Indigenous Knowledge: Reading the Landscape

I greet you this morning with two feelings. The first perhaps naturally and I suspect many of us feel it is that um I wish today was not the last day and it came too soon. Um but the second is that I'm also very excited for this morning's program. Uh we have two panels. Uh the first one is titled indigenous knowledge reading the landscape. The second panel is titled cultivating intellectual life contributing to discourse in the biological sciences. Both of today's panels are reflective of the history and the direction of the association over the past several years. The panels will reflect rich and profound perspectives on the applicability of the revelation of Bahala to various facets of the intellectual life of the Bahigh community. So I would like to invite the panelists up. [applause] Indigenous knowledge reading the landscape will bring together scholars and practitioners immersed in indigenous knowledge to offer readings of the academic, professional, and related discourses shaping the field today. Each panelist will reflect on the landscape of their particular area of engagement, examining the underlying assumptions at play. the framing of prevailing discourses and the key concepts and questions currently being grappled with. A thread of coherence running through the panel is the principle of universal participation. Explored here in relation to indigenous knowledge systems as one among many ways of knowing and being in the world. This includes embodied spirit spiritually grounded modes of learning that point towards a unity in diversity of understanding. The Bahigh community in a spirit of deep listening stands to learn and contribute much to this vital way of knowing. Ana White is a 44year-old cremate and Persian governance and public policy professional and founder of Firestone Policy Group. Her family is from Edmonton, Alberta with roots in Goodfish Lake First Nation and the St. Paul de Matei settlement. She holds a bachelor of commerce, a jurist doctor, and is completing an executive MBA. Her work specializes in the use of indigenous laws to develop strong legal and policy frameworks governing lands, resources, and justice systems grounded in community consultation, research, and contemporary governance tools to guide to guide practical change. She speaks conversational cre and Farsy and her 15-year-old identical twins are members of the Snoo First Nation. She has been married to Doug White for 20 years. Both of her parents are Bahigh and her parents met on pilgrimage in the 1970s. Her Persian family names are Shirazi and her cremate family names include Todd, Cardinal, and Dejar. Dr. Imasumak Manong Davis is a Bahigh transdisciplinary scholar, writer, and educator whose work explores movements between ancestral knowings and future understandings, spirit-driven scholarship, and embodied practice. She stands in tremundos between Ketwa ancestry and EnglishIrish roots. She is recipient of the Joyce Spencer Champion dissertation award and a UN delegate for the Bahigh International Community at the UN permanent forum on indigenous issues. With a doctorate in education for social change for social justice, her scholarship is sustained by a central question. How do we learn to live and create in between? Dr. Michael Orona has served in senior level US foreign policy positions, including as the White House director for Africa affairs and senior adviser for international indigenous issues, co-leading the White House Committee on International Indigenous Rights. He holds a JD and an MS. He is Chihenn Apachi and Yaki and is the author of the brave ones. And last but not least, the moderator of our panel, Jordan Bigghorn. Born in 1978 to Deloreia and Jacob Bigghorn. Jordan is of Lakota heritage, hailing from the Fort Peek, Aino, and Sue tribes. He currently serves as acting assistant deputy minister for indigenous excellence and education for the Manitoba government. He is a passionate laborer in the field of truth and reconciliation with particular focus on the emerging landscape of community-based education. Jordan, Melena, and their children also serve in a focused neighborhood where local youth gather on a weekly basis to consider how service to humanity can change the world. Jordan also serves on the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahigh of Canada. Jordan, [applause] ready? Okay. Testing, testing, testing. Oh, there we go. Thank you to our AV techs in the back. That's what a thankless job, you know, but such power. The push of a button as we all know when we got used to Zoom and Teams over uh COVID and then now most recently in our daily affair, you're muted. You're muted. So this morning uh with these incredible people on stage, these three to my left in particular, we hope to express and share uh some unmuted knowledge, experience, story and most importantly the interconnectedness of relationship which as representatives of the first peoples the stewards of this hemisphere because I think what you'll see uh and what you may have heard through some of the introductions is that we do have quite a representation certainly from Turtle Mountain or uh Turtle Island rather uh but then going all the way into our South American relatives. Um and you know I don't think she's in the room today. I I know that she just had a young baby and so maybe