An Indigenous critique: Expanding sociology and recognizing unique Indigenous knowledge

Abstract

Introduction
This essay suggests that sociologists should integrate into their critical research work on the Americas an Indigenous critique/method based on Indigenous knowledge. As a mixed Indigenous scholar, I have been frustrated by the lack of frameworks based explicitly on Indigenous knowledge rather than merely referencing that knowledge.

Methods
Strong foundations of ancient Indigenous thought and philosophical tradition—which often differs dramatically from Western traditions—are identified and explored through three concepts: Ch'ixi, the Indigenous pragmatic, and Mexica concepts of Truth. These are identified and discussed using authoritative historical and contemporary sources. I provide potential pathways for usage of these concepts in the results and discussion. Arguments and controversy for accepting the validity of Indigenous sources are also addressed.

Results and discussion
Discussions of specific empirical questions and puzzles related to already familiar concepts and analyses such as systemic racism theory, multi-raciality, religion, and postcolonial theory are explored. The paper concludes that Indigenous theory is underexplored but is critical to liberation of Indigenous people and has legitimate academic value that scholars need to recognize.

Full text

TYPE Original Research
PUBLISHED 29 November 2022
DOI 10.3389/fsoc.2022.1047812
OPEN ACCESS
EDITED BY
David Barkin,
Metropolitan Autonomous
University, Mexico
REVIEWED BY
Jairo Funez,
Texas Tech University, United States
Martin Ramstedt,
Martin Luther University of
Halle-Wittenberg, Germany
*CORRESPONDENCE
Ried E Mackay
remackay@tamu.edu
SPECIALTY SECTION
This article was submitted to
Race and Ethnicity,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Sociology
RECEIVED 18 September 2022
ACCEPTED 14 November 2022
PUBLISHED 29 November 2022
CITATION
Mackay RE (2022) An Indigenous
critique: Expanding sociology and
recognizing unique Indigenous
knowledge. Front. Sociol. 7:1047812.
doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2022.1047812
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An Indigenous critique:
Expanding sociology and
recognizing unique Indigenous
knowledge
Ried E Mackay*
Department of Sociology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, United States
Introduction: This essay suggests that sociologists should integrate into
their critical research work on the Americas an Indigenous critique/method
based on Indigenous knowledge. As a mixed Indigenous scholar, I have been
frustrated by the lack of frameworks based explicitly on Indigenous knowledge
rather than merely referencing that knowledge.
Methods: Strong foundations of ancient Indigenous thought and philosophical
tradition—which often diers dramatically from Western traditions—are
identified and explored through three concepts: Ch’ixi, the Indigenous
pragmatic, and Mexica concepts of Truth. These are identified and discussed
using authoritative historical and contemporary sources. I provide potential
pathways for usage of these concepts in the results and discussion. Arguments
and controversy for accepting the validity of Indigenous sources are also
addressed.
Results and discussion: Discussions of specific empirical questions and
puzzles related to already familiar concepts and analyses such as systemic
racism theory, multi-raciality, religion, and postcolonial theory are explored.
The paper concludes that Indigenous theory is underexplored but is critical
to liberation of Indigenous people and has legitimate academic value that
scholars need to recognize.
KEYWORDS
race and ethnicity, Indigenous theory, postcolonial, Native Americans, systemic
racism, multi-raciality, Global South, Global North bias
Introduction
Is there, perchance, any truth to our words here?
I begin this paper as the ancient Tlamatinime (“someone who knows something;”
philosophers) of the Mexica (Aztec) civilization began their own contemplations (Léon-
Portilla, 1963: 70, 99, 112, 132). The great thinkers of the pre-invasion Indigenous
Americans would begin their scholarly pursuits by first expressing a philosophical
doubt as to whether any of what followed could be considered the truth. The truth
to Indigenous Americans—of what we now call the North and South Americas—is
starkly different from that of traditional Euro-Western thought, it does not rely on
hard dichotomies and absolutes. This ongoing focus on Euro-Western thought obscures
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that the population of these two continents was estimated
to be at least 60.5 million and potentially as high as 78
million, equivalent to estimates in Europe at the time, and
the subsequent depopulation from disease and violence caused
measurable global climate impacts (Koch et al., 2019). Despite
this population size and sophistication of intellectual traditions,
the focus decidedly remains on European thought and tradition.
Recognizing and incorporating the traditions of the Americas is
incredibly important to more fully understand the Indigenous
American lived experience and lead the academies of this
hemisphere into a decolonial future (Sánchez-Antonio, 2022).
Over a year ago as I, a mixed Indigenous person, sat in the
shade of towering and impressive monuments of the Ancestors
and Gods—during another sickness ravaging Indigenous people
and many others—I began to think about how Global North
sociology can begin to truly integrate Indigenous peoples and
their knowledge into the discipline. Indigenous scholars inside
and out of sociology, and their non-Indigenous allies, are
doing important work to bring recognition and liberation to
Indigenous peoples, however Indigenous knowledge systems are
still not allowed to stand on their own merits or explored in their
own unique frameworks to reveal and answer new, and old, and
questions. Rather, they are relegated to a secondary status within
discussions and analyses. Recognizing Indigenous knowledge
isn’t simply about recognizing the knowledge as valid, it is about
fully integrating that knowledge and investigating sociological,
biological, theological and other processes from a specifically
Indigenous point of view using Indigenous frameworks. This is
important for the liberation of Indigenous peoples, if Indigenous
knowledge and philosophies are always relegated to a secondary
status or only used by a few specialists, then Indigenous
people will continue to be assumed to be savage, primitive,
and without valuable contribution to the scholarly community
thereby perpetuating the deeply entrenched white racial framing
of Indigenous people and culture (Mackay and Feagin, 2022).
This call for recognition of Indigenous philosophies and
frameworks is already an established tradition, but it has
received little attention by much of Global North scholarship.
Scholars like Jairo Fúnez-Flores are publishing important
articles that highlight the strong and determined resistance
of Global North academies and institutions to Indigenous
knowledge and frameworks (Fúnez-Flores, 2022) as well as
engaging with these ideas in a public sociology through
the medium of social networks like Twitter. Additionally,
the important canon of work from prominent scholar
Pablo González Casanova—father of sociology in Mexico
and Zapatista comandante—constitute what he calls the
Theory of the Jungle/Theory of the Rain Forest (González
Casanova, 1998). This Rain Forest Theory encapsulates different
Indigenous philosophies and elements of Etuaptmumk—two-
eyed seeing (Kutz and Tomaselli, 2019)—and elevates them to
a legitimate status equal to that of the Western traditions. The
theme of his long career and allyship with Indigenous peoples
and movements demands that we recognize the knowledge and
philosophies of Indigenous peoples as theoretical contributions
themselves, not merely in their political and ideological forms
(Oropeza, 2022).
The Zapatistas have made this a core tenant of their
movement by incorporating Indigenous philosophies and
matriarchal leadership into their struggle against colonialism
and oppression. The Zapatista movement is not only
resurrecting these Indigenous philosophies—they are applying
them on the ground to free Indigenous Americans (North and
South) from the oppressions of ongoing colonialism (Schools
for Chiapas, 2022;Sánchez-Antonio, 2022). Though epistemic
justice (de Sousa Santos, 2014) is critical, this does not mean
that European and US knowledge is disavowed, ignored, or
otherwise repressed—that is a Westernized essentialist notion
(Fúnez-Flores, 2022:5–7) which is in direct opposition to
the plurality of thought and being that Indigenous traditions
advocate for as an inherent principle to life and society (Pratt,
2002;Sánchez-Antonio, 2022).
As this essay is a recognition of oppressed and marginalized
knowledge and thought it centers the long-ignored
epistemologies of Indigenous communities and is a small
contribution toward liberating Indigenous knowledges from
ongoing epistemicide and culturicide (Fenelon, 2014;de Sousa
Santos, 2014;Huaman and Brayboy, 2017;Leung and López-
McKnight, 2020;Sánchez-Antonio, 2022). It is one addition to
the larger body of knowledge that must be developed to resurrect
and implement Indigenous millennia-knowledge (Sánchez-
Antonio, 2022), through the contributions of the community
this will be possible. Individual contributions in service to the
larger community is a core aspect of the Global South tradition
of comunalidad (Barkin, 2022). This paper recognizes, and
refutes, the long-held elevation of Euro-Western knowledge and
frameworks above that of Indigenous peoples and knowledge,
which has occurred through an explicitly racialized lens and
denunciation of Indigenous knowledge as “savage” (Williams,
2012;Mignolo and Walsh, 2018;Feagin, 2020;Mackay and
Feagin, 2022;Sánchez-Antonio, 2022).
