ｌｩ｢ｲｮｾ Ｇ＠ of Congress Cataloging-in-Publicarion Oat a

Ind igenou s ph ilosoph ies an d cT1ti c:ll L'd uc·at1 ori: a re ade r i
t'd1ted hy (icor_t!t' J, SL'fa lki .
p. c ni. - 1Counterp<li nt s: ,tucf ies in the P'"tm odern
thc'orv of educHio n: nil. .'791
lnc·l udcs h1hliograph ic al rekrc·nc c·s an d index. This C\)tllp t
I . lndi _t! enou s peop les-EJucat w n. 2. Ethn op hil<"oph v. watch mer us ｾｩ＠
J, EJuc:it io n- Ph ilos.ip hy , I. Dei . Gc u rgc J. Scfa rCeor_t!e Jerry Sef:JJ.
LC-1715 .146 .\70. 1-dc22 20100532 19
ISHN 117 8-1 -433 1-081 5-0 ( hardco\ er)
ISBN <J78- l -4 .13 1-08 1-l -J 1paperhack)
ISSN 1058-1634

B ibl iograph ic info rmat ion puhl is hed hy Die Deutsche :'liationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche '\ationalhibliothek lis ts thi s pub lica ti on in the "De utsche
'.\ a ti on alh1hliografi e": detailed hihli ographic data 1s available
on the lnt.: rnet a t http :. dnb.d- nh .de: ,

J;s
ＺＭＬ｟ｧｴﾰＢｬ＾Ｎ - __ _ Mixed Sourcee

ｾｍ＾ｏ､ｯ
...
FSC
Ｍｾ＠

ｩＧｬ｢ｯＢ＠

Ｐ Ｑ Ｑｍ
C..-1 .... .

ｆ ＭｾｃｯＮＬｮ､ｬ＠
---00'9
ｳ｣Ｍ･ｯＲ ｾ＠

The paper in this ho ok meets the g uidelines for perman ence and durabi lity
of the Co mmittee o n Product io n Guid e lin es for Boo k Longevity
o f th e Co un c i I of Library Resources.

c 2011 Peter Lang Publishin g. Inc,, '·kw York

All rights reserv ed ,

Printed in the L:nited States of A merica

Space, Time and Unified Knowledge

JEF FEREY 0. A NDERSON

ine Deloria, Jr. was perhaps the foremost Native American thinker of the twentieth century. Jn
V many of his later writings, he looked back on a career in which he had gained some reaction
after publication of Custer Died for Your Sins ( 1969), but soon after, as he reflected later in life, he
"hit the glass ceiling that minority writers eventually hit when American white intellectuals no longer
pay attention to them" (Bender et al. , I 998, p. 24). At most , relevant academic disciplines respond-
ed to his works on an ad hoc basis, usually only for nominal citation, in defense of their model or
discipline, or to take one of his particular calls to action seriously. As Treat points out, Deloria's works
on religion drew little attention from theologians (Deloria & Treat, 1999, p. 3), despite his solid back-
ground in comparative theology and his primary aim to engage dialogue about religion in God Is
Red (1994) and The Metaphysics of"A1odern Existence (l 979).
Following an ancient academic tradition , hi s opponents labeled, caricatured, and discarded hi s
work by exaggerating a partial reading and contrasting it to the current, if always transient, state of
the art in their disciplines. The book Red Earth. White Lies ( 1995), for example, only attracted the
defensi ve posturing of archeo logists united to defend their science as a w hole, while disregarding
his ultimate concerns. It should be noted that some of the cherished theories about Native American
prehistory at the rime have since proved to be challengeable and falsifiable in the ways De loria sug-
gested . Major social theorists have also ignored his work, even though that his critiqµe of the uni-
versality and progressiveness of Western epistemologies p redates subsequent attempts in variou s
fie lds at refl exiv ity, deconstructi on, decoloni zat ion, and anti -esse nti al ism.
In cultural anthropology, Deloria 's call for dialogue has often been cited in contexts ofrcsearch
ethi cs, but the remainder of hi s work has been ignored or at most stereotyped. Similarly, a quick
review of anthropo loi:,ry 's reflexi ve period finds that none of the major fi gures in that movement rec-
ognized Deloria's or other Nat ive American scho lars' views in what was really an exclusively in-
housc clean-up job. During Deloria's career, mainstream anthropology also moved further away from
 SPAC E, T! M E AN D UNIFIED KN OW LED CE 95

the o lder traditions of S;_ip ir. Wh or( Hallowdl. Lee, and o chers who at leas t aimed al the un ifying
phe no menolog1ca! knowkdgc of Nat ive American metaphys ics rhar he advocated.
Phil osop hy has a lso similarly disregarded Oclt)ri a and indigeno us philosophies in gcnaal. Some
quick searches of published wo rks in phi losophy reveal only severa l re ferences to Deloria 's work over
the past forty years. Those few works connecti ng to Deloria's philosophical thou ght arc about ethics.
environ ment a lism , and human ri ghts , wtt h onl y rare engagements in metaphysics . Al o ng \Vi th other
Native American phi losophers. he participated in the recent edited volume Ami:'rican Indian Thought
(Delori a. 2004. p . 3) that seeks to break through th e "bastion of white male supremac y" still rei gn-
ing in phi losoph y.
Most deco lonizing sc holars in Na tive America n studies em brace hi s work in name bu t on ly pri -
marily to deploy the political or acade mic oppositiona l leve ls of his work to re ify indige nous vc r-
:-;us Weste rn differences. Few have embraced the full range and ultimate concerns of his intellectual
background and miss ion. Much more important than politi ca l discourse at a national level o r acad-
emic word-games is the concern fo r rev ita lizing indigenous phil osophi es in loca l communities that
arc losing them. Toward that end , Deloria's ultimate concern was not j ust to ident ify the deeper diver-
gent meta physica l premi ses underlying all political , academic, legal , scientific, re ligio us, and mo ral
gaps of understanding and conflicts between Native American and E uro-American people s but also
to find a bridge across the chas m by identifying co mmon as well as contested ground. Defenders of
the borders on bo th sides have tended to preva il, though, over those, like Deloria, seekin g a unique
_,_ '
dialogue and epistemological pluralism.
1
My own connection to Deloria 's quest for unified knowledge resulted from direct, concrete expe-
1
rience. During 1988- 1994 I worked in several jobs and conducted dissertation fi e ldwork in the
Northern Arapaho community on the Wi nd Ri ver Reservation in Wyoming. Every new s ituation and
r
project posed contradictions surrounding knowledge in a whirlwind of competing claims to author-
ity and validity both within the community and between the reservation and the non-Indi an world
r
s I• on the outside. The Arapaho strategy of maintaining consensus in political and ceremonial leader-
ship , well documented by Loretta Fowler ( 1982) for the period before the 1970s, had gi ven way to