needed to rest some some more but uh Ukadu uh is here. She brought her newborn um and she is representing and brings her ancestry of the Inuit far far north and made it all the way down uh to be with us. Um so north, south, east, west, we got I think a lot of the bases covered here. I just like would also acknowledge in particular to what we would have heard from uh just that incredible address last night from our universal house of justice member uh Mr. Razie in acknowledging this call and opportunity and invitation for all of us to be uh practitioners of peace but that there would be needed uh learning, engagement, relationship and perhaps a blending and mixing of such things to create uh new chemistry, new idea, new reality, new dream and quite frankly I think to me when I hear of the mixing of our bloods from both of these cradles, the cradle of our First Nations and indigenous peoples of this hemisphere and the cradle of the blood of Iranian and Persian relatives. Um, it gives access perhaps vision and long sight of where we are going together now that our two families have come together in such a degree. Without any further ado, we would like to begin with words from elders. It'll be a short video clip. I promised Shabnam I wouldn't be showing any more Disney movies, so don't worry. [laughter] But this first clip is from an Inishab elder Alex Half who was sharing and expressing how coming to Bahala transformed him as of course as we know that it that he does often. But in the midst of this letter he was reading about his experience and his in his wishes for our community for growth and healing he moved into this story and it took me a moment to to click out of it and realize he was he was recounting a story from Adiphirday's book the revelation of Bahala and he's talking about an early babe who had recognized the the message of the bo he was a caravan driver and relates this story that I could see and I hope you as Well, can see Alex relating to this man as he describes how the meek, the impoverished, the ones laid low on the land, as we know in God's way, are the first to be welcomed into the cause, the first believers. And then it's followed by who needs no introduction is our elder and grandmother Doris Mlan, who of course is with us and really over watching us now from the other side camp. So we better be on our best behavior because Doris where she can really get after you. >> He was commonly referred to as Hazam Bobby. [clears throat] The merchants and his family son Hazam short the journey they did not wish to associate with one who in their estimation had embraced a heretic fate. On such long journeys, the party has to stop two or three times a day for rest and to feed the animals. On one occasion when they're resting, the merchants decided to speak to Hazen to try to guide him back to the f. So we call him to come and join the others. Having thank him for his selfless service and care, he began to converse with Ham and uh and remarked, "How is it that with all my knowledge I have failed to appreciate the validity of the Mesop while you, an almost illiterate person, claimed to have recognized the truth of his mission has took a handful of sand in his hand and said people like me have no merit in society. They are like the sand in the desert which has no value. Yet when the sun rises in the morning, the sand is the first to become illumined by its ray. [laughter] >> Is that incredible? >> Wow. I think you know one of the things about the Bahigh faith >> uh is that uh for Bahigh our teachings is that you retain your identity and you you carry on with your own language and you you your arts and your crafts and this for the bahigh I'm talking about Aboriginal Bahigh this is a saving grace because with Christianity and I will say Christianity because that's who ran the mission schools in my background was that you were to lose your identity who you were your language you were forbidden to speak. You were uh you were strapped. You were beaten. you were um many horrible and horrific happenings happened with our people. But when we came upon the Bahigh faith through visions, through dreams from the teachings of Bahigh's that came up there, Joan and Ted Anderson, the Knights of Bahala, it was a lifesaving. The whole world opened up to us and the possibilities of everything that Bahala taught us and left for us to read. The guardian saying to retain your own identity to be proud of who you are. What a contrast. What a contrast. And with that, we're going to send this medicine. I'd like to acknowledge our other relative and auntie, our matriarch, Louise, Prophet Leblanc. Thank you for bringing this medicine as we can recognize as we have with our elders that what we might share with you, what you'll hear, we want, we would want our entire communities and families and our children with us. This is not something that we would have achieved in our own uh scholarship and our our own academic our own endeavor. It truly is how we have endeavored to be a good relative and then we have been gifted different knowledges and stories to share. So with that I will send this down to our first speaker >> to me. Yes. >> Thank you. Hi. Hi. >> Hello everybody. Greetings relatives. Ana White Nitson. My name is Ana White and my CRE spirit name that was gifted to me in a sweat after many years side by side with Elder Don Campbell