APA Newsletters

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2

Newsletter on American Indians in Philosophy

Native Science Assists a Science Major or Graduate Program

Previous Article | Index | Next Article

Native Science Assists a Science Major or Graduate Program
An Interview with Dr. Gregory Cajete

by Richard Simonelli

Those who are college bound might have their sights set on careers in science or want to explore science majors at universities, state colleges or other post secondary schools. Science professionals work in areas of "pure science," such as research, or in "applied science" also known as technology. Computer science and software engineering are hot areas for computer science professionals now. Science-related courses span a spectrum from archeology to zoology and biology to wildlife management. The list of what science professionals do is endless.
Dr. Gregory Cajete from Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico, has written book called Native Science: The Natural Laws of Interdependence. The difference between the viewpoint of the Western science you'll study at school and the traditional knowledge of tribal cultures might be summed up by the second part of Dr. Cajete's book title: The Natural Laws of Interdependence. Native science understands the world as a highly interconnected and interrelated place. Its approach to knowledge is holistic and more inclusive than science as we know it today. It knows that we are all related and interdependent.

In this interview Dr. Greg Cajete talks about Native science and its relationship to studying science and going on to science careers. He discusses how Native science is an interconnected science and how you can include its viewpoint even at school. He talks about what Native science is all about and how knowing about the traditional knowledge viewpoint of tribal cultures can help as you study the many science courses you'll take at school.

Question

What is meant by Native science or traditional knowledge? Is it something that only took place in traditional times or is it still alive today?

Dr. Greg Cajete

Defining Native science is a really complex task but it is really all the kinds of things that a group of Native people did, or continue to do, that facilitates their ability to survive and live within the environments that they now live. Native science can be anything from the ways in which you predict the weather, to predicting the best time to plant based on watching the sun rise and set, to techniques that deal with certain kinds of ways to plant crops in positions to receive the summer rain and to grow as a result of that. It's a gamut of things. Sometimes it's referred to as technology but it's more than just technology. Its a guided sense of how to use technology in the context of living and also giving back, a kind of mutual, reciprocal relationship.
Native science continues to be practiced as a body of knowledge that is reflected in the history of various peoples all the way from the early paleo-Indians with technologies related to hunting. But its also still with us today in things that Native groups do to hunt, to fish, to plant, and it is expressed in a variety of ways in different tribes.

Question

Suppose, for example, that we want to understand about frogs. How would Native science seek to know about frogs and what relationship would that have to how Western science might do it?

Dr. Greg Cajete

From a Native science perspective, the first thing would be to define what your relationship is to frogs from a cultural standpoint. You'd look at the depictions of frogs in art, the mention of frogs in traditional stories, and then based on that you'd begin to reflect or ask questions about how frogs actually interact with human beings in the context of a natural environment. You'd build a baseline sensibility about frogs in regards to one's life or the community's life. From that point on there are many directions you can take. You can reflect that understanding of relationship to frogs in traditional art forms. It might take the form of a design in pottery, or a design in bead work.

It can also take another direction which is to study the ecology of frogs. That is where the science of environmental relationships begins to come into play. You could explore the kinds of frogs that are in your immediate habitat and then begin to explore frog biology in terms of what frogs do, how they are a very important part of the eco system, the eco web. You might also study the kinds of things that are happening now to frogs where certain species of frogs are dying out as a result of pollution because they are also great indicators for the health of water, plants and the environment as a whole. They are kind of like barometers.
You can begin to see how Native knowledge and Western knowledge might work together in the context of trying to understand and gain a better, deeper appreciation and perspective of what frogs do for us as beings we interact with. We often don't pay attention to frogs until something dramatic happens, like a die-off in frog population, or a population of frogs that reflects a genetic dysfunction or malady of some type.

What I'm saying is that you can start with Native knowledge and use that to build on. Or you can start with science knowledge and then begin to explore the ways that Native knowledge complements what you are learning in the sciences. It just depends on you-on where you want to start. But what's important about Native knowledge is that it gives scientific knowledge a greater breadth of perspective and it provides real life as well as mythical and cultural examples of how certain kinds of animals and certain kinds of amphibians like frogs have played a role and how they've been thought of in the past as well as in the present.

