Indigenous Wisdom

Indigenous peoples worldwide have practiced Regenerative Culture for millennia—living in reciprocal relationship with land, maintaining abundance through careful tending, passing knowledge across generations.

This knowledge is not historical—it is living wisdom that has never stopped and has profound relevance for our collective future.

A Note on Approach

This page is written with deep respect and humility. As settlers on stolen land, we acknowledge:

• Indigenous peoples are still here, still practicing, still leading
• This is their knowledge, shared generously
• We are students, not experts
• Learning comes with responsibility
• Appreciation must include action (land back, sovereignty, justice)

We share what has been offered publicly, always pointing back to indigenous teachers and communities.

Foundational Principles

We Are Related to Everything

All My Relations (Mitakuye Oyasin - Lakota)

• Humans are kin to animals, plants, waters, stones
• Everything has spirit and agency
• Harming nature harms ourselves
• Healing nature heals ourselves

This is Living Systems Thinking as lived reality for thousands of years.

Contrast with: Western view of nature as resource, humans as separate/superior

Reciprocity

The Honorable Harvest (Anishinaabe)

Principles for taking from nature:

• Know the ways of the ones who take care of you
• Introduce yourself, ask permission
• Listen for the answer
• Never take the first, never take the last
• Take only what you need
• Take only what is given
• Never take more than half
• Use everything you take
• Give thanks for what you receive
• Share what you have
• Give a gift in reciprocity

From Robin Wall Kimmerer, Potawatomi botanist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass

This isn’t extraction—it’s relationship.

Seven Generations Thinking

Consider impact on the seventh generation (Haudenosaunee/Iroquois Confederacy)

Every decision should consider:

• How will this affect the next seven generations?
• What world are we creating for them?
• Are we ancestors they will thank?

This extends beyond human generations to all life.

Contrast with: Quarterly profits, short-term thinking, “after me, the flood”

The Land Is Not Property

Land as relative, not commodity

• You cannot own your grandmother
• Land cares for us; we care for land
• Relationship, not ownership
• Stewardship, not dominion
• Belonging to place, not possessing it

This challenges the foundation of extractive economies.

Everything Has A Gift

Each being has purpose and gift to share

• Plants offer medicine, food, fiber
• Animals teach lessons, provide food, companionship
• Stones ground and remember
• Waters cleanse and connect
• Fire transforms
• Wind carries messages

Nothing is “useless” or “just a weed.”

This is Learning from Nature as respect and reciprocity.

Indigenous Practices Relevant to Tampa Bay

Fire as Renewal

Cultural burning practiced by indigenous peoples across North America, including Florida:

• Periodic, low-intensity fires
• Clear understory, not destroy forests
• Promote specific plants (like wiregrass)
• Increase biodiversity
• Prevent catastrophic wildfires
• Create habitat for game animals

In Florida: Tocobaga, Calusa, Timucua peoples used fire to:

• Maintain pine flatwoods and prairies
• Encourage nut-bearing trees
• Create productive landscapes
• The “wilderness” colonizers found was actually carefully tended

Modern application: Prescribed burns now used (borrowed from indigenous practice)

Oyster Reef Cultivation

Calusa people of Southwest Florida:

• Built massive shell mounds
• Cultivated oyster reefs deliberately
• Created architecture from shells
• Sustained themselves on abundance of shellfish
• Left landscape richer, not depleted

Tampa Bay had extensive oyster reefs until colonization and industrial fishing.

Modern application: Oyster reef restoration projects

Food Forests & Polycultures

Three Sisters (Haudenosaunee and other nations):

• Corn provides stalk for beans to climb
• Beans fix nitrogen for corn and squash
• Squash shades ground, retains moisture, deters pests
• All three together produce more than separate

Milpa systems (Mesoamerica):

• Corn, beans, squash, plus dozens of other plants
• Forest garden, not field
• Mimics natural diversity
• Sustainable for millennia

This is permaculture before the word existed.

Seasonal Rounds

Moving with seasons and abundance:

• Follow ripening of different foods
• Hunt/gather when plentiful
• Allow recovery time
• Never deplete one area
• Intimate knowledge of [[ bioregion ]]

In Florida:

• Coastal resources (oysters, fish) in certain seasons
• Inland game and plants other times
• Synchronized with migrations, fruiting, breeding

This is Bioregional Design as lifeway.

Indigenous Teachers & Resources

Robin Wall Kimmerer (Potawatomi)

Botanist, author of Braiding Sweetgrass

Key teachings:

• Reciprocity with land
• Gratitude as worldview
• Plants as teachers
• Gift economy of nature
• Science and indigenous knowledge together

Read: Braiding Sweetgrass (essential)

Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabe)

Activist, author, land rights advocate

Key teachings:

• Indigenous food sovereignty
• Renewable energy on indigenous terms
• Protecting wild rice and traditional foods
• Land back movement
• Seventh generation thinking in action

Read: All Our Relations, Recovering the Sacred

Linda Hogan (Chickasaw)

Poet, novelist, environmentalist

Key teachings:

• Spiritual relationship with nature
• Animals as kin and teachers
• Deep listening to land
• Power of indigenous storytelling

Read: Dwellings, The Book of Medicines

Tyson Yunkaporta (Apalech Clan, Queensland)

Author, educator

Key teachings:

• Indigenous systems thinking
• Custodial thinking vs. domination
• Traditional knowledge and complex systems
• Regenerative relationship with Country

Read: Sand Talk (brilliant on indigenous systems thinking)

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg)

Scholar, author, artist

Key teachings:

• Land as pedagogy
• Resurgence through practice
• Indigenous political thought
• Relationship as foundation

Read: As We Have Always Done

What We Can Learn

Observation Over Intervention

Indigenous knowledge comes from:

• Thousands of years of observation
• Listening to land
• Noticing patterns
• Patient watching

Application: Learning from Nature - slow down, observe before acting

Relationship Over Resource

Nature is not:

• Resource to extract
• Property to own
• Servant to dominate

Nature is:

• Relative to respect
• Teacher to learn from
• Partner to reciprocate with

Application: Regenerative Culture founded on right relationship

Place-Based Knowledge

Indigenous knowledge is specific to place:

• What grows here
• When rains come
• Which plants heal
• How animals behave
• Where water flows

You cannot separate knowledge from land.