My essay begins by identifying the strong foundations of
Indigenous thought that Indigenous and Global South scholars
are exploring. The millennia-knowledge presented here was
created in various social, historical, and geographical contexts,
and it continues to live and evolve. While Indigenous cultures
vary throughout the Americas, there is a common thread of
shared thought/philosophy that has been identified by scholars,
like the prominent scholar VF Cordova—one of the first
Indigenous American women to receive a PhD in philosophy
in the US–and the Zapotec philosopher Juan Carlos Sánchez-
Antonio. I then move into a discussion of the Indigenous
pragmatic, whose millennia old foundations are identified by
Cordova (2007), Pratt (2002), and Sánchez-Antonio (2022).
These three scholars base their well-reasoned arguments on
multiple sources and experiences that are extensively detailed in
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their socio-philosophical works. The essay then identifies and
discusses the academic resistance to Indigenous thought that
pervades the academic establishments of the Global North. I
conclude with a discussion on how Indigenous frameworks and
philosophies can be used on their own merits in sociological
analyses and provide recommendations of potential future
research pathways.
Foundations of Indigenous thought
Indigenous knowledge has intentionally been racialized,
obfuscated, and destroyed by invading colonial armies and
communities for centuries (Tedlock, 1996;Cordova, 2007;
Townsend, 2019). It has also been deliberately obscured by
claims of Global North “firsts”—for example important aspects
of contemporary philosophy, public health, medicine, and
engineering are Indigenous inventions: American pragmatism,
syringes, mouthwashes, rubber, cable suspension bridges,
hammocks, raised-bed agriculture, snow goggles, and more
(Pratt, 2002;Kiger, 2019;Roberts, 2020). While Indigenous
communities throughout what is now called North and South
America are beautifully unique and varied, various scholars
in Indigenous philosophy, history, and archaeology have
recognized that Indigenous thought frameworks and knowledge
were shared, with regional variations by large cultural, political,
and economic groupings and alliances—such as the ancient
Mississippians, Calusa, Mexica, Maya, and Inca. These scholars
identify shared social and philosophical aspects—architectural
and philosophical similarities, shared agriculture traditions,
shared linguistic evidence (e.g., trading languages, similar
definitions of words, similar relations of words to histories
and proverbs, etc.), and shared applications of mathematics
and geometries. They argue that this indicates a shared and
generalizable Indigenous thought structure, or at least an
extensive collaboration of knowledge building between the two
continents (Cordova, 2007;Dunbar-Ortiz, 2021:231; Graeber
and Wengrow, 2021:141–148).
It is important to recognize that when discussing Indigenous
philosophy, we cannot make the “mistake to apply the
criteria of the cult of the individual, which prevails in
modern Western European culture, to the more socialized
efforts of the philosophers of other times and places” (Léon-
Portilla, 1963:22–23). Understanding that these works of
thought were likely a culmination of many thinkers in a
community and school of thought over generations, rather than
attributable to a singular person is important. This ethic of
shared social and intellectual constructions is representative
in the overall philosophy of communalidad that scholars
(Barkin, 2022;Sánchez-Antonio, 2022) identify as important
aspects of Indigenous being, in the past and particularly in
the present.
Prominent scholars (Léon-Portilla, 1963:9; Leeming, 2013;
Townsend, 2019:2–13; Graeber and Wengrow, 2021:49–55) also
argue that the ideas presented in the works are legitimately
Indigenous since the Euro-invaders had no reason to lie about
these ideas in their quest to understand them—so that they
could ultimately attempt to destroy those ideas. However, in
an interesting twist, some scholars of religion have recently
argued that those destructive efforts largely backfired and instead
affirmed the Indigenous communities’ already established views
of the world, particularly through the commonly shared
Indigenous concept of pluralism (Pratt, 2002;Cordova, 2007;
Salomon and Urioste, 2010:1–13; Leeming, 2013).
Indigenous philosophy, truth, and
ch’ixi
Indigenous philosophy is grounded in contemplating an
everchanging, interconnected, omnipresent, but ultimately
unknowable universe and truth (Léon-Portilla, 1963;Maffie,
2014;Waters, 2015:11–17; Purcell, 2018:11–21). This truth
is not a simple duality as is familiar in Euro-Western
thought. Indigenous truth operates from recognition and
integration of included thirds (Léon-Portilla, 1963;Maffie,
2014;Purcell, 2018;Rivera Cusicanqui, 2020): two things can
form a third and/or one thing can inherently, necessarily, and
peacefully consist of multiple equal parts. However, we do
not have the vocabulary in English to fully understand the
concept as Indigenous Aymara/Bolivian sociologist Silvia Rivera
Cusicanqui (2020) illustrates:
...Hybridity assumes the possibility that from the
mixture of two different beings a third completely new
one can emerge...but the mule is a hybrid which
cannot reproduce. . . ch’ixi on the contrary...expresses the
parallel coexistence of multiple cultural differences that
do not extinguish but instead antagonize and complement
each other.
Ch’ixi demands that we shrug off the oppressive dualities of
Western thought and accept that a reality exists where mutable,
evolving, and ultimately unknowable “thirds” exist. Anzaldua
(2012) highlights this idea of an included third in her seminal
work Borderlands where she discusses mixing cultures and
identity to create new ones. However, even here the idea of ch’ixi
could complicate this work, something I will explore later in
this essay.
The idea that truth and reality (i.e., life) are unknowable and
always changing is beautifully illustrated in Mexica philosophy
as “only do we awake to dream” (Léon-Portilla, 1963:71; Maffie,
2014:13, 27, 39–47, 51). The Tlamatinime do not imply we live
in a dream world, only that we cannot understand all parts
of reality; that we can only see certain aspects and therefore
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live a life of only seeing the parts rather than the whole
as it truly exists. This acceptance that we necessarily cannot
understand, discover, or conquer everything in our reality
stands in contrast to the Euro-Western conceptualization that
reality is entirely knowable, discoverable, and conquerable. The
Indigenous approach does not insinuate our lives and realities
are any less important; it doesn’t suggest that our actions have
no consequences or imply that we are somehow wrong in our
knowledge of the world (Purcell, 2018:11–21), it recognizes that
we cannot, and likely should not, know it all.
Indigenous pragmatism encounters
western imperialism
Scott L. Pratt argues that the Indigenous philosophical
tradition has survived in the Global North and directly
created the American philosophical tradition of pragmatism—
he terms it “Native” pragmatism, but I prefer Indigenous as
it encompasses both North and South American traditions.
Pratt identifies four dimensions of Indigenous pragmatism
and demonstrates how they have been used by Indigenous
leaders over the centuries. Though he is a philosopher by
training, his book includes multiple important sections on the
racism and other socio-political contexts of colonialism that
Indigenous people, and the Indigenous pragmatic, were and are
encountering. Pratt’s concept of the Indigenous pragmatic and
its dimensions is supported by the lifelong work of Cordova and
the work of Zapotec scholar Sánchez-Antonio. All three scholars
separately argue that Indigenous concepts constitute full-fledged
philosophy that can in turn be used for analyses of society,
ethics, and more. Pratt’s Indigenous pragmatism involves four
key dimensions (Pratt, 2002:20–38; see Table 1): Interaction,
Pluralism, Community, and Growth. While defined differently,
Sánchez-Antonio discusses similar dimensions posited by the
scholar Martínez Luna (2015).
Interaction (Martínez: geographical) states that
“...organisms such as trees and people are not independent
things that occasionally act on others, they are rather constituted
by their interactions and so are at once continuous with their
environment” (Pratt, 2002:24; Martínez Luna, 2015). This
is also reflected in the milpa metaphor that Barkin (2022)
uses to illustrate Indigenous comunalidad. All parts of the
milpa—an Indigenous agricultural innovation commonly used
by Indigenous Americans and known in the US as The Three
Sisters—serve to interact and nourish the others. A community
is the same, all individual parts work toward benefitting the
greater whole and all parts are intricately interconnected
through roots (community/network/interactions) that supply
the greater whole and the individual simultaneously (Barkin,
2022).