s
I I
factio nalism in the cultural and linguistic revitalization programs in which T actively partic ipated.
Revitalization efforts in the commun ity tended to simplify and reduce language and culture for edu-
cational programs to single or superficial levels in ways dictated by older approaches in academic
linguistics and anthropology, such as in the reduction of language through standardization to code
f
e
g
n
' l

t
and lexicon without concern for pragmatics and semantics. At the same time, none of the anthropo-
logical models I had studied were of any use in understanding the contradict ions. By the 1990s,
ant hropo logy had also joined the w ave of postmodern re flexivity by deconstructing a nd defining as
co lonial projects all sociocultural tota lities and cl a ims to unified knowledge. This one-sided effort,
as man y realize now, did not make the contradicti ons go away for Native Am erican communiti es,
but paradoxi cally may have proliferated them by preservi ng fa lse binaries of researcher versus
s
native people. That bina1y and its presumed associated contradictions were such a small part o f my
experience and concerns while worki ng in the Arapaho communi ty. The contradictio ns I confront-
h
ed were not those of the short-term field experience that most anthropologists take home or the aca-
k
demic gaze they then eng age in the bounded-off and estranged playground of ideas back at the
:-
department. For exampl e, most of the buzz-words, fads, and major issues I encountered when I
retu rned to academi a in 1994 I fou nd had nothing to do wi th prax is in the lived world of Nati ve
n
Ame ri can communiti es .
94 i INDIGE NOUS KNOW LEDGES AS PHILOSOPHY ANO THE IMPLICATIONS OF DECOLONIZ AT ION

One reliable source for understanding all of this, though, was the work of Vine Deloria, Jr.. to edge will, be firm
which I kept returning. In and of the everyday situational flow of intercultural contact, I saw not just ation ofrhe mode
a constructed difference of ways of speaking or values, but the chasm between two different meta- pies.
physics that Deloria described, including deeply inculcated orders of time, space, and epistemolo- Needed, then
gy. I repeatedly observed and pondered that Deloria 's ideas were not just "'gratuitous games" with tive healing. Cult1
language, as Bourdieu ( 1990) defines the practice of Homo academicus, but that "this stuff really hap- both for individw
pens" (p. 381). I observed many non-Indian agencies, professionals, and educators distance them- community, all o
se lves ti,om local contexts by holding fast to orders of linear time through blind faith in schedules, memorializing pa
agendas, and, progress, as well-specialized bureaucratic spaces for particular functions and types of tural knowledge t
knowledge to be stored and taught. As Deloria realized and as I developed for the Northern Arapaho up in the publishe
more fully in The Four Hills of life {200 l ), such frames of space-time and knowledge exclude more Unified knO\\
knowledge than they include and combine to move understanding in the opposite direction from uni- apeutic approach•
fied knowledge . groups or the "soL
In the Arapaho community, l also observed that the challenges of cultural revitalization are huge Duran (2006) call
and require unified knowledge. For one thing, many folks live in collective denial about the rate and knowledge in nati
extent of culture loss. While more- but still too ｬｩｴ･ ｾ ｡ｴ･ｮｩｯ＠ has been paid to language loss, much low paths set by [
less has been expended on the issue of loss of metaphysics, ethics, and epistemologies. In my expe- on convergences ;
rience, many efforts at local cultural education were either framed in terms of generic pan-Indian pre- with the ultimate '
cepts or were empty scattered, disconnected, and even often random in orientation. Many projects holistic remediati·
had little connection to specifically Arapaho ultimate concerns, though elders and others often dis- experiences beyo
cussed the need to make those connections. As Deloria notes (2004), "The task today is that of inten- canon meant for t
sive research and study to enable people to project what the various tribal peoples probably meant appending a new c
when they described the world around them" (pp. 4-5). Revitalization efforts are fraught with the less attack on all
politics of knowledge in the fray of competing and often conflictual claims to expertise, credentials,. Western critical tr
and identity to engage in such research. Both Indian and non-Indian researchers readily meet with ciplinary inquiry t
controversy with each new project or publication, whether from native communities, academic ing reality under!)
institutions, or both at the same time. While unified
To some extent, native communities have embraced reified models oflanguage and culture from disciplines, metapl
imposed anthropological or other social scientific paradigms that are no longer even accepted in the over the long dura•
academic world but persist as "survivals" of a former stage of intellectual history. In short, renewal recently, too, met<
efforts typically reduce culture or language to a standardized object in which multiple views are often proposed cultural
eschewed for a single, abstracted one. Out of this a neotraditional purism develops, which;. as constructed by a ｾ＠
Deloria (2004) recognized, "Here the idea of philosophy certainly derives from the popular American tained for ccnturie
notion that if a person has certainly staunchly held opinions be or she has a 'philosophy'" (p. 5). One's great publishing i1
efforts, as a result, are preoccupied with defending small factual points, debunking counter-phiJoSo- economic, or othe:
phies, or even struggling to be heard. In both indigenous communities and academic contexts, dis- if only academi c c
course must appropriate Western dialectical strategies and thus move away from unified knowledge not actual territori
toward factional enclaves in which dialogue across boundaries of culture, disciplines, indigenous All of the rel
nations, and communities is precluded. The research Deloria (2004) proposed requires a commitm broadly interdiscir:
to the view "that there is something of value in any tribal tradition that transcends mere belief and inations, sciences
pride" (p. 5). thlnkers as far afi;
Most ignored of all has been Deloria's ultimate concern for unified knowledge, which pe.rVadel . filany others, inclu
bis myriad works spanning four decades, from the earlier God Is Red and Metaphysics of Modi · ｾｮｹ＠ discipline. Fol
Existence to the posthumously published C. G Jung and the Sioux Tradition . This concern.is · ｾｴｨ･＠ mainstream
cal , be believed, to healing native communities, the earth, and the human spec ies. Unified lcnowl- Socratic-Hegelian
cJgc wilL he tinn ly bcl 1cvcJ , o\cn.:nmc the cxik for nalt\C peoples from tradition. as wdl as the al ien-
ation of the modern ntm- lndia n world from naw rc , spirituali ty. and the maj ority ufnon -\Vestcm pco-
ples.
:\ceded, then. wit h 1.: ult ural re\ ita lizati on in 111Jigcnous communities is a move toward cullec -
tive healing. Cul ture and langua ge loss arc rntricatcly mcrdctcrrrnncd by conne1.:tions to human loss.
bo th fm indi vidua ls and peoples as who les. In my own extensive research in the Northern Arapaho
n1 111mu111ty. all or;1l historical. ethnographi1.: . and e\en linguistic interviews cvoki:d from ciders
memorializing pauses for ancestors now passed. tragic cxpcri enccs in hard times . and thc loss ofc ul -
tural !;nowlcdge they h:Jd s1.:cn in th.:ir lifctimes . Ironically. the depth of those moments docs not cnd
up in the published or recorded works
Unified kn ow lcdge is consistent wi th , but ofte n ignored by, new culturall y relevant psychothcr-
apeutie approaches that aim toward healing " historical trauma" cxpcricnc.:d by many oppressed
groups or the ··soul wo und:· as it is called. in Native Amcrican contexts. Thc movement toward what
Duran ( 2006) calls " liberation psychology" realizes thc nccessity or eno rmity of recovering unified
know ledge in nati ve communities (pp. 13- I 5 ). Hybridi zed ethno-thcrapeutic approaches could fol -
low paths set by Delori a's work, such as hi s final major work (Deloria, Deloria, & Bernstein, 2009)
on convergences and di ve rgences between Jung 's psychoanalytic theories and Lakota metaphysics
with the ultimate concern of moving toward deeper collective healing and reconciliati on. To achieve
holi stic remediation, Deloria advocated a (re )unification of knowledge and expansion of modes of
cxperiences beyond those differentiated in es tablished Western epistemologies. Revi sion of the
canon meant for him more than just adding Native American content to the prevailing disciplines,
appending a new cultural studies program to the curriculum, or waging a full-scale decolonizing ruth-
less attack on all mainstream ideas, often ironically using the conceptual weapons inherited from
Western critical theories. Rather, Deloria imagined a genuine intertribal , intercultural, and interdis-
ciplinary inquiry that draws on Western and indigenous pathways toward understanding the unify-
ing reality underlying all existence.
While unified knowledge requires metaphysical inquiry in all the mainstreams of contemporary
disciplines, metaphysics today is commonly a mystified or even taboo subject. For one thing, the shift
over the long duration toward reductionism in natural and social sciences precludes unification. More
recently, too, metaphysical discourse has been preempted by a ruthless postmodern critique of any
proposed cultural or social totality or unity, based on the presumption that any total system must be
constructed by a Western colonial gaze. Totalities, including those that indigenous peoples have main-
tained for centuries, are thus framed as imagined, ahistorical, constructed, or essentialist. There is a
great publishing industry now devoted to debunking indi genous cultures as fa bricated for political,
economic, or other base human ends. To semantically redirect Benedict Anderson's concept ( 1991 ),
if onl y academi c disciplines the mselves wou ld realize that they, too, are ''i magined communities,"
no t actual territories anchored to some empirical grou nd of the things themsel ves.
All of the relati ons Deloria drew upon from a vast landscape of intellec tual fi elds were so
broadly interd isciplinary as to resist the accepted discursive borderlines between disciplines, denom-
inations. sciences, and philosophies. He followed paths toward unified knowledge set by Westcrn
thinkers as far afield as Cassirer, Tillich, Barbour, Levi-Strauss, Jung, Heisenberg, Fcyerabend, and
many others, including a good number of obscure or marginal thinkers with no seats in the halls of
any disci pline. Following indigenous rather than Western dialectical paths of critical inquiry, wh ich
in the mainstream stay in the boundaries of the leisurely life of the shkole and confine thought to the
Socrati c- Hege li an co ntinuum of dial ectical reasoni ng ( Bourdieu, I 990), Deloria 's works aimed to
ｾＭ＠
i