from Norway House is Wanchjac School, which interestingly means Eastern Star Woman. And I just like to give recognition and respect to my mother Sholay Shirazi and um just start off in a good way. I'm grateful to be on an land. I have a good feeling in my heart. Um I want to acknowledge the association for bahigh studies and I'm grateful for the invitation to share a few words. I'll try to make it short and sweet and I'm really especially uh honored to be on this panel with such incredible speakers and thinkers and thought leaders and knowledge keepers. And I'd also like to expla express my excitement that we're gathering here on International Day of the World's Indigenous People. [applause] Now, if you have been raised in a family with a second language or first language and English is your second, you'll know how important language is. And um I'd like to start with a prayer, oh God, guide me, which uh I translated, my cre language teacher and I work together to translate it over many many days, weeks. Um and I'd like to share that. Oh God, guide me with you today. Abdulah. Our panel is called indigenous knowledge reading the landscape and that image that image of the land really brings home a lot of memories for me and it can't be understood from a distance. It must be approached in relationship with land and water. And of course you might have heard me say asi which is land and water is nipp and with the people languages stories laws and responsibilities connected to that place. In my work, I've um come across a number of in inspiring and beautiful people and I've also drawn from the Bahigh teachings in to help shape some of the the thinking and the approaches that I take in the justice space. Currently, I'm working for a nation called Lake by Nation and this is a southern carrier nation based in British Columbia. They're the third largest first nation in British Columbia. We have about 204 First Nations there and I work as their justice technical lead. And so what does that mean? It means that I help implement the agreements that they have with Canada and British Columbia. And that also means we're developing our own restorative justice program and justice model. So I use the phrase indigenous knowledge system knowledge systems in the plural deliberately because I don't think that there's one indigenous knowledge system and I can only speak from my own point of view. So for those wondering the the neo or creled system is called the neo mto and what that means is it's the neo or the cre way of thinking about the world and it's about all the things that cre people have known and that's the the the knowledge system that I most uh connect to because of my family and community and these are complete coherent comprehensive knowledge systems. They are generative. They are relational. They are iterative and they are collectively owned. And that challenged some of my thinking in law school. I won't uh downplay that. It's rooted in people's lands, knowledge, thinking, experiences. These stories of resilience and of survival aren't just these individual stories. They own they're owned by families. They come get passed down as as as a a mode of thinking. As you know, Canada has experienced the uh ongoing and deliberate impacts of colonial interference. And this has really shaped a number of communities and in fact continues to the present day. But let's talk about knowledge systems. So the colonial project by its definition will has imposed a hierarchy of knowledge systems, right? And we see that tension in academia. We see that tension in fieldwork. We see that tension in schools. We see that tension in in media. And they've pushed aside indigenous laws. Again, I can only speak for my own. And the term for cre laws are migiwapa, which means the laws that come from the law lodge. Migiwapa is lodge. And it also interrupts the ceremonies that would hold a lot of these pieces of knowledge. It displaces languages. It privileges some languages in in terms of others. it uh also interrupts the the way in which memory is talked about. So we see a lot of revisionist history when we think about people writing books about indigenous people which is great which is association of beah high studies uh essential goal is to create a different conversation and to get there so this is what we're doing recent UN discussions put this clearly for those who may be aware UNESCO reported that dialogue participants recognize indigenous knowledge systems not as supplementary information but as complete systems of governance, ethics and environmental stewardship. And this week in fact UN climate change described them as living and evolving and renewed the call to from citation to application. Indigenous peoples are to choose and to share what kind of knowledge they wish to share, but it must carry. And here's here's the thing. It has to carry the authority to shape the question, the process, and the outcome. And I've had to work on that in the last 20 years in the governance and law space because I've had to make sure my approach uh centers uh d um naduen, which is the lakebin people's culture. I've had to make sure that that approach is sent is in the center, not just defaulting to the corrections model, the criminology model, the the basic, you know, the mainstream options out there is the quote from the um okay, very important. uh