Mind, objectivity and rationality: indeed, it can encourage a prejudice in favour of intuition over rational thought, and when you do that, your intuition soon stops being intuition.

I wasn't expecting to write that last para! Don't get me wrong, I love the journeying side of shamanism, which for me is like dance. But it needs the context of something like the Medicine Wheel to find its place in the scheme of things. The Medicine Wheel, which asks us to build a relationship with the elements outside of ourselves: Sun, Rain, Soil and Wind - will gradually make of us indigenous people. And you can do it in your back garden. Just a few minutes a day, done with intention, is a powerful thing.