96
I tNDtGENOUS KN OWLEDGES AS PHILO SOPHY !\ND THE !MPL!CAflONS OF DECOLONIZATIO N

t.mify knowledge that has been sliced up by pernicious, dead-end dichotomies and dialectics of mod- be freed in the Pla1
e'r tlthought, including Western versus Native American world views, reli gion versus science, time dreams, and so for
versus space, abstrac t versus primary ex perience, kairos versus chronos, history versus nature, in Greece, biblical
objective versus subj ective, and metaphysics versus experience. classica l biases, an
Throughout Deloria's work, foremost among barriers to unification is that Euro-American epis- er metaphysics, as
temologies have relegated indigenous ways of thinking to an external , diminutive, or "Other" cate- of categories fo r tr
gory. ｎ｡ ｴ ｾ ｶ･＠ American culture is a resource to be tapped as needed for data in tum as a means to Toward thi s ai
assumed larger aims of theory or hypothesis testing. Historically, indigenous knowledge systems have nous and Western
been confined to "conceprual reservations" as primitive, mytho logical, prelogical, and closed sys-
tems of thinking, that is, as nonsci entific views regarded at most as confused systems of classifica- When one group
tion , a logical mode of reasoning but with a closed set of unscientific premises, or an inrui tive, even ca l problem ofti1
"mystical" awareness as an alternative to Western rationality. In anthropology, other social sci- context to the otl

ences, and the humanities, Native American knowledge is often only an object of research, analy-
The locus of all Na
sis, and even critical inquiry but rarely recogn ized as epistemologies to be placed on the shelf of
as opposed to an a
prevailing paradigms or theoretical orientations. The truth-value of indigenous epistemologies is
the ability to short-
always already bracketed as a non-question by partitioning them as constructed for social, cognitive,
suspect" (p. 251 ).
psycho-emotional, symbolic, or practical functionality.
they have not resic
To even suggest that one could adopt Hopi metaphysics to understand the world economic sys-
image of progress
tem or a Lakota model to understand the human psyche appears absurd and unthinkable to a "seri-
temologies on the
ous" academic mind. The typical, reasonable Western mind will respond that such epistemologies
are not to be included because they are nonempirical, that is, based on nonfalsifiable premises. Yet, sacredlandscapes J
many nonempirical remnants of Western intellectual history are still embraced even though they have ity became clear. I
rienced as true" ([
long proved to be quite outlandish in empirical terms. Deloria challenged some of these, but many
more remain to be exposed. Metaphysical realities are simply embraced without question, such as Almost all Na
constructs of history, nature, being, and causality. Most disciplines claim to be sciences because their types. Many cultur•
epistemologies rest on Popper's ( l 959) principle of falsifiability, but rights to engage in fal sification In many Native Ar
and critique can be claimed by only those initiated to their respective cloisters. Throughout his works, the first and repeat
Deloria called upon modem defenders of science to consider that Popper's distinction between ｦ｡ｬ ｾ＠ ual ego but yet acc1
sifiable and nonfalsifiable knowledge does not simply correlate with science and religion as a fixed rience there is a str
and universal binary. There are scientists who hold fast to their models, individually or collective- or thing, which is <
ly, even when the evidence should have falsified them long ago. Conversely, religious experience, els of reality. A sa'
at least in Native American contexts, draws on immediate experience and can actually be open to new tral gathering for a
knowledge and views. pathway for shamr
Another barrier to metaphysical inquiry is the tendency in Western minds to elevate all varieties of earth 's creation
of metaphysics on a vertical axis. To a Western orientation that reifies ultimate realities in complex, gions often haves;
abstract, or transcendental terms, metaphysics takes on spatially vertical otherness, usually in the historical significa
metaphorical sense of being "above" or "beyond" experienced reality. As such, metaphysics is sacred places repn
either in one extreme eschewed by empirically minded thinkers as nonsense or, on the other, mys- Deloria argue:
tified by Western alienated consciousnesses in search of unified knowledge through "alternative" of contemporary Ir
experiences that actually, without groundedness, dissipate into a mystical cloud. From deep in may offer the mos
Western history extending back to classical roots, metaphysics is also commonly framed as the most nities. Reflective e
extreme form of privilege or skhole, a term Bourdieu ( 1990, p. 381) follows to its etymological con• ciated ecstatic stat'
nection with "school," as "an institutionalized situation of studious leisure," as in Plato 's tradition which is not univo1
of spoudaios paizein, "to play seriously." Unified knowledge is thus, in Western frames , accessible of the time, beca1
only to elite minds freed from the immediate, practical concerns of everyday life. In short, one must Approached correc
 SPACE , TIME AND UNIFIED KNOW LEDC E I 97