learned this first was exposed to this uh quotation um when I was a very young youth education for peace program. We did a youth camp. This was one of our early morning readings. Um and I want to just reflect on this. I hear a resonance here with Bahigh teachings on justice, unity, and consultation. And let's put a pin in the consultation one because it helps us. The purpose of justice is the appearance of unity among men. So we know that our bahigh view of of consultation of unity doesn't mean sorry of unity doesn't mean uniformity or avoiding difficult truths. That's my that's my personal take. And it has to be strong enough to hold difference and address unequal relationships. Now let's turn to this message of the house of justice, the beloved universal house of justice where it states that um the community is steering the trajectory of its own development with creativity and ingenuity and exploring how the principles contained in Bahala's revelation can be applied to the issues that confront it within its immediate reality. Many of us here are in the helping profession. It's quotes like this that really prevent that professional burnout that a lot of us understand and have experienced because when you're armed with this mindset, you can start to look at things from the angle of how do we get to the root cause of this issue and how do we get to a place where the nation's voice is is guiding things. So, let's get to this next point. Um, I don't know if many of you are aware, but one of the things I've done in my career is I've prepared a special specialized type of presentence report for First Nation Matey and Inuit and I've had the honor of working for Nunovet Court of Justice or sorry, Nunovet Legal Aid, Ekyowit Legal Aid, BC's Legal Aid, BC First Nation Justice Council, and for a while the Canadian Armed Forces when indigenous people who are accused um and going through their justice system, military system. And one of the goals of that work is to um ensure that the Supreme Court's mandate and decision about how to treat indigenous accused persons in courts um is is realized. And so you may or may not know this, but the Canadian Supreme Court has asked and required judges, and I know this is heavy, but I'll explain how this has shaped my thinking, requires judges to consider the unique systemic and background factors that may have played a part in an individual's offense cycle. So what does that mean? So we know about povertybased crimes. We know that nonviolent, non-serious offenses are often leading to indigenous people being imprisoned and oftentimes is the lack of access to good legal counsel that really pushes them deeper and deeper into the system. This is very concerning for me. This is something that was brought up to me when during my law school days and I could never get away from it. I could never explain why are our numbers so high. I've worked in many prisons and I've interviewed many individuals there and I've noticed that the stories tend to be the same. There's a consistent theme of intergenerational trauma from residential school. There's a lack of economic opportunity, lower education. We have the highest rates of the things people don't want and the lowest rates of things that people want, which is education and and economic well-being. So that was my experience for 12 years. And as you can imagine, sitting in a state of compassionate witnessing and listening to survivors stories, you start to understand that there are some pieces there that were really, really misplaced from the start and communities didn't get an equal opportunity and a chance to thrive. So what I'm trying to say is that for me as an indigenous person, [clears throat] I have to look at what is the indigenous knowledge system that can pull this person back out of this out of the state of difficulty of of chronic, you know, reoffending and and consistent challenges. How can we put this person back together? So we call it the whole human being theory. And to do that, I do have to interview a lot of elders and a lot of knowledge keepers. And then I present that to the judge or it's presented in a report. It's not an advocacy report. It's a piece of uh um it's an evidence-based document to assist with what's called a rehabilitation plan. So, we're looking at all kinds of pieces of there. So what I'm trying to get to is that this could include treatment, counseling, education, restorative justice, working with elders, and ultimately this is often the most powerful and transformative way of assisting an indigenous accused person uh to regain integration back into society and to be able to um flourish. But to do that, there's an element of listening and of understanding. How did we get here? How did this individual come to be involved in the criminal justice system? And very Oh, I was told not to put my hair in your ear. There was an individual once that I was interviewing and he was in his 40s and he was at the Suriri North Fraser, sorry, he was at the North Fraser pre-trial center and he was from Dawson Creek area and I said to him, "How are you doing?" And he responded back, he was like, "Duna, Dunce," which is very of northern dialect. And I said, "How are you?" So we started talking. I said, "When was the first time that um because he was in he was charged with assault, I think, but I said to him, "When was the first time