Question

What is the place of stories, myths or visual art in Native science?

Dr. Greg Cajete

The place of stories, visual art, dance and ceremony is about celebration presented in a metaphoric way. In any of those forms Native knowledge is not presented to you literally, it is always presented metaphorically in order to make you think about relationships of the things that are important to you in your immediate environment and what your responsibility is to those things; to bring home the importance of conservation and ecological balance. Some stories relate how if you if you disrespect certain kinds of animals they will have revenge on you, and that revenge can take many, many different kinds of forms. Disease can be one. Taking themselves away as a resource would be another. All of those kinds of warnings will come about if one transgresses key ecological relationships. Those are some of the uses of the stories which Native people have.

The dances reinforce the need and importance to respect certain animals and certain relationships. They remind us to remember to remember. Visual art as a symbol can be used in a variety of ways to help you to remember to remember that these things are important. These things have a cultural as well as an environmental or ecological value that needs to be respected. They express that you have a mutual responsibility to those creatures and entities that provide you with life, food and shelter. Those are the kinds of things that stories bring to us. They bring us a sense of meaning, a sense of why relationships are important. They provide a basis of discussion and reflection in establishing and maintaining certain kinds of relationships. This is prevalent throughout Native America.

Some ceremonies take place when the first salmon come up the river, or when corn is harvested, when berries are picked, or when hunting is done. All these relationships are life relationships which are re-established and re-remembered through the process of art, dance, ceremony and story. It's a complex which keeps reminding us that we are related to these other things and that we have to respect these relationships.

Question

As students study science in college or graduate school, how can they follow a "parallel track" which includes the traditional knowledge of their own culture if they are interested? Who can they talk with if they become uneasy about what they are studying in contrast to the values they were raised with?

Dr. Greg Cajete

There are a variety of possible resources. I was able to accomplish this in my own science major by taking social science courses over and beyond what was required. A lot of those courses were Native studies courses or courses in psychology and sociology. I focused a lot of the papers that I wrote on issues or readings which dealt with Native peoples. In the course of my study of biology, that allowed me to augment or increase the perspective through the social sciences. It allowed me to study history, Native studies, and contemporary Native issues, in conjunction with the formal study of biology.

In my day you had to do that because those two subjects were largely separated. But there are more and more courses these days in the more enlightened colleges, universities and programs which allow for a kind of integration. There is more emphasis now on team teaching in the sciences. With the rise of environmental studies there is more opportunity now than there used to be to actually create a course of study that does integrate a historical-cultural perspective with a scientific one. But that means that the students themselves have to take on the responsibility of creating their course work in such a way that allows them to access these other programs and courses.

In some colleges the Indian program advisors will help students to do that if they wish. I think a lot also depends on the student also taking responsibility for their own course work and developing a program of study that works for them rather than simply receiving their course of study from an outside source and going through the motions of it. The student has to take a certain amount of responsibilty for collaborating with the people who guide them in their courses of study in science to make sure that they include "perspective" courses. That includes not only Native studies and the social sciences, but also should include the aesthetic courses in the humanities and the arts. For me that is a well-rounded science program.

Question

Which science courses or science-related career directions that can be studied in school and then entered in later life are most connected with Native science or traditional knowledge?

Dr. Greg Cajete

Anything that deals with the environment, environmental studies and ecology. I also know that architecture now has a major part of its core curriculum moving in the direction of environmental planning. It's a kind of hybrid where architecture includes science and engineering. It works with the sense of place by studying communities and how communities evolve. It also includes the technical arts. Those are areas which have a great deal to do with the interests of Native science.

The medical field, including nursing, can also have a very large focus on Native issues, Native community and Native perspective if you form them that way. It requires that the Native student becomes a wise consumer of education and forces the advisors in various kinds of science programs to realize that the Native perspective is important to the student and that they want it as a part of their formal training. Through the process of collaboration, you can come up with courses that allow you to express or learn within the framework of Native science.