be freed in the Platonic sense fro m the maj ority of actual experie nces. such as emot ions. appetites.
dreams. and so fo rth to engage onl y rational thou ght and draw from an intellectua l heri tage rooted
in Greece, biblica l tradition. and European thought. If we remove this vertica l pl acement. uproot the
class ical biases, and cast aside "frightcnmg" notions. Delo ria ( 1979. p. 12) suggests we can cons id-
t:r meta physi cs, as Jan Barbour concretely defi ned it. as quite sim pl y "the search fo r a coheren t set
,1f ca tegories fo r the interpretatio n of experience" (p. 12 ).
Toward th is a im, the first and perhaps deepest ch asm De loria ( 1994) identi fies betwee n indige-
m>\JS and Western metaphysi cs is that betwt:en space and time, or nature and history, respectively:

When o ne grou p is concerned with the ph ilosophical problem of space and th e other w it h the philosophi -
cal problem of time then the ,;tateme nts of either group do not make mu ch sense when trans fe rred from one
context to the other without proper consideration o f wha t is taking pl ace (p. 63).

The locus of a ll Nati ve American unified knowledge was and is the land. Space as concrete landscape.
as opposed to an abstract projection or extension of space, Deloria and Treat ( 1999) observe, "has
the ability to short-circuit logica l processes; it enables us to apprehend underlying uniti es we did not
suspect" (p. 25 1). Such a connection to the land of North America is rare fo r non-Indi ans because
they have not resided on it long enough and in that short time modified co loni zed space to serve an
im age of progress in time. As such, too, Euro-Americans have imposed invasive time-oriented epis-
tcmologies on th e land: "Thousands of years of occupancy on their lands taught tribal peopl es the
sacred landscapes for which they were responsible and gradually the structure of the ceremonial real-
ity became clear. ft was not what people believed to be true that was important but what they expe-
ri enced as true" (Deloria, 1994, p. 67).
Almost all Native American varieties of metaphysics are grounded in sacred places of various
types. Many cultures retain one or multiple sacred centers of the cosmos that orient all space and time.
ln many Native American ceremonies, orientation to the four directions, zenith, nadir, and center is
the first and repeated action. As such, the locus for unified knowledge is placed outside the individ-
ual ego but yet accessible to the focused, collective consciousness. In ceremonies and everyday expe-
ri ence there is a strong emphasis on all thoughts focusing on one ritually or mythically centered point
or thing, which is also usually the axis mundi along which humans can communicate with other lev-
el s of reality. A sacred center can be below in some cases or above in others, often serving as cen-
tral gathering for all types of being and nexus of many types of knowledge. The axis is variously the
pathway for shamanic journeys, point of emergence of humans from below to this earth, the nodule
of ea rth's creation, and a center from which life is generated in myriad forms. While Western reli-
gions often have sacred pl aces, Deloria ( 1994) recognizes, they ''are appreciated pri marily for their
hi storical significance and do not provide the sense of permanency and rootedness that the Indian
sacred pl aces represent" (p. 67).
Deloria argues that most non-Indi an deep engagements of the land, as well as a good number
of contemporary fndian ones, are limited to reflective experience, but that to native peoples such sites
may offer the most profound sort of revelatory experiences for select individuals in tribal commu-
nities. Reflective experiences are actively sought and offer a sense of self-world integration and asso-
ciated ecstatic state. Revelation, Deloria distinguishes, is an experience ofa powerful force in a place,
which is not univocall y positive. Such power can actua lly keep medicine men and women away most
of th e time, because of th e sheer mysterium tremendum of dread and foreboding engendered.
Approached correctly, a sacred space can offer life and clarity. but if approached incorrectly, the results
98 i IN DIGENOUS KNOW LEDGES AS PH ILOSOPHY AND TH E IMPLIC ATION S OF DECOLO NIZATION