that you ever I see a lot of break and enters in your in your file?" "When was the first time you did a break and enter?" And he leaned back, really warm, nice guy, and he says, "I was about six." And I said, "Six? Did you say 16 or six?" And he said, "No, I was six." And I said, "What happened?" So he used to knock on doors in his community, like in his in his neighborhood, and he would ask for bottles and cans. And he did this with his uncle. But the times that they didn't have anyone answer the door, he and his uncle would essentially enter the home through a small door, just the little guy, and then he would open the front door. And I said, "Really?" Now, here's where the judgment could kick in. You know, you can clutch pearls, you can sit back, and you could say, "How could you do that?" And I said, "Hey, what did you steal? Just tell me like what does a six-year-old steal?" And I was expecting that it would be money, CDs, VHS, whatever it was. And he says, "Oh, just food. We just stole food from the fridge or the from the cupboards." And I said, "No money." And he's like, "Not really. It just we just got the food when we left." And so it occurred to me that because of that piece of poverty really shaping the socialization of that individual, you could see how that individual had grown into teenagehood and adulthood in this different sort of stream of activity. Right? This is what I'm talking about when I say about really listening to how this individual got here. It's the same musculature. It's the same mindset when I think about how to apply the Bahigh teachings in the work of justice and building community based justice. Okay. So I want to sort of land on this piece and say that you know there these are questions of how do we ensure fairness for indigenous people in the justice system. But it to me as a Bahigh person, it's also important to consider the question of love and inclusion. And so what that looks like for me is that love isn't a sentiment. It's a commitment to how a person's dignity is addressed through unfair conditions that may lead them before a judge. So um to to close this I want to share with you that that different way of knowing and of thinking about how to put together a whole human being and take them out of this constant cycle. It really requires a degree of flexibility of thinking about what solutions could be attained. How do we move from um you know that respectful encounter to have that humility to sit and to think and to bring together everyone's resources in that nation to determine so whether it's caribou hunting for several months as an isolation from society versus jail that can easily become an alternative sentence for an indigenous person that does help them reconnect back with their elders or in our in our language we would say kayak with elders So finally our task is not to collect indigenous knowledge as information. It's to keep centering that indigenous knowledge to develop that healing plan to develop that opportunity for that individual to thrive and to be um approached with humility and love so that justice may become more than an abstract principle. It's my hope, it's my belief, personal belief that it can also help us to ensure that we see unity in action as well and inclusion. So, thank you for listening. Thank you. [applause] Thank you for providing that centering for us with the foundations of our elders to begin. And now we move to Dr. Imma Sumak to kind of broaden us further out to land to family and relationship. California. My name is Imasumak Maron Davis. I come from California in the United States. My father is from Bolivia of Ketwa ancestry from the Andes Mountains. And my mother is of English and Irish ancestry from those early pilgrims that landed in New England and never left that area. And I was raised in a small village in southern Mexico in Kintanro among the Mayan community. So I always say soy Mexicana deoras because that beautiful country took care of me. I want to offer deep gratitude to the Anesnab people for this land. I just kind of want to touch it, but you know, I won't be really touching any have been down. [laughter] I'm just so grateful for the efforts of those that come before us. And so, thank you very much, Jordan, for opening up with our elders, for the medicine that is keeping us grounded. Oh my goodness, so much gratitude because, you know, we we we aren't here unless those before us make efforts. And God willing, our efforts water the land before those who come after and even those who walk during, right? That beautiful shoulderto-shoulder concept that the Universal House of Justice has gifted us with and thank you of course for the association for considering this panel and these thoughts to be shared with you this morning. I want to start with a poem. Poetry grounds me, connects me to spirit. So, I'm going to start with a poem that hopefully will help this conversation begin with me. I grew up entre and between del walking the red earth of the Andes mountains on the cobblestone path from Mama Crusa's home to El Park Central Cochabanta where my ancestors learned to be with the land at over 8,000 ft above sea level. My father would direct me between ceremonies and family, between saludias. My whole body engaged in the movement of our community. All spaces filled up. Then we board a plane, fly across mountains, plains, oceans, and