Pluralism (Martínez: creative-productive) adds to
interaction by affirming that diversity is as important as
unity and must be recognized for the ways that diversity adds
to and expands realities. Community (Martínez: communal)
follows from the first two dimensions and asks us to remember
the “. . . constitutive role of human communities in knowledge
and ontology” (Pratt, 2002:28; Martínez Luna, 2015). In other
words, our communities are a grounding and limiting reality for
many ideas and realities.
Finally, the dimension of growth (Martínez: enjoyment)
combines interactions and realities in constant cycles of change
and new understandings, growth moves communities and
realities forward and helps to develop them on all levels.
Growth does not necessarily mean that all changes or forward
momentum are positive and necessarily constructive, growth
can also be detrimental to a community; growth is, on a simple
level, the process of change (Pratt, 2002:35–36; Martínez Luna,
2015).
Prior to encountering Indigenous pragmatism, the colonial
tradition saw the world as literally rising from the stories
of the Bible. This strict interpretation of biblical events by
colonial scholars and power-players was based on a long
history of savagizing Indigenous peoples and viewing them as
servants of the devil worthy of domination and oppression
(Williams, 2012;Mackay and Feagin, 2022). Biblical stories
were further interpreted by colonial scholars to justify the
genocide occurring in the Americas as one which was ordained
and demanded by the Christian God (Pratt, 2002:37–55)
while simultaneously establishing an idea of hierarchical and
chronological importance. Early chronological points on the
timeline were necessarily primitive, their time had come and
gone and are replaced by Euro American society which is
allegedly more important and advanced since it arises and
continues to occupy future points on this timeline (Pratt,
2002:46–54). This view is in direct opposition to what Pratt calls
the “Indigenous attitude” (Pratt, 2002:78) and the Indigenous
idea of a cyclical existence and timeline (Rivera Cusicanqui,
2020:48).
Pratt (2002:89–94; 144–162) and Cordova (2007) show
that the pragmatic dimensions were present in Indigenous
communities, actively taught, and communicated as a way
of living peaceably with others different from you and
your community for millennia, constituting what Sánchez-
Antonio (2022) calls millennia-knowledge. This Indigenous
attitude/millennia-knowledge was subsequently communicated
to colonial-invaders like Roger Williams and Thomas Morton by
Indigenous leaders across the hemisphere. Williams and Morton
would later incorporate these ideas into their own Western
works and lives to the point that they were actively vilified and
aggressively persecuted by other Euro-American colonists for
being “race traitors” (Pratt, 2002;Mackay and Feagin, 2022).
Pratt also addresses Euro-American criticisms against
Indigenous pragmatism, particularly that the pragmatic sees the
world as made up of fractured and unequal, but interacting
communities. This criticism reinforces a Western view of the
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TABLE 1 Dimensions of Indigenous pragmatism.
Indigenous pragmatism
Interaction (geographical) All organisms, objects, and beings interact with one another and are constituted by and continuous with those interactions and
environments.
Pluralism (creative-productive) Through interaction diversity arises, and through diversity, unity can arise. Interaction necessitates diversity and that diversity must
be recognized.
Community (communal) Arises from Interaction and Pluralism. Community grounds and limits our realities and ideas.
Growth (enjoyment) Combines realities and ideas in a constant cycle of change. This change develops communities in positive and negative ways.
world as necessarily operating in an us vs. them duality—
itself an analytic bifurcation or imperial binarism that must be
overcome (Gandhi, 2006;Go, 2016). The works of González
Casanova (1965), Neolin (Pratt, 2002:154–157), Sagoyewatha
(Pratt, 2002:159–162), Tenskwatawa (Pratt, 2002:156–158),
Cordova (2007), de Sousa Santos (2014), Martínez Luna (2015),
Sánchez-Antonio (2022), and others highlight that such an idea
of division and separation is a Western invention fundamentally
at odds with the pluralism and acceptance that Indigenous
pragmatism calls for in its very structure. This divisional
duality inherent in Western thought requires all communities,
including Indigenous, to see themselves as set to a standard
that can be applied across all people, time, and place (Pratt,
2002:155). This contributes to ongoing internal colonialism
that Indigenous communities and knowledge must avoid and
overcome (Sánchez-Antonio, 2022).
Indigenous critique and resistance to
the critique
In their wide-ranging book, The Dawn of Everything: A
New History of Humanity (2021), anthropologist David Graeber
and archaeologist David Wengrow, ask us to contemplate
how most of human history and civilization has previously
been conceptualized.
They argue that Western scholars place far too much
focus on the dawn of agriculture and birth of Western-
Hellenistic thought as the two generalizable standards of
civilization by which all global communities can be judged. Their
argument follows from the strong tradition of Global South
scholars like Mignolo, Santos, and Sánchez-Antonio who have
written extensively on the epistemic oppression of non-Western
frameworks—and argued that global social justice can only arise
from a global epistemic justice (de Sousa Santos, 2014;Mignolo
and Walsh, 2018;Sánchez-Antonio, 2022). Only by seriously
engaging with these projects of decolonialism and epistemic
justice will Indigenous millennia-knowledge be able to unseat
Western knowledge dominance and adequately consider the
Indigenous American experience. Graeber and Wengrow call
this as an Indigenous critique and believe that it is the path
forward. They define it as “. . . taking seriously contributions to
social thought that come from outside the European canon,
and in particular from those indigenous peoples whom Western
philosophers tend to case either in the role of history’s angels
or its devils” (Graeber and Wengrow, 2021:5). The Indigenous
critique as defined by Graeber and Wengrow is a decolonial
turn that centers millennia-knowledge and Indigenous scholars
to resurrect Indigenous knowledge (Sánchez-Antonio, 2022).
The late Mexican anthropologist, historian, and
United States Library of Congress Living Legend Miguel
León-Portilla long led the charge for such a critique. He was
widely considered one of the top experts on Mexica culture,
literature, and philosophy (Schwaller, 2020:671–677). His book
Aztec Thought and Culture: A Study of the Ancient Nahuatl
Mind (1963)—originally published in Spanish as La filosofía
Náhuatl estudiada en sus fuentes (1956)—argued strongly for
an Indigenous critique. He highlights a 1,524 example where
Tlamatinime are recorded speaking to an audience that included
Spanish priests, these Indigenous thinkers incisively critiqued
the invaders (Friars of Saint Francis, 1564;Léon-Portilla,
1963:63–66):
Perhaps we are to be taken to our ruin, to our
destruction. But where are we to go now?
We are ordinary people, we are subject to death and
destruction, we are mortals; allow us.
Then to die, let us perish now, since our gods are already
dead. . . .and now, are we to destroy the ancient order of life?
...We certainly do not believe; we do not accept your
teachings as truth, even though this may offend you. . . it is
not enough that we have already lost, that our way of life has
been taken away, has been annihilated. Were we to remain
in this place, we could be made prisoners.
Their critique recognizes that the Western framework
does not value the pragmatism of Indigenous Americans and
instead promotes intolerance. This critique mirrors that of
Kandiaronk—I’ll discuss him momentarily—and was shared
over a century later in the 1640s by the Narragansett leader
Miantonomi when he spoke to a gathering of Indigenous people
recognizing that, “. . . we must be one. . . otherwise we shall be all
gone shortly” (Massachusetts Historical Society, 1833:152–155).
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TABLE 2 Some Indigenous critics, approximate birth and death dates,
and their people/native nation.