Application: Bioregional Design rooted in deep place knowledge

Oral Tradition & Story

Knowledge carried through:

• Stories, not just facts
• Ceremony and practice
• Elder to youth transmission
• Embodied wisdom

Stories encode:

• Ecological relationships
• Seasonal timing
• Ethical principles
• Consequences of actions

Application: Community Gatherings as space for story and learning

Tending, Not Taking

Indigenous peoples didn’t just “live off the land”—they actively tended it:

• Selective harvesting increased abundance
• Fire management improved productivity
• Transplanting spread useful species
• Protecting sacred groves maintained biodiversity

“Wilderness” is a colonial myth.

What settlers saw as “pristine nature” was actually carefully tended landscape.

Application: Humans can enhance ecosystems through wise participation

Settler Responsibilities

If we draw on indigenous wisdom, we must also:

1. Acknowledge

• Whose land are you on?
• In Tampa Bay: Tocobaga, Calusa, and other peoples
• Not past tense—descendants are still here

2. Learn

• From indigenous teachers directly
• Read indigenous authors
• Support indigenous-led organizations
• Attend when invited (respect when not)

3. Support

• Land back movement
• Indigenous sovereignty
• MMIW (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women)
• Water protectors
• Native-led conservation

4. Act

• Decolonize your relationship to land
• Question property/ownership assumptions
• Support indigenous rights politically
• Share resources and wealth

5. Don’t Appropriate

• Don’t claim indigenous practices as your own
• Don’t commodify sacred traditions
• Credit indigenous sources
• Respect what’s not for sharing

Indigenous-Led Regeneration

Indigenous peoples are leading regenerative movements:

Food Sovereignty:

• Reviving traditional foods and farming
• Seed rematriation projects
• Reclaiming agricultural knowledge
• Food as medicine and culture

Land Back:

• Returning land to indigenous stewardship
• Demonstrating regenerative management
• Protecting sacred sites
• Restoring traditional ecological knowledge

Water Protection:

• Standing Rock and other pipeline resistance
• Protecting rivers, lakes, aquifers
• “Water is life” / “Mni Wiconi”
• Indigenous-led watershed restoration

Climate Action:

• Indigenous peoples most impacted
• Also holding deepest knowledge for adaptation
• Leading grassroots movements
• Centering indigenous climate solutions

These are not historical lessons—this is present-day leadership.

Tampa Bay Indigenous History

Original Peoples

Tocobaga (Tampa Bay area):

• Lived on bay shores and barrier islands
• Sophisticated shell mound builders
• Extensive trade networks
• Subsisted on fish, oysters, game, plants

Calusa (Southwest Florida):

• Built canals and massive shell works
• Managed marine resources sustainably
• Resisted Spanish colonization longer than most
• Rich, complex civilization

Colonization impact:

• Disease decimated populations (90%+ died)
• Forced removal and slavery
• Cultural genocide
• Land theft

Present day:

• Descendants in Seminole Tribe of Florida
• Ongoing connection to land
• Resistance and resurgence
• Cultural revival

Learning from This History

• The abundance early colonizers described was cultivated, not accidental
• Indigenous management created flourishing ecosystems
• “Empty land” was stolen land
• Regeneration must include justice

Integrating Indigenous Wisdom

This is not about:

• “Going back” to an idealized past
• Playing at being indigenous
• Appropriating practices
• Romanticism

This is about:

• Learning from those who never stopped practicing regeneration
• Humbly receiving teachings offered
• Applying principles ethically
• Supporting indigenous leadership
• Healing broken relationships

As Daniel Christian Wahl acknowledges, Regenerative Culture builds on indigenous wisdom while creating new expressions for our time.

Questions to Sit With

• What is my relationship to this land?
• Whose land am I on?
• What has this place taught me?
• How do I practice reciprocity?
• Am I taking or tending?
• What will the seventh generation say of my choices?
• How do I support indigenous sovereignty?

Explore Further

• Regenerative Culture - Cultures that enhance life
• Learning from Nature - Observation and reciprocity
• Bioregional Design - Place-based relationship
• Living Systems Thinking - Everything connected
• Community Gatherings - Story and transmission
• Permaculture Principles - Influenced by indigenous practice

Recommended Reading:

• Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Sand Talk - Tyson Yunkaporta
• All Our Relations - Winona LaDuke
• The Dawn of Everything - David Graeber & David Wengrow
• As Long as Grass Grows - Dina Gilio-Whitaker

Support indigenous-led organizations:

• NDN Collective
• Indigenous Environmental Network
• Cultural Conservancy
• Honor the Earth
• Local tribal nations

“We are the middle of a long story.” - Winona LaDuke

Indigenous wisdom reminds us regeneration is remembering how to live as relatives with all life. ```

This line appears after every note.