arrive at the green emerald valleys of Vermont. Drive through the New England roads, forest, and trees on all sides, opening to a sweeping landscape of rolling green hills, white steeple churches, old farm houses, colonial homes. I would chat away with my aunt on her New England porch overlooking the Green Mountains, promptly stopped. Imasu, say what you mean and mean what you say. Ain't is not a word. My tongue would stop. It knew. When I think about language and I think about indigenous knowledge systems, these are all interrelated. And for me, indigenous knowledge and really any knowledge starts with a commitment. When you have a knowledge system, there are commitments you are holding to within that knowledge system. And when I think about my mother's community, their commitment was to me as an individual. They wanted my individual capacities to grow and develop. They wanted to sharpen my tongue. They wanted to make sure that I articulated well because that would show a strong mind. And so all their efforts were on my individual capacities. When I think about my father's community, the commitment was to the collective. They wanted to ensure that the group was well, that the family was good, that people felt welcomed. And so everything was directed outward salen make sure that they eat first. I remember when I was little kind of moving between these realities. My theas always cooked so good and every time they cooked I was so excited because I was ready to eat and then they would say and so the guests would come and they would get the food and I would sit there and I'm like don't take the big one. Don't take the big one. I just did. I wanted to make sure that the one I wanted I could get. And I think back and I'm like that's good training. It's good training for me, right? Hold back. Wait. Let others fill up the space. To me, knowledge system is about commitments. What are you committed to? But it is also about a connection. And this connection I learned primarily through my father's community because they kept that connection intact within their knowledge system. Within my mother's community, the roots were cut off when they landed in the United States. But for my father, they refused to let go of those roots. So let me explain this a bit. When I grew up, my father would tell me stories of Mango Kapak and Mama Oklo. They were the first holy ones to emerge from Lagot Titikaka, a holy lake, highest lake in the world in the Andes Mountains. And they came out of the lake to teach the people. And they taught them how to live, how to live with each other, how to live with the land, how to make clothes, how to cook, right? They taught them how to live together and build and create. And the last of these holy ones was Vidakocha. And Widaocha said, "I come to teach you how to build a civilization because you will need to know how to do this in the future. when another teacher will come and all the tribes of the world will come together to build one civilization and you will need to contribute towards that and what the community did is they lived out those teachings. So when we talk about indigenous knowledge, it goes back to the holy ones and that to me is a covenant. They are keeping a covenant. So indigenous knowledge when you hold to it, you are keeping a covenant with your holy ones, which is the same seamless covenant that leads us to Bahala. And so when we ask indigenous people to release that, you're asking them to release a covenant and we can't do that. Thankfully, as my sister Ana has shared, we are not asked to do that. Bahala said, "We need it all to come in." You know, in a recent uh quote from uh the Baja international community that I was had an opportunity to study with others, I was so excited to to really not only that every member of the human family has a right to benefit from a material and spiritually prosperous civilization, but an obligation to contribute towards it. But what we have to learn how to do is how to harmonize these knowledge systems. The one I shared of my mother and my father. They have both beautiful contributions. But I believe we are still learning how to harmonize these because we come from a colonial pl past that place these knowledge systems on a hierarchy and we're not quite sure that they all have something equally to contribute. However, Bahala's revelation has dispelled that and so we know that they do. Now, I also want to bring in some other voices that have been really thinking about these things as well. And so this IA scholar Sylvia Rivera Kusikanki, she recognizes as well the times that we are in. She says we are in the time ofi and chishi means that there are two distinct entities that can coexist, can contribute towards, can even create new understandings, but they will never lose their essence. And I love that. But of course, we have to learn how to do this, right? We don't know yet how to do this. This is part of our work today. So, I wanted to bring in a little bit of the beautiful communities that walked the Americas, right? Because my father told me indigenous people in the Americas are one from Thier del Fuego all the way up right to the to the Arctic Alaskan circle, right? just that mong right and so maybe instead of just my voice I can bring in a little bit of that community so you can feel and sense you know who we are with and so you're going