Indigenous critics
Indigenous critic Life People/native
nation
Tlamatinime (Aztec scholars) Pre and post invasion Mexica (Aztec)
Nezahualcoyotl c.1402–1472 Mexica (Aztec) and
Acolhua
Miantonomoh c.1565–1643 Narragansett
Kandiaronk c.1649–1701 The Wendat at
Michilimackinac
Teedyuscung c.1700–1763 Leni Lenape
Neolin Uncertain-c.1763 Leni Lenape
Sagoyewatha (Red Jacket) c.1751–1830 Seneca
Pushmataha c.1764–1824 Chahta (Choctaw)
Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak
(Black Hawk)
c.1767–1838 Sauk
Tecumseh c.1768–1813 Shawnee
Tenskwatawa c.1775–1836 Shawnee
John Ross 1790–1866 Tsalagi (Cherokee)
William Apess 1798–1839 Pequot
Tocmetone (Sarah
Winnemucca)
c.1844–1891 Northern Paiute
Ohíye S’a (Dr. Charles
Eastman)
1858–1939 Santee Dakota
Wassaja (Dr. Carlos
Montezuma)
c.1866–1923 Yavapai Apache
Zitkála-Šá (Gertrude
Simmons Bonnin)
c.1876–1938 Yankton Sioux
Vine Deloria Jr. 1933–2005 Standing Rock Sioux
Viola Faye (VF) Cordova 1937–2002 Jicarilla Apache
Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui 1949-Present Aymara
Juan Carlos Sánchez-Antonio 1983-Present Zapotec
Zapatistas 1994-Present Maya (other Indigenous
alliances)
Despite ongoing resistance, the Indigenous critique
continues to grow across disciplines, however Global North
sociology still needs to begin to recognize that such thought
has and currently exists, and intentionally work toward
incorporating that thought meaningfully. There is no shortage
of material from which to develop these ideas. In addition to
the critiques of the Tlamatinime we have the critiques of many
other Indigenous thinkers and leaders utilizing Indigenous
millennia-knowledge. These leaders are listed in Table 2, which
is certainly not exhaustive:
Indigenous oppression has a long and complex history
(Stannard, 1993;Williams, 2012;Mackay and Feagin, 2022).
It conceptually began with the ancient Greeks (Williams,
2012) and physically began with Christopher Columbus in
1492 and continues today. The genocidal colonialism of what
is today called the Americas established a specific view of
Indigenous peoples and their cultures, one where they were
seen as demonic, savage, and unintelligent (Stannard, 1993;
Williams, 2012;Townsend, 2019;Mackay and Feagin, 2022).
Denial of Indigenous thought and knowledge still pervades
modern academic institutions where the school of thought
is still decidedly white, male, and Western (de Sousa Santos,
2014;Mignolo and Walsh, 2018). Even in disciplines such
as sociology we see this denial of Indigenous knowledge and
communities, after all it took 115 years for the American
Sociological Association (ASA) to gain a section on Indigenous
Peoples and Native Nations. Sociologists—who should by
nature of the discipline be familiar with critiques by oppressed
Indigenous thinkers—are well versed in Western scholars and
critics such as Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Aristotle, Plato, etc.
How many Sociologists would readily attest to at least hearing
the names of past and current Indigenous thinkers analyzing
race, economics, identity, war, colonialism, philosophy, religion,
European society, and more as far back as the beginnings
of colonization (Friars of Saint Francis, 1564;Léon-Portilla,
1963:18–21; Graeber and Wengrow, 2021:38–77; Sánchez-
Antonio, 2022)? That answer is likely as obscure as Global North
recognition of Indigenous thinkers themselves.
The refusal of many scholars to recognize and utilize
Indigenous thought advances the deeply engrained stereotype
of Indigenous peoples as savages without a valuable intellectual
framework or conceptual understanding of the world beyond
their primitive and savage existence. This white racially framed
narrative—and its well established and explicitly racialized anti-
Indigenous subframe (Stannard, 1993;Williams, 2012;Feagin,
2020;Mackay and Feagin, 2022)—of Indigenous knowledge
reduces Indigenous thought to savagery and re-interprets
it as a product of Western thinkers. This reframing of
Indigenous thought as actually a product of White Western
thought essentially self-Indigenizes any product of Indigenous
thinkers as a product of Euro-Whites (González Casanova,
1965), much how 21st century whites are claiming their own
distorted indigeneity to preserve colonial and white supremacist
policies—the intended results are the same: to erase Indigenous
peoples and their knowledge (Leroux, 2019).
Discussion
Other disciplines have been and still grapple with how
to use Indigenous thought and critique as a structure itself,
rather than something that takes a secondary role next to the
dominant settler colonial knowledge base. The Global North
tradition must begin to recognize and familiarize itself with
the thought and critique of historical and contemporary Global
South scholars, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, who have been
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doing this work for centuries and were the first to do so in
many cases.
Global North sociology must begin to recognize and
utilize Indigenous knowledge on an equal footing, while also
considering that Indigenous knowledge does not view our reality
in the same way. Indigenous scholar Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui
illustrates this when she critiques the Western/Global North
constructions and obsessions with prehistory, post-colonialism,
etc. She says of Indigenous worldviews (2020:48), “There is no
post or pre in this vision of history...rather [it] moves in cycles
and spirals and sets out on a course without neglecting to return
to the same point. The indigenous world does not conceive of
history as linear; the past-future is contained in the present”.
This rejection of a linear timeline by Indigenous thought can
be seen in the struggles of Indigenous groups and regions like
the Zapatistas, American Indian Movement, Chéran, and others
that are currently attempting to rebuild Indigenous thought
and society. These communities see the future of Indigenous
communities and millennia-knowledge as necessarily involving
resurrecting language, thought, culture, and more to truly save
Indigenous peoples from the ongoing onslaught of colonialism
(Sánchez-Antonio, 2022). This epistemic justice (de Sousa
Santos, 2014) is vitally important for Indigenous millennia-
knowledge to overcome dominating Western thought and
paradigms. Indigenous scholars and movements can fall prey
to internal colonialism that reifies the very colonial structures
it attempts to fight against by not adequately resurrecting
and implementing Indigenous millennia-knowledge (González
Casanova, 1965;Sánchez-Antonio, 2022). Indigenous thought
must constitute the very foundation of Indigenous struggle and
movements, inside and out of academia, otherwise it is based
on colonial and postcolonial ideologies that merely reinforce the
very elements that the struggle is attempting to overcome.
Using these Indigenous concepts on an equal footing is
grounded in another pluralist Indigenous philosophy that comes
from the Mi’kmaq. Etuaptmumk—translated as two-eyed seeing
(Kutz and Tomaselli, 2019). It recognizes that knowledge is
cogenerated, and we learn to see “from one eye with the
strengths of Indigenous knowledges...and from the other eye
with the strengths of Western knowledges...and [using] both
these eyes together, for the benefit of all” (Marshall, 2004).
Systemic racism and multi-raciality
We can ponder, how would Indigenous pragmatism
interact with the theory of systemic racism (Feagin, 2006)?
The dimensions of interaction, pluralism, community, and
growth were applied by Indigenous thinkers to critique
and analyze a systemically racist system that they could
see was imported and evolving with the explicit intent of
complete Indigenous elimination. Colonial academic violence
and erasure continues to employ white racially framed
narratives that Indigenous peoples are largely passive bodies
and actors in the process of colonialism, an assumption
that obfuscates the determined Indigenous resistance to
erasure. The Indigenous critique is not merely an early and
contemporary recognition of violent Euro-American actions,
but an explicit recognition of a systemically racist society
that “others” Indigenous people to such an extent that
their violent elimination is justified (Mackay and Feagin,
2022). This recognition of the organized and institutionalized
racism and anti-Indigenous subframe were explicitly relayed in
public criticisms of Euro-American society and its frameworks
by Indigenous groups like the Tlamatinime, leaders like
Miantonomi, and many others (Friars of Saint Francis, 1564;
Pratt, 2002).
Systemic racism and its empirical puzzles can be analyzed
using the millennia old Indigenous pragmatic. The dimensions
of Indigenous pragmatism (see Table 1) would say that we must
accept diversity in our institutions and society. This should be
a necessary condition of their very existence. The Indigenous
pragmatic demands that dismantling racist systems entails
utilizing the Indigenous pragmatic dimensions of interaction,
pluralism (unity through diversity), community, and growth
(learning from one another on an equal plane). Through this
plurisociety it is possible to develop a community that is
based on the very intention of non-discrimination and non-
oppression. What this would look like in reality would likely
be difficult to predict, largely because Indigenous millennia-
knowledge has not been widely implemented and is in a
constant state of offense-defense against colonial attack, however
communities in Chiapas (Zapatistas) and Michoacán (Chéran)
have shown that governments and communities based on
Indigenous thought and structure are possible, peaceful, and can
thrive for all that live there (Barkin, 2022).
