Native American Knowledge Systems

by Clara Sue Kidwell

Every culture has some system of knowledge to explain its place in the world. Some of these systems are more complex than others, but each has an internal consistency based on what people have experienced. Some cultures have been characterized as “savage,” or “primitive” and have been considered as inferior by other cultures. Some cultures have become highly “scientific,” based on certain accepted practices of controlling their environments. This book presents examples from cultures in Mesoamerica and North America of different ways of seeing the world. These examples may inspire readers to examine their own ways of knowing.

Clara Sue Kidwell has served as associate dean for program development at Bacone college in Muskogee, Oklahoma (2011-2013), director of the American Indian Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2007-2011), and director of the Native American Studies program and Professor of History at the University of Oklahoma in Norman (1995- 2007). Her tribal affiliations are Choctaw and Chippewa. She received Ph.D. in History of Science from the University of Oklahoma. Before joining the faculty there in 1995 she served for two years as Assistant Director of Cultural Resources at the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution.

106 pages, Paperback

Published October 10, 2019

About the author

Clara Sue Kidwell, former Assistant Director for Cultural Resources at the National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C., is retired as the founding director of the American Indian Center at the University of North Carolina. She is the author of Choctaws in Oklahoma: From Tribe to Nation, 1855–1970.

Reviews

[Maddie Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s pretty easy to overlook the importance of how we come to understand the world we live in, and even easier to fail to extend that understanding to cultures different than our own. Clara-Sue Kidwell writes concisely and informatively about indigenous North American and Mesoamerican astronomical and calendar systems, agricultural practices and animal domestication, and religious/spiritual practices.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the belief systems of Native American cultures, and even more so for white Americans hoping to develop a more balanced understanding of the indigenous knowledge and culture decimated by settler colonialism. I look forward to reading more of Kidwell’s work.