to hear a small snippet of lo ponchos ros and lo ponchos ros um are aa group that have a tradition of kind of protecting and maintaining strength around the community And my father told me they would traditionally chant primarily in Iara which was one of the second largest tribes of of uh Bolivia along with the Ketwa. Uh but now they go between and Spanish right which is part of that inbetweeness that we're talking about. We can just hear a little of it. >> [screaming] >> You know, this is a way of being in the world, right? What we're witnessing and what we're seeing is a way of being in the world. And we want to learn how to be with others, right? In their way of being along with our own way of being. And this beautiful dance I was able to be a part of and see in my in my father's community. That's Sakaba. Sakaba is my father's birth town. And so I just wanted to share that with you and bring you a little bit closer as we learn how to stand ini together. Thank you. [applause] just to see immediately those connections and to begin with representation and work from our co-ish BC tribes to me if you know of those tribes the reflection is so clear even with the red uh blanket the poncho and then the hat it's very of course reflective of uh BC First Nations culture so we will move to uh Dr. Arona who will then take us a further step perhaps as we might consider indigenous peoples of this land crossing the ocean a kind of reverse migration if you will and what he has been able to uh observe and serve and also bring back knowledge to this continent. Thank you Jordan. Good morning everyone. Michael the I bring you greetings from my people, the indache nation of the southwestern United States and from my mother's side, the Yaki people of southern Arizona and northern Mexico. And today I am here because the man on the screen I am here because of my late father, Dr. Joel V. Orona who at the age of 16 dropped out of school and went on to serve in the US military in Vietnam and came back a changed young man who wanted to work for world peace and wanted a religion that would work for world peace and was searching for a religion that would acknowledge his own indigenous beliefs and traditions and he found that in the Bahigh faith and that's why I'm here today. >> [applause] >> I want to take a few moments as as Jordan said, we're getting close on time, but I want to take a few moments to to look and examine universal participation in ways of knowing through an international indigenous perspective. And let me start with a striking reality and that is there are 500 million indigenous peoples around the world living in over 90 countries. Indigenous peoples speak 4,000 of the world's 7,000 languages and we as indigenous peoples are 5% of the global population. Yet we steward 80% of the Earth's biodiversity. For centuries, indigenous communities have served as a source of knowledge on critical issues such as the environment, food security, equitable governance, gender equality, education, and global peace building, just to name a few. And for generations, this wisdom was not overlooked. It was not overlooked. It was targeted. through boarding schools in the United States and residential schools in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Guatemala, and beyond. These schools were designed to sever the transmission of indigenous knowledge from one generation to the next. That these indigenous communities survived is a testament to their amazing resilience, one the world urgently needs to understand. The Bahigh writings state that the diversity of humanity is not a problem to be managed but a gift to be celebrated. Abdul Baha describes humanity as a garden and I quote, "A garden is beautiful because of the diversity of its flowers." The suppression of indigenous knowledge diminished not only indigenous communities, it diminished all of us. It diminished the light and it narrowed the garden. Indigenous traditions worldwide offer many gifts. But again, due to limited time, I want to focus this morning on three international indigenous gifts. Each resonating deeply with the Bahigh principles of unity, justice, and the oneness of humanity. The first gift, intergenerational thinking. The Hordesy Confederacy, one of the world's oldest living democracies. The people of the long house have been governed for over a thousand years by a single principle and that is that every decision must consider its impact on the next seven generations. The next seven generations, not this quarter, not this election cycle but seven generations forward. The Bahigh principle of the oneness of humanity extends across time as well as space and seven generation thinking and the Bahigh commitment to building a civilization worthy of humanity's highest aspirations are at the core that same moral claim. The future is our responsibility. Now the second gift peace building indigenous peaceuilding conflict resolution and consultation begins where most western legal systems do not and my sisters knows that from firsthand experience and that is that harm damages relationship and healing requires restoring them. For example, indigenous peacemaking circles throughout North and South America bring together the person harmed, the person responsible, and the community to create healing. In the African country of Rwanda after the 1994 genocide, traditional