For a different example, let us turn to racism in medicine
which is a pervasive problem (Feagin and Bennefield, 2014)
and has been particularly relevant to Indigenous communities
even before the current COVID-19 pandemic. US Indigenous
communities, particularly on reservations, rely on the federally
funded and run Indian Health Service to provide for their
well-being due to treaty obligations agreed to by Indigenous
governments and the US. However, the IHS has failed in many
respects and remains a systemically racist and sexist institution
(US Commission on Civil Rights, 2004;Gurr, 2014) run by
a settler colonial government that frequently ignores treaty
obligations (Echo-Hawk, 2013). How would the Indigenous
pragmatic provide a framework for evaluating issues of systemic
racism in medicine?
Through the principle of interaction, it is possible to
understand that the interactions of Indigenous peoples working
in and visiting the IHS facilities are providing important and
crucial social interactions with non-Indigenous employees and
IHS officials that can build community. These provider—
patient interactions are an important part of medicine,
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however the problem of providers in the IHS providing
culturally irrelevant care contributes to the systemically racist
structures within medicine overall and by extension, the IHS
(Feagin and Bennefield, 2014;Mackay, 2022). Recognizing
and implementing the dimension of interaction also must
incorporate the Indigenous relations to land, nature, and
community that are components of effectively treating the
overall patient, a concept now popularly termed One Health
(United States Centers for Disease Control Prevention, 2022;
Mackay, 2022).
These interactions lead to pluralism which recognizes
that diversity necessarily exists in a world that has multiple
lived experiences (realities) and multiple ways of relating to
one another and land. Medicine may superficially recognize
interactions and their importance, but pluralism can help
medicine accept and implement the necessity for diversity
and thereby incorporate a level of unity into medical systems,
particularly one like the IHS which has a specific mandate
to treat Indigenous communities. Through interactions and
pluralism there can develop the dimension of community. As
medical systems currently stand there is a level of removal
from the patient. The Western system generally does not
effectively integrate comunalidad, in turn this means that
medical systems treating Indigenous people are not grounded in
the lived realities whereby Indigenous people value community
responsibility and involvement in their medical care (Mackay,
2022). Further, the Indigenous pragmatic dimension of growth
comes from the previous three dimensions. Since medical
systems do not effectively integrate the Indigenous pragmatic,
that same pragmatic would argue that it is fundamentally
impossible to create positive growth within these medical
systems as they currently stand. Future research that considers
the pragmatic and its dimensions can address an argument that
current medical systems are nonsensical under this worldview
and could provide for unique and innovative solutions and
medical systems.
Extensive research in sociology has shown that the US
is a systemically racist and settler colonial society, but that
research has not analyzed these systems through the lens of
Indigenous philosophy whereby the racist systems themselves
are fundamentally flawed and illogical. The Indigenous
pragmatic as a mode of analysis can help future research
to argue that these systems, based on philosophies, must be
overturned as they are fundamentally nonsensical within
Indigenous philosophies. While I have used systemic racism
in medicine as a specific example here, the pragmatic can be
extended to many various empirical puzzles related to systemic
racism, for example: systemic racism and sports, systemic
racism and women’s rights—itself an important component
of Indigenous liberation and sovereignty (Lugones, 2008;
Sánchez-Antonio, 2022), systemic racism and rights of LGBTQ
populations, systemic racism and debates of settler identity,
and more.
Multi-raciality
Another potential analysis—interacting with systemic
racism and arising from an Indigenous framework that utilizes
Indigenous pragmatism and ch’ixi—could be how multiracial
individuals living in colonial societies, such as myself, view and
mediate our racialized identities. Rivera Cusicanqui (2020:51–
60), herself mixed-Indigenous, details how multi-raciality and
multi-culturalism without ch’ixi does not ultimately do enough
to recognize that all parts of an identity are equal and carry
equal weight in order to create a new and unique individual.
The critique that current literature does not do enough to
analyze multi-racial experiences and negatively racialized
individuals—and new terms and frameworks are needed—was
recently recognized in a scholarly paper on multi-raciality.
The authors state, “...new theoretical frameworks specific to
Multiracial families are necessary. . . ” (Atkin and Yoo, 2019).
Ch’ixi can help fill this recognized gap in the literature and
advance the field as it is a specific framework that centers
the concept of multi-raciality, its positive and non-racialized
aspects, and associated lived experiences. It may additionally
help multi-racial individuals to accept their multi-racial ancestry
and more fully embrace their rich and diverse heritage when
they otherwise may be hesitant, hostile to that ancestry, or
employ methods such as code-switching in a society that
negatively racializes multi-raciality (Anzaldua, 2012;Gonlin,
2022).
Anzaldua (2012) highlights code-switching in her analysis
of borderlands and the concept of nepantla (Nahuatl: in the
middle of it; between) to describe in-betweenness of lived
experiences and identities, particularly in border communities.
Chi’ixi would likely disrupt this idea of nepantla as it has
currently been conceptualized in the literature. Nepantla—
based on its currently associated code-switching dimension—
demands switching between identities, essentially a duality of
Indigenous vs. non-Indigenous. Under Ch’ixi someone is all
their identities at once, the switching of identities—or the
Western demand of “picking” one identity for mixed people—is
illogical and fundamentally unnecessary under Ch’ixi. Utilizing
this understanding of identity is one way that mixed individuals
can understand and embrace their identity, however it must
also be used in conversation with the overall systemically racist
structure in which it exists. Code-switching dualities can be
used in a systemically racist system that does not encourage the
Indigenous pragmatic and acceptance of unity through diversity.
Sometimes it can be necessary to employ code-switching for
an individual’s safety. The impact of integrating an Indigenous
pragmatic and Ch’ixi in a systemically racist society could alter
how mixed individuals interact with their communities and
how communities interact with them. Complications such as
this are what make Indigenous knowledge and frameworks so
necessary and exciting to explore, Ch’ixi provides a potentially
liberating avenue.
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Relatedly, Rivera Cusicanqui is quite critical of the concept
of multi-culturalism, especially as it relates to Indigenous
peoples. She insists that the current constructions of multi-
culturalism and multi-raciality-without-Ch’ixi are (2020:56–57):
...Essentialist and historicist interpretations of the
indigenous question. They do not address the fundamental
issues of decolonization but instead obscure and renew
the effective practices of colonization. Their function is to
supplant the indigenous populations as historical subjects
and to turn their struggles and demands into elements of
a cultural reengineering and a state apparatus in order to
subjugate them and neutralize their will.
Rivera Cusicanqui’s firm critique of multi-culturalism
and multi-raciality-without-Ch’ixi recognizes that Indigenous
peoples and identities are still actively racialized, ignored,
and removed from these conversations—something that other
Indigenous scholars have recognized as well (Oviedo-Freire,
2021;Sánchez-Antonio, 2022). Rivera Cusicanqui recognizes
that any conversation or framework—even well intentioned
multicultural ones—that includes Indigenous peoples does so
through a colonial lens and does so in order to continually
subjugate Indigenous people, their identities, and to hold them
to a universal colonial standard, a violation of the Indigenous
pragmatic (Pratt, 2002) and a viewpoint that can likely court
passionate discussion among scholars in future research.
However, as Rivera Cusicanqui states, these ideas have
largely been crafted by non-Indigenous American scholars
and implemented within colonized spaces. This means that
Indigenous peoples are excluded, and Indigenous identities
are subjugated under others. In a colonial framework that
does not incorporate Indigenous concepts of identity, the
Indigenous identities of individuals and communities are
automatically and necessarily oppressed. To effectively liberate
Indigenous people a concept and system must be implemented
that elevates Indigenous identity by its very existence and
core conception. Under Indigenous millennia-knowledge that
elevation is possible as its philosophy sees multi-racial
Indigenous people, and other mixed individuals, as positive
and something beautifully unique—an included third that
combines all aspects of our realities and communities into
an identity/individual that can interact with and grow all
communities and realities. Again, Zapatista communities,
Zapotec/mixe movements, and the town of Chéran all show
that this Indigenous approach is necessary for Indigenous
liberation and decolonial actions to effectively work (Barkin,
2022;Sánchez-Antonio, 2022;Schools for Chiapas, 2022).