ca n be negative. To generate life itself as motion, growth , and health, sac red places are essential to West.
Nat ive American religions. Throu gh sacred practitioners ' acrifices. offerin gs, git1s, and petitions at icanc
sacred places, relations to all other existences and the li fe-fo rce they share can be achieved. Deloria
(2006) describes the underl yi ng force: It
0
We can begin wi th the recog niti on that the fundame ntal n:ality in our physica l world is a strange kind o f
h:
energy that is found within everything- from tars to humans to stones to quan tum energy fi elds . This ener-
01
gy is personal--0r can be expe rie nced personally. It is mysterious, and so potent and varied that it is use-
th
less to explore all the poss ible ways to define it. If we say anything about this power or energy, we say that
the world we live in, sustained by this power, is ultimately spirifWll and not physical. Here we have the oppor-
In Na1
tunity to un ite psychology and re ligion with the energy fields o f quantum physics (p. 184 ).
throug
In Lakota, thi s force is }Vakan, in Algonquian languages manitu, and to the Iroquois orenda. Deloria contril
posits the reality of life-force beyond the Newtonian world of matter and space-time absolutes. which In the
c ircumscribes narrowly empirical Western views and even folk ideologies. mate c
The knowledge acquired in sacred places, Deloria (2006) refers to as the "mind-stuff' of exis- all hun
tence, meaning "an energetic mind undergirding the physical world, its motions, and that provided becom
energy and life in everything that existed" (p. 197). Contact with such mind-stuff was carefully space <
reserved for those who had been prepared for ceremonies, sacrifices, or vision experiences, which Si1
were in tum needed to generate life, return the cosmos to balance, or avert crisis. To demonstrate the ofworJ.
reality of this phenomenon, Deloria (2006) finds convergence toward this Native American knowl- and cal
edge in "a reasonable number of Western scientists and thinkers who subscribe to the idea that the tion, wl
ultimate constituent of the universe is mind, or mind-stuff. " Exploring this bridge between Native sion be
American and Western knowledge, he discovers connections in Plato's forms, Jung's concept of psy- intensif
chic energy, the wave-particle of quantum physics, warping of space and time in Einstein's theory ning in
of relativity, the life-energy-knowledge carried in DNA, and many others (Deloria, 2006, pp. nism of
195- 197). time bee
In most Western views, though, such convergence is ignored. Native American concepts of power wedge f
and mind-stuff are most often reduced to functionality in the individual or collective mind. Following ships. T
William James' ( 1936) call for suspending existential judgment about religious metaphysics and turn-
ing to its value in pragmatic terms informs almost all social scientific levels of inquiry. The individ• Not
ual or collective human psyche is posited as the generative source and beneficiary of its OWIJ. perp,
creations or imaginings. As such, scientific approaches reserve epistemological sovereignty over .. al gc
fully
access to subjective or objective things-in-themselves with ontological status out there in the world,
is de
while religious knowledge is reduced to "useful fictions ."
ofpe
The foremo st barrier to unified knowledge in Deloria 's view is the turn in Western ｭ･ｴ｡ｰｨｹｳｩ｣ｾ＠ ing ti
toward time as the ultimate concern and away from space. Combining influences of Christian and
Greek lineari ty, Western thought invests intellectual capital in history as various forms of telos that Mod
require belief or fa ith in the actual occurrence of past events as moments of kairos, a time of mira- has been
cles, revelation, and prophecy foretold or realized, breaking out of the linear normal time of chronos activities
and changing the course of future events: astronom
ma!s, cha
Chri stian theology has made a fetish of distinguishing between two modes of time, traditional character-
plantings
ized as kairos. the fullness of time when qualitative experiences are present and chronos, the mathemati-
ities were
cal time of c locks, seasons, and sequences .. .. Apart from revelation, Christian theologians wou ld argue, our
species is trapped within a chronology that makes little sense and is ultimately demonic (Deloria, 1979, p.
pl ants, an
25). time was
 SPAC E, TlME AND UN iF IED KNOWLEDGE i 99

Western know ledge systems, both religi ous and scien tifi c, in tum universalize the tempora l signif-
ica nce of revelatory events:

In the western tradit ion, re vel:mo n has genera lly heen in terp reted as the communicat ion to human be ings
of a divine plan. rhe release of new information and ins ights when the de ity has perceived that mankind
has reached the fu llness of time [kairos J and can now understand additiona l info rmation about the na mre
of our world . Th us, what has been the man ifestation of deity in a particular local situation is mistaken ti:ir
the rruth applicable to all times and places (Deloria, 1994. p. 66)_

fn Narivc American religions, ceremonies, myth, and other sacred forms engender fullness of time
thro ugh relations among all diverse beings and persons who are called to participate in the event and
contribute their knowledge. Lakotas refer to this connectiv ity as mitakuye oyasin, "all my rel ations."
Jn the Western logic of kairos, a newfound truth from a turning po int event carries wi th it the ulti-
mate co ncern to universa lize that truth as the set course of history, compell ing believers to convert
all humans to the truth revealed and transform all loca l space for that higher purpose. Past kairos thus
beco mes a future-oriented telos. a move toward universal actuali zation of the discovered truth in all
space and ti me beyond and detached from the context of its realization .
Simultaneously, modem Western time appropri ates control of chronos as a powerful organizer
of work, thought, and human re lations through the standardized, abstract time objectifi ed in the clock
and cal endar (see Thompson, 1967). Only in hi erarch ica l societies is time used as mode of domina-
tion, which thus becomes a "demonic" or dreadful reality to escape. There is thus a great binary ten-
si on between time as meaningful and as meaningless in Western metaphysics, which was only
intensified by the secul arizing shift in authority over time from church to economic institutions begin-
ning in the Middle Ages (see LeGoff, 1982). Time with the Industrial Revolution became a mecha-
nism of unprecedented power for uni fy ing and dividing people, knowledge, and space. In experience,
time became abstract and scarce, a form of labor to be sold, a flux beyond individual control, and a
wedge for estrangement from the local concrete realities of life, nature, and actual human relation-
ships. The effects on Native peoples were often profound, as Deloria and Treat explain ( 1999):

Not onl y did their geographic con fin ement work to destroy the sacred calendars of tribes, but the effort to
perpetuate traditional life within the confines of the reservation was vul nerable to overtures by the feder-
al government, seeking to make the people abandon old ways and adopt new practi ces which were care-
fu ll y orc hestrated by a new sense of time- a measured ti me which had little to do with cosmic realities. It
is debatable which factor was most important in the destruction of tribal ceremonial life: the prohibition
of performances of traditional ritua ls by the government, or the introduction of white man 's system of keep-
ing time (p. 246).

Modem measured time is a w ho lly artificial construction removed from what in anthropology
has been defined as "ecological time" (Evans-Pritchard, 1940), a type of time in which human
activities are corre lated to actual changes in space. In Native Ameri can contexts, it involved not just
astronomical observation and changes in weather, but also close observations of many plants and ani-
mal s, changes in the land itself, and the rhythms of life within the camp itself. Camp movements,
planti ngs, ceremonies, war parties, gathering, fi shing, and many more social and subsistence activ-
ities were sc heduled wi th these changes. Time in this way unified human knowledge with animals,
plants, and celestial bei ngs. In this sort of existence, chrono logy was not considered demonic and
time was not scarce and harsh. As Del oria and Treat ( 1999) relate:
 ! 00 i INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGES AS PHILOSOPHY AND THE IM PLICATIO NS OF DE COLO NIZ AT IO N

The old traditional Indians were in rune with the rhythms oflife. They were accustomed to bringing in and in
relati ng the whole picture of the land. the plan ts, and the anima ls around them. They responded to things Tl
as a part of a larger whole which was a subjective reali ty to them . We could say the traditional Indian stood of
in the center of a circle and brought everything together in that circle. Today we stand at the end of a line
and work our way along that line , discarding or avoiding everyt hing on either side (p. 275).
m•
ti r
Modem Western orders of time alienate individuals and groups from the actual experienced flow of
an
time. Just as space becomes a Euclidean abstract extens ion, time becomes a reified machine with
• power over everything, and thus ideologies proliferated to try to connect isolated individu als trapped
cd

in chronos to larger missions and quests in the unfolding of history. However, the wedge is ever obdu-
pa
rate, and thus the fullness of time can never be achieved in the present. Deloria and Treat ( 1999)
W<
obse rve the profound truth of this moving contradiction for native peoples:

Unless time is understood as sacred, experienced in all its fullness, and so dominanc a consideration in the ep
life of a people that all other functions are subservient to it, it is impossible to have a complete and mean- or
ingful ceremonial life. Rituals lose their efficacy because they are performed wi thin a secular time which th<
does not always make room for them or give them the status they deserve. They soon take on the aspect of ed.
mechanical adjustments made to solve problems which occur within that kind of time. Forced adaptation kn
to secular mathematically measured time has produced a fundamental sense of alienation (p. 24 7) .
pn
fie
Through modernization, time also becomes a trajectory against which to measure indigenous and
other subaltern individuals and groups in terms of the degree to which they are out of sync, behind
ly
in development, anachronistic, and resistant to progress. Superiority of knowledge in science, fash-
on
ion, economic development, politics, and perhaps all other modes of knowledge is measured by indi-
kn.
viduals' or groups' position relative to the edge of present currency. As Fabian ( 1983) recognized,
tribal peoples were and are denied coevalness with the dominant group and thus placed in an "Other''
m
time. Conversely, the highest form of Western conscious is synchronized with current knowledge,
Ar:
whether in science, fashion, or news. To be coeval in the movement of one's thought, research, read-
Inf
ing, or discourse with current knowledge is to be modern, well-informed, cosmopolitan, and intel-
the
lectually grounded. Currency is the measure of intellect, merit, utility, and moral value. Much of that
CVt
knowledge in the bubble of current interest is ironically transient and unrelated to ultimate concerns
Olli
or a fullness of time, though it often poses as such in the passing moment of attention to it.
ab<
Rather than unifying reality, the movement of linear time has been used to alienate individuals
th e
and divide groups into intelligent and slow, saved and unsaved, believer and heathen, deve loped and
tor
undeveloped, and civilized a nd primitive, thus excluding most of the world's people and their
anc
know ledge from history and thus metaphysical interest. This division, often buttressed by the so-called
me
great thinkers of Europe and America, was the foundation for the Doctrine of Discovery, Providence,
ry;
Manifest Destiny, and Progress, all which were used to justify conquest, environmental transforma-
grc
tion, forced assimilation, war, and almost all major cataclysmic events in Western history over the
apr
past six centuries or more. Deloria (I 994) contrasts this dependency on a utopian future as the ulti.::
lai1
mate concern to that of indigenous ethics, in which "there is little dependence on the concept of
hor
progress either on an individual or community basis as a means of evaluating the impact of religious
anc
practices" (p. 68).
Anything or anyone not coeval with history in motion must thus be converted, saved, assimi:.;
ry (
lated, developed , or improved. This principle has been the most powerful and destructive force io
nin
Western history of co loni zation, and, as Deloria notes, has transmuted into many other universaliz-..
 SPACE, TIME A 0 U tFIED KNOWLEDGE 101

ing doctrines that are not ob\ I , pli itl i d t the rig;inul D 1rine Di c very.
These include pr i e and n ie ali e that 1m to univer alize a brotherh d
of humankind, global democracy, i1 lism, scientifi thin in , nd undry th r-. rid improve-
tem kn ' ledges. tem.' gen rart: a multipl.i ity of d ·trin or
models that futilely and at time i I ml · mpct \\ ith n th r to e me unive ·aJ in pace and
time. They al o requfr that individuals and group c er their reli i connecti n to local space
and time. For the individual or group to de\ I long the p th f hi t ry, he or she must be isolat-
ed from inferior parochial urc of kno' Ledge re iding in mily. village, and even nation.
• To accompli b the separation ofexperience, a mpl •mentary order to bi tory e olved to com-
partmentalize and Lim divide kno,. ledge rhrough th lem raliz ti n of pa e. 1 know! g
was distributed am n what Gidd (1 984) II "Lim - e zone. ' u b that kn \ ledg and its
acquisition are di id d up into compartments ' ithin bureau ra i factories, and ' h Is. Western
epistemologie came to parallel this ame rder nd believe in the reified boundaric et' een fields
or subfields. Wid I dispersed zones become in re ingl integrated by Lh • authority of time rather
than space. Schedul clocks, cal ndars. and so fi nb di t when one engage in particular knowl-
edge fonns. When one leaves one zone to enter another at the app imed ti.me, then connection to that
knowledge must be replaced with an ther. Students, workers, researchers, and scholars thus acquire,
process, and critically assess knowledge in their pecialized domains ' ·ib ut the need for any uni-
fied knowledge of the entire system, which looms large and pm erful in di anciated massive forms
and authorities (e.g., libraries, database , and archives). These forms and access to them increasing-
ly become commodities that knowers must purchase with money, whether as books, tuition, or
online databases. While Western society boasts of its massive accumulation of knowledge, few if any
knowers can grasp it all as a unified system.
While Western metaphysics have moved away from them, microcosmic models once prevailed
in Native American metaphysics and knowledge systems. Namely, among many if not most Native
American religions, unifying knowledge was based on a similar form, shape, or structure for order-
ing space, time, or both dimensions interdependently on all levels from the very smallest particle to
the cosmos at large and from the micro-level to the epochal level of time. Microcosmic thought may
even be a universal rubric for unifying knowledge, since hundreds of examples are found through-
out the world, but in each culture and era it takes on a unique emphasis and function. As discussed
above, a majority of Native American cosmologies recognize the same order to space and time through
the four or seven directional and phased model. Domestic space, artistic design, ritual action, terri-
tory, and cosmos on the spatial side are often oriented to the four cardinal directions, with zenith, nadir,
and center often added for a total of seven. Time is homologously oriented on multiple levels,
including stages of ritual action, the seasonal cycle, the life trajectory, and epochs of cosmic histo-
ry are also often phased according to the same four- or seven-part model. Temporal phasing was thus
grounded in the same order as for space, such as the four- or seven-directional model that was also
applied to quotidian, seasonal, life cyclical, and epochal levels of time. These are al o often over-
lain with other levels of significance, such as colors, animals, sacred beings, and forces. Such
homologous orders allow for ritually activated interconnectivity of all levels of reality, forms of being,
and underlying forces.
In an obscure but remarkably rich work, George P. Conger (1967) traces the intellectual histo-
ry of microcosmic theory in Western theology, philosophy, and science from the pre-Socratics to early
nineteenth-century thinkers. He concludes that
 I0 I I, DI . E.'OllS 0 t [I Cl ... ·' o:-.