gacha courts were used to bring that same level of indigenous consultation and wisdom to heal a nation torn by violence. In 2024, I was honored to be among one of the most indigenous representatives from 30 countries that worked to produce an international declaration on indigenous peaceuilding that was adopted by the United Nations. Friends, this is not indigenous knowledge just being consulted. This is indigenous knowledge leading, inviting, and co-designing. The the Bahigh writings state the consultation honest humble and openhearted consultation is the lamp that guides the path of the community. Indigenous peaceuilding embodies this exactly. Truth sought together, no single voice dominating and the well-being of all is the measure of success. The third gift, the equality of women and men. For millennia across the indigenous world, from the Sammy parliaments of the Arctic to the highlands of Guatemala, indigenous women's leadership has never been ceremonial, but essential. For generations, indigenous women have governed territories, brokered peace, and served as knowledge keepers. And the research in the evidence agrees as international peace agreements are 35% more likely to last when women are actively involved. >> [applause] >> The Bahigh writings are explicit. The world will not find peace until women take their rightful place in all human affairs. Indigenous traditions that institutionalize women's authority are longstanding models of the very architecture the Bahigh vision calls us to build. Now there's a phrase I use in my work and that is epistemic justice. Epistemic justice. The idea is very simple and that is that every way of knowing deserves to be heard on its own terms and not only when it can be translated into western science among my own people, the Apache and the Yaki people and across indigenous communities worldwide. Spirituality, environmental knowledge and governance are not separate domains. They are one living system. So every time a language disappears, every time a ceremony is silenced and every time an elder's voice dies unshared, the world loses something it desperately needs. This is why universal participation is not simply a value. It is a necessity. A world facing climate change, conflict and inequality is thirsty. Thirsty for spiritual wisdom and practical knowledge and cannot afford to draw from only one well. Abdul Baha taught that the independent investigation of truth is a sacred obligation, urging all of us to seek reality free from prejudice and recognize it wherever it can be found. And the Universal House of Justice has written that indigenous communities are a significant element in the construction of a unified world. End quote. Friends, this is not charity. It is a structural claim. The world we are trying to build cannot be built without indigenous peoples. In closing, among the D, the Navajo, and among my own people, the Inde or the Apache, we carry the belief of hoou hoou, beauty, harmony, and balance. And we say hog nashado hogo nashado. We walk in beauty. We walk in beauty with one another. We walk in beauty with the earth. We walk in beauty with our ancestors. And we walk in beauty with those not yet born. The pain of one is the pain of all. The hope of one is the hope of all. Bahala wrote, "The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens." Indigenous knowledge systems have been teaching, practicing, and living that truth for millennia, often at great cost with extraordinary resilience. For the Bahigh community, receiving this wisdom is not the discovery of something new. It is a recognition of something ancient, something it already believes at its heart. The question is, are we prepared to receive it? To sit together, indigenous and non-indigenous, and truly listen. Truly listen, not to translate, not to validate, but to learn. I believe this community can and I am deeply grateful to walk in beauty with you today. >> Thank you. [applause] on behalf of u our speakers here and just to offer the depth of what you would have experienced would have kind of washed over us through the music through poem through case law through international lens. We could also take all of that into a on the hand over here and say where is indigenous knowledge and just do this >> they laugh because they kind of know what that means. I'm not trying to kiss somebody or the air. [laughter] It's over there. >> That's right. >> It's kind of indigenous ways that all peoples have means to communicate. Hand signals, eye looks, hugs, gifts, patience, sacrifice to the point of Mr. Razie's story of training one another to give up our best to our enemy. You are not our enemy who have come to this land. But through this relationship and engagement of this knowledge, this symbiosis of training, could we reveal new character >> of this continent which we know as was mentioned last night should lead the world spiritually. >> Thank you. [applause] >> Thank you. >> [applause] >> standing. [applause] Let's give a very special thank you to our panelists. [applause] Um friends, now I have the very difficult task of inviting us into a fiveinut stretch break. [laughter] And maybe if I can suggest what that might look like is uh we get up, we hang around the three or four chairs around us and say hi to the friends, maybe give each other a hug and stay close by. We'll be back sharply at 10:30.