These areas of research will be critical as the US
multiracial population continues to grow and society must
increasingly incorporate Ch’ixi identities. As this research
continues to gain steam and attention, the risk is that the
contributions of Indigenous thinkers and ideas regarding
multi-raciality/culturalism will be internally colonized and
regurgitated as a new Euro-American idea to analyze the
demographic shifts in the United States (González Casanova,
1965). Early and continuous recognition that Indigenous
scholars and knowledge, as well as other Global South scholars,
have created these ideas and initiated these conversations will be
extremely important.
Postcolonial thought
Indigenous frameworks can add depth and nuance to
movements such as the postcolonial theoretical movement.
Julian Go’s 2016 book on the topic provides an important
introduction to postcolonial thought while highlighting its
pluses and minuses and the major figures within the subaltern
movement. However, even the postcolonial movement
maintains a focus everywhere but on the Indigenous peoples
of the Americas. Indigenous American thought is barely
mentioned, and Indigenous American scholars are equally
rarely mentioned. Indigenous scholars like Jairo Fúnez-
Flores have highlighted that postcolonialism still maintains
a largely Eurocentric/Francocentric focus (Fúnez-Flores,
2022) conceptually and in practice. This is important because
Indigenous pragmatism and thought are present in the
very ideas that Go mentions as core to the postcolonial
framework, even unintentional omissions such as this continue
to perpetuate internal colonialism and their omission weakens
analyses of Indigenous communities under these frameworks.
Pablo González Casanova addresses this when he states that
Indigenous peoples and scholars must “...consume, in a
regurgitated form, the very ideas. . . that we indigenous people
and intellectuals. . . have produced independently” (González
Casanova, 1965;Rivera Cusicanqui, 2020:61).
In a section titled “Turning South, Going Native” (Go,
2016:147) the author states, “Simply put, indigenous sociology
aims to globalize social science by mining currents of thought
from outside the metropole and using them to reorient
social theory”. Despite the racialized and co-naturalized racio-
linguistic history of phrases like going native (Rosa and
Flores, 2017)—and the colonialist metaphor and history of
mining Indigenous resources—Go perfunctorily highlights the
importance of using Indigenous knowledge as knowledge in
and of itself. He calls for the use of perspectival realism, a
Western based philosophical perspective that demands that
“truths of knowledge are always partial, and. . . depends on the
observer’s position” (Go, 2016:163) while assuming that “. . . no
theory is universal” (Go, 2016:182). This call for application
of perspectival realism does not mention how it impacts and
interacts with the ideas of Indigenous American philosophies.
Go (2016:143) cites Leela Gandhi and Edward Said in arguing
that we must overcome the binaries and dualisms we have
become used to in imperial settings, yet this binarism still exists
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in that Go fails to recognize or analyze in any meaningful way
how Indigenous American thought may have contributed to
this project.
For example, Go states that perspectival realism finds that
truths are always partial and come from the perspective of the
individual or community observing. Indigenous frameworks
would agree with this, but Indigenous frameworks would also
argue that truth is inherently and necessarily unknowable in its
entirety and we cannot know the full truth as we are existing in
a world that does not always need our classification and pursuit
of a dominant truth. The partial truths of perspectival realism
under an Indigenous framework are not invalid or damaged in
their assertions, rather they are an addition to a rich tapestry
that must include all partial truths, communities, and realities.
We should celebrate the partial truths and accept their unique
validity rather than view them as an obstacle to overcome or
otherwise “deal with.” However, Indigenous philosophy would
also argue that through Etuaptmumk it would be possible, even
if difficult, to incorporate those partialities to see a larger picture.
While perspectival realism seems to imply that there is always
a corrupting partiality in everything, Indigenous philosophy
embraces that partiality and requires it to see the larger picture
with both eyes.
Additionally, the relatively modern perspectival realism
states that no theory or truth can be seen as universal, that
everyone perceives things differently. However, this method still
stems from Western conceptions that each person views reality
from a common standard (e.g., the biblical Golden Rule explored
in the Religion section below). Indigenous philosophy rejects
this universal basic standard, this means that we cannot judge
societies and beings along a singular and linear timeline or
to a singular standard, an idea already present in Indigenous
millennia-knowledge. As Pratt (2002) and Sánchez-Antonio
(2022) show, Indigenous philosophy necessarily allows for a
basic pluralism that is rarely present, or actively suppressed, in
Euro-Western thinking. This pluralism celebrates unity through
the diversity of thought and tradition and regularly supports
that multiple truths, theories, basic standards etc. can peaceably
co-exist and must exist to adequately consider reality. This non-
universal realism of thought and community can lead to growth
that postcolonialism calls for in sociology but from a common
standard, Indigenous pragmatism rejects this common standard
and views partiality/non-universalism not as an abstract theory
or obstacle to explanation.
The question then remains: can postcolonial thought be
effectively utilized for liberation of Indigenous American
communities and thought? Rivera Cusicanqui (2020:48) makes
her thoughts clear on the matter. She argues that the
“post” in postcolonial implies a linear and hierarchical
ordering of time and society, Indigenous worldviews across
communities reject this idea of a universal linear timeline,
therefore a postcolonial approach makes no logical sense for
Indigenous thought. Indigenous scholars are instead calling
for decolonial approaches as this recognizes an Indigenous
worldview that past, present, and future exist and influence
one another simultaneously and that actively rejects any aspect
of colonial domination over Indigenous communities and
thought (Mignolo and Walsh, 2018;Rivera Cusicanqui, 2020;
Sánchez-Antonio, 2022). Analysis of systemically racist and
anti-Indigenous structures in the US are not effective unless
they recognize that we are not living in a post-colonial society,
this makes the present colonial structures and the associated
systemic racism opaque. If we are to analyze Indigenous
American issues under a postcolonial framework, then we are
subsuming Indigenous communities under yet another colonial
framework that ultimately denies Indigenous liberation. If we
momentarily return to systemic racism in medicine, we can
illuminate some of this trouble.
Postcolonialism, by its very definition, would see the IHS
as a relic of previously colonial policies and institutions in a
binarism of pre vs. post. This negates the still valid treaties
around the IHS between the US and sovereign Indigenous
governments as well as diminishing the impact that the settler-
colonial US government has on the IHS and Indigenous health.
The Indigenous pragmatic and an Indigenous conception of
time necessarily sees the IHS not as a postcolonial institution
and system, but rather as a system that is made up of its
colonial past, present, and future. Therefore, analyses of the IHS
under postcolonial approaches cannot adequately account for
the larger picture in which the IHS exists. Systemic racism in
medicine analyses can use Indigenous millennia-knowledge to
effectively analyze Indigenous and marginalized experiences in
colonial medical systems more appropriately and account for the
particulars of Indigenous experiences within Western medicine
(Mackay, 2022).
This same idea applies to settler-societies at large. The
place of Indigenous people within nations like the US, Canada,
Australia, Mexico, and Brazil is one of subjugated and oppressed
marginality. These countries are still dominated by and based on
settler-colonial institutions that have not and cannot enter a post
phase, they are still very much alive and well. Indigenous truth
would not demand that sociologists discover every granular
detail of the Indigenous experience in these societies; rather
Indigenous truth and the Indigenous pragmatic would argue
analysis of systemically racist structures across society must not
conceptualize Indigenous oppression and history as relegated to
a post era or attempt to fit Indigenous experience and oppression
completely into frameworks developed in and by those same
colonial institutions. The present and future are very much
influenced by colonialism and newly created structures and
analyses developed from these ideas and institutions are still
perpetuating ongoing colonialism in new forms.
Religion
Pratt (2002) highlights how the Indigenous pragmatic also
incorporates what he calls a logic of land. This logic is
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discussed throughout his book, but one Indigenous criticism
is quite pertinent as it reveals the Indigenous pragmatic
at odds with core Christian ideas, particularly the Golden
Rule. Pratt introduces readers to interactions of the Delaware
leader Teedyuscung with a Quaker missionary. The missionary
explains to Teedyuscung that the rule is “for one man to do
to another as he would the other should do to him” (Pratt,
2002:163). Teedyuscung considered this and after a short time
came back to the missionary and explained that this rule was
impossible since creationary forces would need to instill humans
with “a new heart” (Pratt, 2002:163). This doesn’t imply that
Teedyuscung considers the world too selfish to apply the rule,
but rather that the rule itself is inadequate and constraining.