Question

So the personal academic advisors play a pretty important role for a student to design a course of study that really works for them?

Dr. Greg Cajete

Yes. And here is a word to science advisors wherever they may be. When they try to force a student into a lock-step curriculum without giving them the opportunity to branch out and have electives, to have avenues in which they can incorporate their Native perspective, then they are doing that student a great disservice. They exacerbate the feeling of isolation of the student. Advisors themselves, especially science advisors, have to start doing their homework about their students because they can guide students into too-narrow curricula. They have to have a certain amount of sensitivity to the needs of Native students, which they have not shown in the past, if they are to help in Native student retention and success.

Question

Is this better than it was 5 or 10 years ago?

Dr. Greg Cajete

It seems to go through cycles of ups and downs. For a while there was openness and sensitivity. But the pressures of the curriculum itself, and to graduate in a certain number of semesters, cause advisors to push everything to the side except what the student really, really needs to have. But for Native students you have to create a context in which other courses can be used to develop the student's scientific knowledge and literacy.

Question

I think this is also especially true in engineering where there have been many attempts to broaden the curriculum but it had to go to five years to even attempt that. It was the demands of the engineering curriculum itself which forced it to be a narrow educational undertaking.

Dr. Gregory Cajete

Yes, that's part of it. But the other part is that the science professors themselves have to start walking their talk about including a broader perspective of how the science they are teaching is applied to life and living. Science education, especially higher education, has a tremendously long way to go in terms of making science more relevant to students. It is a long-term systemic problem in which Native people suffer to a greater extent. But non Native students suffer as a result of this narrowness as well. The programs actually drive good students out.

Question

What else would you like to say to Native students especially bound for the sciences?

Dr. Greg Cajete

When you go to college as a Native student there is a double responsibility. Accepting that responsibility and being with it is really important in terms of your ultimate success. That responsibility is first to make it through the program. The other part of the responsibility deals with the responsibility you have for your own education. We have Native studies programs, Native student services programs, sensitive advisors, and a willingness on the part of many college professors and service people to work with native students. But ultimately it is the Native student who has to make the decision to succeed. They need to bring into their programs a perspective of their People.

Question

How can that be done?

Dr. Greg Cajete

The most important thing is to learn as much as you can about the history of your own people and the history of Native peoples as a whole as a part of your college training. Sometimes that includes taking a course or two here and there. It also includes self-education as being a foundation from which you then can build and apply the scientific knowledge that you are gaining. It is a hard road to travel because Native students have difficulty enough just navigating the system and passing the courses. There are many ways in colleges and universities to learn about the Native perspective. There are great libraries. If you do a project, do one that relates to a Native issue. If you do a paper, focus on Native issues and history. That way you are doing self-education. It always begins with a sense of history and a sense of the issues. Then you apply the scientific knowledge you are learning to that.

Question

Then the scientific knowledge becomes a tool and not an end unto itself?

Dr. Greg Cajete

Right. I've used something I call the "archeology metaphor." Archeologists will dig bones and dig ruins to find out information so they can bring it back and augment the knowledge of the archeological community. But if you reverse that and say, "What I'm doing here in college is digging the bones of Western knowledge, Western scientific perspective, so that I can bring back to my own people something that is important about us and to us." It is crossing those borders and looking at yourself as a scout or an archeologist in a foreign land. That's what a college and a university is. It's a foreign territory. You are excavating and you are mining things that you feel are important. But in order to do that well you have to have a sense of purpose, history and the issues you wish to apply that knowledge to.

Gregory Cajete, Tewa, from Santa Clara Pueblo, is Assistant Professor at the University of New Mexico's College of Education and also teaches at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. He is editor of A People's Ecology: Explorations in Sustainable Living and is the author of Look to the Mountain: An Ecology of Indigenous Education and Ignite the Sparkle: An Indignous Science Education Model. His latest book is Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence.

Dr. Cajete also operates his own consulting organization, Tewa Educational Consulting. He can be reached at (505) 753-8034.

Previous Article | Index | Next Article

APA Newsletters

Spring 2001 Volume 00, Number 2

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2