I he ｰｨＱｬｯｾ＠ •phi.:: ap n:r11I 11111>1 i:l\11r.:1blt' tn micru · osn11 ·the nes ha\c been. in chwm I 1 •1c I unkr. h. k -
11J1,111, [' ·tha ＪＢ ﾷｾ ｡ｮＱＧｭＮ＠ prohubl :1011:1:111, 1hc \\ork of flh1lo. co-Pl.ttllnt. 111. 1he mcJ 1cval kw1 .. h 1111-
ｬｯｾｰｨＩＧ＠ .1ml the /:11cn·lopt'Jw ol lhc ;\ r..1b1:m l3r.:1hrcn 111' mccnl)'. the w111 J.. .,f 1'.1r.iecbu,, Boehme,
L ·1hnH7. S ·helling. Sl·hk1cnn..1chcr. ' chl)JXnhaucr. h :chner••ind lite Ｎ Ｑｨ ｾＨＱｬｵ｣＠ 1Jcall'·b t t\mgcr. I 111• . ft
I l-1 t. iV

While implicit or mcntiont:d 01:1.:as1ona ll y. Gree and Christian r l. or rnkro ·osmic th inking arc nut ly
clearly disce rnible:. I agree' ith his a ·:c. smcnt that later_. ·hl>larship tends t cxciggl'rate micro o ·-
• mic think ing inc rl reek ｾ ｭ､＠ ' hri. ti an modes of though t whii:h, , nlllng all cultures in tht: ' rid
A

perhaps. ' ong1:r ad I . ·ct the tour ·e r r the movcmem awa fr m it. arly examples of - ·11.:m it· m;
mi r co ·mic thinking tend to be more clo cl as. ciared ' ith Bab lllnian. Judaic. and l: lam ic ti c
in llucn 't: . ·uch as the effort< f Ph ilo or Alexa ndria w ·_nibe ·ilc Greek phi lo oph, um.I Judai. m. V II
\\ e ·t m microcosmic thcorie · rhut do appear tend to privih:gc the human body. mind , ur s ul as the di!
rrimary nexu intcrc nnccting 1 I. nature. the c ·m s. and · lcstial hodics. Mo. t l"xample. ·itu- in(
ate humans on a ha in of Being between <1nima l ·and God nr a un iversal fo rm. In general. the_ tend
to he orga ni: mi . anthropm;:cntrk, and hicrnrch i ·a l. as\\ II as limited in inclu ·ivcness t on l ne 1ca
or .·c ·ern l di men ions of space and time. leg
Thr ugh ut much c f We tern colonial history. the ccmm l microcosmic order fo r onl logical dis- fac
tinction. hos been a scaled order epitomized hy the reut '. hain wi th Clod at the tvp followed by of
angel.. humans. animal . plants. and mim:ra l in de cending order. Borrowi ng from Plato, Plotinus, (2C
and quinas in tum, the ｇｲｴＮｾ｡＠ ham f B ing rnnked types f being vertically From tJ1e m st pcr- me
fc ·t rational, and immutable at the t p to the least p ·rfect. least enticnt, and mo t changcabl at thi: SC H
hot.tom. Ves1iges of ranked rder · f lhi · Ort 1ill ped ·1 in secul ari zed fom1 · t{ day. mo ·tly in ·ub- cor
tlc and less b iou · ariati on . fon
ongcr also identi tic , the · urces f the modem trend awa from micr co ·mic the ry and unj -
ficd knowledge, which\! a one of his ultimate concerns. On bo1h points hi work antic ipates the ideas hun
of theologians like Barbour and Ti ll ich. from which D loria hims If borrows much direction . Unified on
space-l ime theories i.n We ·t m thought have them elves become particularized a. metaphorical forr
(Lakotf & Johnson, 19 0), mythological Ca ·sircr, 1953), or mathematically based. a in unified field spa1
1hcory in physics or frac1al theory in mathematics. Conger sugge. t that the tum 10 the dominance tcr 1
of cmpirici m and humani ·m ･ｬｩｭｮ｡ｴｾ､＠ microco ·mi theorizing from main. trcam We. tern thought.
In ｾ｣ ｮ･ ｲ｡ ｬＮ＠ modem Wc»tem theories hu c estranged non-\! ·stern and all non-,·cientific variations of can
microco m for un ifying knowledge, including indigenous ones, as out idc of empirical sensory as al
experience and thu invalid. In ariou · theories of mythical and magical though! ·incc th nineteenth ｰｨ ｹ ｾ＠
century, imligenou.· microcosm-ma n co. m c nn ctions ha c been interpreted in ·undry way as con- ( 19(
fu:cd primiti e thinking. whcth r · pr·logi al r11inking r r Li: y-Hruhl. :rn ex pre-;sion of the <li. ca c cy is
oflan xuagc for Ma. 1 llillcr, or a . en e ol'rhc hildi:h" mni101cucc fthought "lO Freud . rhc<irists Wes
\\ h ha CC me to re ·p ct ' \I ' h microl'O ·rnic . tcm: in the hi l l 1 f religion '. ant hr p ＾ｉｏｾ＠ . nd abst1
other social cicn ifi e oricntati n cornm nl pnir ) ·e thul the under! ing tmlh re id· not in empir- prcsi
ical tr ra li nal c. perii!n ' ·, but m an .. lher" k111d of objcc11 1 • T he cpll me f thi:. ppr a ·h i
Cas: ircr's t I 5 ) w rk tm m th1 ·al lh ughL wh 1·h cmbra ·e!> the aminn notion of"obJcct1 vi7nli n.'' their
a cording LO whi ch h molog, and other foatur · of pace and lime arc regarded a · given n pri ri in work
un inn.ti ti e type of cxperiem:e.
Age ;
Rctninin the :ame binury of u versus them. most modem philo.;;ophical •111d ·o ·ial seientific grati1
approachc: ro time and space rccu nize ·· -)th •r" · ·1c111s a · exten ·ion ns. b )rrowing (Del<
in · 11 iruuncc · the con .cpt of' pure reason fr m Kant. luycr. " \: cl ( 19 ):
 SPACE, TIME AND UN IFIED KNOWLEDG E I I 03

We can accordingly speak of space. extended beings. and so on, only from a human standpoint. If we depart
fro m !he subjective rnnd it wn under which alone we can acquire ou ter inruitto n. namely that through
which we may be atfoctcd by objects, then the represe111ation o f space signifies nothing at all (pp. 159- 160)