The Golden Rule implies that the two people are coming from
identical visions of fairness and reality, however Indigenous
thought recognizes that this is almost never the case and should
never be assumed, plurality must be accepted and assumed
instead. Teedyuscung is arguing that the two people should
be using two-eyed seeing instead, through seeing where both
individuals are coming from it would produce a result that is
more equitable and agreeable to both parties. The Golden Rule
as it stands is essentially one-eyed seeing.
Teedyuscung also uses the Indigenous pragmatic in a more
nuanced way to criticize the larger colonial objectives and Euro-
Western demands that subsume all people under a singular
method, assume that identical standards should and must be
applied to all people, and see the land as merely a resource to
exploit. By demanding that all people are of the same ethic and
development the Golden Rule removes the logic and importance
of the Indigenous pragmatic—and a logic/interconnectedness to
land—to Indigenous communities. This further reduces land,
and climate (Barkin, 2022), to the resource and value extraction
of Euro-Western thought and provides a base to justify violent
Indigenous dispossession (Pratt, 2002:166).
Just as the Tlamatinime recognized how Christianity would
affect Indigenous lives and culture (Friars of Saint Francis,
1564;Léon-Portilla, 1963:63–66), Teedyuscung also recognized
contradictions between Christianity and Indigenous thought.
Research into society and religion, particularly in the Americas,
must interact with colonialism and what that means to
Indigenous people, the idea that Indigenous people did not
resist colonialism or viewed Europeans as gods is false and a
colonial/Christian fiction invented by the invaders themselves
(Restall, 2004:97–98; Townsend, 2019:95–111). Sociological
analyses of religion can be buoyed by taking a specifically
Indigenous approach. Future research could do more than
recognize that Indigenous people resisted, it could also include
the Indigenous criticism of Christianity based on the Indigenous
pragmatic, just as Teedyuscung does with his critique of
Christian principles. This is not to say that future research
must say that Indigenous people rejected Christianity, though
many did, rather that Indigenous peoples saw the contradictions
within Christian thought and action and criticized it based
on their own traditions, histories, and knowledge. Under the
Indigenous pragmatic this was not an issue, Christianity, just as
any idea, could be criticized, debated, and considered.
This tradition of healthy debate concerning all matters,
including Christianity and its precepts, was exemplified
through Kandiaronk who famously irritated Jesuit priests and
European intellectuals with his intelligence and wit (Graeber
and Wengrow, 2021:48–56). Kandiaronk frequently criticized
Christianity and engaged in debate with missionaries around
him. He recognizes the disconnect between Euro-Christians and
Indigenous traditions saying, “It’s only natural for Christians
to have faith in the holy scriptures, since, from their infancy,
they’ve heard so much of them. Still, it is nothing if not
reasonable for those born without such prejudice, such as the
Wendats, to examine matters more closely” (Lahontan, 1703;
Graeber and Wengrow, 2021:52). Interesting future research
could analyze Kandiaronk’s varied criticisms of Christianity and
European culture such as his points: one religion for all people
doesn’t make sense (Graeber and Wengrow, 2021:53); Eternal
damnation makes no sense as humans are not inherently bad,
but rather a religion and culture that encourages selfish and
acquisitive behavior is (Graeber and Wengrow, 2021:53); that
money, property rights, and material self-interest leads to an
inhuman society such as that of the Europeans (Graeber and
Wengrow, 2021:54); and the complete dismantling of European
social systems is the only way to solve their many problems
(Graeber and Wengrow, 2021:54).
Kandiaronk’s critique appears to violate the plurality
and two-eyed seeing of Indigenous philosophy. However,
Kandiaronk has viewed his culture and European culture
through two-eyed seeing and can see that Europeans are
unlikely to extend such an open-minded courtesy to Indigenous
people. He indicates this when he states that Indigenous people
use two-eyed seeing to analyze the benefits and drawbacks
of Christianity, however this same vision is not present
among Europeans who see Christianity and European culture
as infallible and unquestionable. He also reveals this rigid
structure in his comments on European society needing a
complete reset to better understand and care for themselves
and others. The influence of the Indigenous pragmatic relayed
to Lahontan by Kandiaronk even extended to the theorizing
of French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau who plagiarized
these Indigenous ideas in his influential works on democracy,
freedom, and ethics (Launay, 2018). Rousseau’s work was
massively influential in European and North American high
society and became foundational for many of the “democratic”
ideas that influenced the founders of the US. However, this
Indigenous contribution, and many others (Mackay and Feagin,
2022), to European democratic thought is rarely if ever
recognized, another example of internal colonialism whereby
Indigenous peoples experience their own ideas and theories as if
they are not their own (González Casanova, 1965). As a political,
military, and intellectual leader Kandiaronk saw that he needed
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to pivot his strategy to one where he actively refutes European
society and methods in a desperate attempt to prevent the
annihilation of Indigenous ways of life (Graeber and Wengrow,
2021:48–60).
A potential path for future research concerning
Indigenous people and religion, particularly Christianity,
could sociologically consider how the Indigenous conception
of creation differs significantly from Western traditions. Every
Indigenous community has narratives of how the world and
the cosmos came to be, but similarities are shared across stories
and these similarities are beautifully showcased in the ancient
K’iche’ book the Popol Vuh. The Popol Vuh is one of the most
important Indigenous books remaining after Western invaders
attempted to obliterate Indigenous cultures. The Popol Vuh is a
living pre-invasion document that has been continually updated,
including throughout invasion. It is difficult to compare the
Popol Vuh to Western conceptions of literature, however the
most common comparison made—to help non-Indigenous
understand the importance and breadth of the book and
information within—is to the Bible. Not a perfect comparison,
but it relates the importance of the text, nonetheless.
Part One of the Popol Vuh specifically highlights the
concept of creation in a way that is in direct opposition
to typical Christian conceptions. The Popol Vuh specifically
highlights the trial-and-error process of the Gods when they
were attempting to create the earth, plants and animals, and
humans. Contrasting Christian conceptions of godly perfection,
the Popol Vuh celebrates the mistakes, trial, and error of
the Gods. The Indigenous conception of creation here—which
interestingly is like many other Indigenous creation stories
of divine trial and error—is explicitly scientific. This opposes
Christian conceptions of creation and Christianity’s ongoing
relationship to science, the Indigenous worldview doesn’t view
the Gods as perfect beings, rather they are individuals that can
and do make mistakes and errors. The Popol Vuh explicitly
states that the approach of the Gods was neither perfect nor
arising out of divine perfection, unlike the Christian God who
is viewed as infallible. The Popol Vuh says of creation and the
Gods (Tedlock, 1996:64–66):
They are great knowers, great thinkers in their
very being....
By their genius alone, by their cutting edge alone they
carried out the conception. . . .
Such was their plan when they thought, when they
worried about the completion of their work. . . .
In their quest to create beings that could speak and
honor the Gods, the animals were created. The Gods
recognized their errors and say: “It hasn’t turned out
well. . .since it hasn’t turned out well and you haven’t spoken,
we have changed our word. .. ” (Tedlock, 1996:67). The Gods
tried again (Tedlock, 1996:68–69).
And then they wanted to test their timing again, they
wanted to experiment again, and they wanted to prepare for
the keeping of days again....
Again there comes an experiment with the human work,
the human design. . . so then they dismantled, again they
brought down their work and design.
This conception of the Gods as beings that can, do, and even
should make mistakes indicates a certain worldview whereby
the Gods are not infallible beings that know all and create
things perfectly. Humans are not explicitly made in their
image; in fact, the Gods experiment with multiple different
forms of humans. This scientific approach to the story of
creation could provide for future research that analyzes the
Indigenous relation to Western science. Indigenous peoples have
suffered greatly at the hands of Western science and still battle
fiercely with Western scientific institutions that inappropriately
use Indigenous data or desecrate Indigenous bodies. Modern
Indigenous organizations like the Native BioData Consortium
are run by Indigenous scientists and community members to
ensure that Indigenous data is used appropriately. However,
the systemically racist issues surrounding Western bioscience
and its exploitation of Indigenous people has created much
reluctance by Indigenous peoples to work with scientific groups.
This reaction is easily weaponized by colonial systems to claim
that Indigenous peoples don’t appreciate or understand science,
however this is fundamentally untrue. The very creation stories
of Indigenous peoples are the definition of science and the
scientific method: hypothesis, design, test, observe, report. In
these Indigenous creation stories of the experimentation of Gods
there is an inherent appreciation of science, one that Christianity
actively eschewed and continues to aggressively rebuff.
Analyses of Indigenous peoples, science, medicine, and
racism can further consider how this fundamentally scientific
belief of Indigenous peoples influences their relation to
science overall and scientific concerns like climate and
environmentalism (Barkin, 2022). The Indigenous appreciation
for experimentation combined with philosophies like the
Indigenous pragmatic that values knowledge creation and
diversity seem to indicate that Indigenous relations with
Western science are far more nuanced than has been considered.
Future research into the sociology of science can explore this
fascinating connection and potentially provide valuable insights
for alleviating the systemic racism present in Western science.
This connection could also aid ongoing efforts to encourage
young Indigenous people to enter careers in STEM fields
by highlighting how their cultures have long held immense
appreciation for science and engineering. Here is also an
important opportunity to use Etuaptmumk by incorporating
the Indigenous appreciation for science—as a fundamental fact
of life and creation—with a Western scientific system; this
interaction could produce science that is less colonial and
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Mackay 10.3389/fsoc.2022.1047812
racialized. This would allow for two-eyed seeing of empirical
puzzles, one from the Indigenous point of view and the other
from a Western point of view, thereby increasing the potential
for innovation and imagination (Barkin, 2022).
In addition, studies of religion within sociology may want
to engage with the Indigenous pragmatic and Gordon Allport’s
concept of intrinsic and extrinsic religious attitudes and value
frameworks (Allport and Michael Ross, 1967). Building on
Allport’s previous research, Allport and Michael Ross show in
their 1967 paper—supported by regional data from research on
southern Baptists (Feagin, 1964)—that a person with “intrinsic”
religious attitudes views religion more as a lifestyle compared
to a person with “extrinsic” attitudes who views religion as
more of a networking or business opportunity (Allport and
Michael Ross, 1967:434–435). Interesting results from this
research (Feagin, 1964;Allport and Michael Ross, 1967) show
that those who have an intrinsic religious value framework
are less likely to admit to prejudiced attitudes compared to
the extrinsic religious individual. The connection here can
be made to the long history of religion (e.g., Doctrine of
Discovery; Inter Caetera; Spanish missions; English missions;
French missions; Manifest Destiny; etc.) exploiting and explicitly
advocating for the oppression of Indigenous peoples (Mackay
and Feagin, 2022). The Doctrine of Discovery, based on the
Inter Caetera (Pope Alexander VI, 1493), states that Indigenous
people have no inherent right to their lands, unlike Europeans
who allegedly have a holy right to all land across the world,
an idea that was reified by the United States Supreme Court—
Johnson’s Lessee v. McIntosh, 21 U.S. 8 Wheat.543 (1823).
The Doctrine of Discovery’s predatory ethic of Indigenous
elimination and dispossession (Williams, 2012;Mackay and
Feagin, 2022) directly impacts the US’ obsession with Manifest
Destiny and western expansion beyond the Mississippi. A
destiny that directly led to horrors like the Trail of Tears
and many other genocidal atrocities committed by the US
government and settler-invaders (Stannard, 1993).
How does the concept of someone living their religion
(i.e., intrinsic religious framework)—and therefore allegedly
less prejudiced—complicate and interact with the history of
colonization and religion? Future research could reengage
with Allport’s ideas and potentially investigate if this still
holds steady under colonial structures. This now decades old
research showing that intrinsic-religious and regular church
attendees are allegedly less prejudiced (Feagin, 1964;Allport and
Michael Ross, 1967) could be complicated by ongoing settler-
colonialism. The almost-zealot church attendees and leaders
in colonial times who advocated for Indigenous elimination
(Mackay and Feagin, 2022) do not seem to fit into this structure.
Rather a certain predatory ethic seems to have been at play,
despite their regular church attendance and “living” their
religion they seem to have harbored extreme prejudice rather
than displaying less prejudice, as Allport theorized (Allport and
Michael Ross, 1967).
This is not a “post” problem either, this anti-Indigenous
zealotry by regular church attendees still impacts Indigenous
communities. Recently, a Christian missionary within the
borders of the Oglala Sioux distributed a pamphlet denouncing
Indigenous culture and beliefs as false and demonic (Associated
Press News, 2022). This is but one of many incidents across
the centuries that show the value and need for researching
anti-Indigenous framing by religious groups, in particular
Christianity, from the Indigenous pragmatic—which would
advocate for religious plurality.
Indigenous scholars and leaders like Kandiaronk utilized the
Indigenous pragmatic and Indigenous knowledge to critique this
ongoing religio-prejudice. Kandiaronk’s critique of the Euro-
Western Christian predatory ethic is essentially an early critique
of Allport’s ideas centuries later. It would not be unreasonable
to think that Kandiaronk would view recent events, and the
idea that regular church attendees are less prejudiced, as at
odds with what he was experiencing, as he also experienced the
prejudice and aggressive reactions of the Christians—clergy and
non-clergy alike—to him, his culture, and his people.
Conclusion
The idea of an Indigenous critique is only recently becoming
recognized by non-Indigenous and Global North scholars as a
legitimate interrogation of colonialism, society, and more, but it
has been crafted since the earliest days of invasion. The critique
is based on established Indigenous philosophies that influenced
the lives and societies of tens of millions of Indigenous people
before European invasion. Previous research by Western/Global
North scholars has not adequately incorporated this millennia-
knowledge as a structure of its own, but rather as more
of a historical curiosity. This paper was never meant to be
an answer to all questions, nor to be the final word on
Indigenous knowledge, or to speak for all Indigenous peoples.
Such assumptions are in direct violation of the very basic
foundations of Indigenous philosophy. What I can offer is a way
of seeing the clouded reality we exist in: how I see the potential
interactions of sociological Indigenous thought, the pluralism
of this paper and other ideas, the communities that can benefit
from an introduction to these ideas, and finally the growth that
I hope will come out of this introduction.
An Indigenous critique, millennia-knowledge, and
pragmatic should—and must—be of interest to a broad
sociological and scientific audience. The Indigenous critique
incorporates Indigenous philosophies and social critiques of
many Indigenous people, scholars, and leaders past and present.
As the sociology of the Global North begins to reckon with
its ongoing erasure of Indigenous people and knowledge, the
Indigenous critique can be a liberating way for Indigenous
peoples and scholarship to break from the bonds of Western
thought and interrogate questions, processes, institutions, and
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Mackay 10.3389/fsoc.2022.1047812
more from an Indigenous perspective, history, and critical lens.
Through resurrecting and constructing knowledge systems that
are based on Indigenous knowledge rather than of Indigenous
knowledge, scholars can begin to more fully interrogate the
experiences of Indigenous communities and potentially find
new questions and discussions. Constructing and recognizing
Indigenous critiques does not mean that other theories and
methods are abandoned, simply that we must see with two-eyes
and demand that Indigenous millennia-knowledge be used in
conversation with other concepts like systemic racism, identity
studies, and postcolonial theory. Indigenous scholars and
knowledge must be carefully consulted and utilized so as not
to be co-opted or subsumed by the internal colonialism of a
nation, but the beauty of the Indigenous pragmatic is that it
allows for the pluralism, Ch’ixi, and Etuaptmumk needed to
bring Indigenous knowledge onto an equal level.
Data availability statement
The original contributions presented in the study are
included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries
can be directed to the corresponding author.
Author contributions
RM is the sole author and completed all work on this project.
RM retrieved documents, articles, and books and provided the
analysis. He found the intertwining and recurrent themes and
applied them in the discussion. Author contributed to the article
and approved the submitted version.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank the editor and reviewers
for their hard work in helping to make this article better.
Additionally, the author would like to thank Joe Feagin, James
Fenelon, and Vanessa Gonlin for their encouragement and
comments.
Conflict of interest
The author declares that the research was conducted in the
absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could
be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the
authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated
organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the
reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or
claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed
or endorsed by the publisher.
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