More precisely, Kant, Guyer, & Wood posited the transcendental ego as the unifying locus of knowl-
edge and reality. including space and time. Time and space, they note, are expressions of our unique-
ly human intuition. Any ground for space and time in concrete realities, such as land in Native
American metaphysics, gives way to a generative source in human consciousness.
• Kant 's thought is at the center of Western knowledge about time and space and persists through
many su bsequent lines of academic thought that view all forms of metaphysics as human construc-
tions and thus relative in hi story and culture. Time and space are human constructions and the indi-
vid ual or collective consciousness is at the center of it all. Different disciplines have in turn placed
different boundaries on human consciousness. Philosophy and psychology generally turned to the
individual, while anthropology and sociology turned to collective consciousness.
As Deloria and Treat ( 1999) note accompanying modern philosophy's turn to reason and empir-
ica l knowledge, the "generic" rather than actual individual became the locus of all knowledge in its
legal, political, moral, religious, and scientific contexts (p. 186). This idea reigns despite the very basic
fact, he continues, that "we never find the individual as a solitary being." Through the equivocation
of consciousness as human, Western epistemologies and pedagogies presume, as George Tinker
(2004) writes, that "a highly developed neocortical human brain is somehow the ultimate achieve-
ment in tern1s of consciousness" (p. 112). Human consciousness is held as the standard for all con-
sciousnesses and, in the spirit of the scale of being, among humans the Western, formally educated
consciousness is exalted as the ideal of perfectibility for the whole species. As such, myriad other
forms of consciousness are degraded, excluded, or submitted to mechanisms of improvement
Native American microcosmic systems by and large have different dimensions and purposes. The
human body, mind, or the soul is not the locus for moral, aesthetic, and epistemological unifications
of knowledge. The aim is not to unify human with universal levels of space-time to understand the
former in either religious or humanistic terms . Rather, the land itself is typically the focal level for
space and time in indigenous metaphysics. It is the geometer of all levels of space and the chronome-
ter for all levels of time.
Conversely, with the center of consciousness situated in human consciousness, Western thought
can elevate time and space to abstractions that preclude unity. The tendency is to see unified systems
as abstract rather than concrete in this sense, such that the task of unified theories, as for example in
physics today, takes on the highest level of abstraction through mathematics. By contrast, Conger
( 1967) notes that in past Western philosophies favorable toward microcosm ic theories, "the tenden-
cy is toward concrete, as distinguished from abstract speculation" (p. 134). Paradoxically, the more
Western knowledge systems become specialized and presume to access empirical unities, the more
abstract their models and language become, at least to the degree that acrual space-time no longer
presides and the major portion of the range of direct experience and thought are set aside.
As Deloria and Treat ( 1999) argued, Western abstractions of time and personhood have found
their way into contemporary Native American religious improvisation s as a deteriorative force that
works against unified knowledge, while ostensibly moving toward it. This is especially salient in New
Age and Pan-Indian religious forms that regard the function of revelation as solely for self-world inte-
grati on and treat microcosmic forms as abstract, universal, and even mystical entities in themselves.
(De loria & Treat, 1999, p. 177) cites the example of Lakota " Red Road" traditions, such as the four
 1 04 ! IND IG EN OUS KNOW LEDG ES AS PHI LO SO PH Y AND TH E IM PLIC ATIO NS O F DE COLON IZ ATIO N

directions and "med icin e wheel" philosophy in the work of Hyemeyohsts Storm ( 1972, p. 263 ). In
many contemporary indi genous re ligious variations, the sacredness attributed to forms in themsel ves,
such as the "circle" or "medicine wheel ," simplifies the more complex geometry of traditi o nal
microcosmic systems in which there were many more other meanings, shapes, and dimensi ons
involved. This dilution of microcosmic forms is akin to the simple dimensionality of Euclidean geom-
etry, but forms in traditional loca l contexts were and are comparable to non-Euclidean space that
involves shapes of space beyond three dimensions. Deloria concurs with Cassirer on this distinction:
"The primitive easily comprehends the places of his or her experience, but he or she does not
abstract from them a scheme of space in a Euclidean or Newtonian sense" (q uoted in Deloria, 1979,
p. 158). The primitive person is thus in direct immediate relationship with his or her environment
but fail s to extend abstract principles continuously to conceive of"endless" dimen sional existence.
Locally situated microcosmic theories, rather, are involuted with a rich, dense field of local knowl-
edge. Cassirer ( 1953) adds that the difference between mythical and mathematical thought is that,
in the latter, the "space of perception, the space of vision and touch, does not coincide with the space
of pure mathematics" and that the latter requires "negation of what seems immediately given in sen-
sory perception" (p. 83). Mythical thought is analogous in form to pure mathematics but diverges
greatly in content, though Western thought tends to attribute greater truth and experiential content
to the latter. In mythical space, Cassirer proceeds, each element retains content accessible to percep-
tion in the form of accent, tonality, motion, and feeling. In short, mythical space is a concrete prod-
uct of consciousness, not something simply accessible in and through abstracted forms.
Thus, projection of indigenous microcosmic space-time as geometric is the map but not the ter-
ritory. The one-to-one association of forms with experientially circumscribed abstract meanings "mis-
places concreteness," to use a phrase Deloria borrows often from Whitehead. To assert that a shape,
such as a circle, or a color, such as red for a particular direction on a medicine wheel, means this or
that, is only a thin level of meaning. Within the struggle to preserve or renew indigenous unified
knowledge systems is the need to retain well-placed concreteness in the primary experiential ground
to which they have been anchored for perhaps millennia, rather than removing them to circulate freely
in any and all spaces and times.
Native American orders of space-time and knowledge must be situated in actual locations.
Accordingly, another profound difference to be reso lved is that while some Western epistemologies
can accept relativism with respect to history and culture, very few readily move toward the type of
epistemological pluralism that pervades Native American religions. Deloria and Treat ( 1999) expli-
cate this unique side of indigenous knowledge:

Tribal peoples, on the whole, have a very to lerant attitude fo r other religious traditio ns, for other peoples.
and fo r the rest of creation . This attitude is based upon the recognition of our limitations and acceptance
that many things cannot be explained under any conditi ons that satisfy us. There is great mystery to the world
and our most hopeful sign is that we can come to understand the environment in which we li ve and the crea-
tures that live wi th us. Here the tribal concept of revelation is very helpful. A sacred experience always has
a speci fi c content and a direct focus to it (p. 158).

The Western ontological stance j uxtaposes an individual or co llective self to a total entity, whether
God , nature, society, the human species, or even a reflection of the sel f writ large. Once some new
knowledge is acquired, it is thus generalized to an entire field of relevance and situated as a break
from all past history. The uniqueness of the particular becomes then a universal and eternal truth to
 SPACE, TIM E AND UN IFIED KNOW LEDGE I 10 5

be shared with all humankind in the name of progress. But, multiple Western knowledge systems all
following this same course, invariably collide with each other in their universalizing effons. rh us often
funher legitimating their causes. Accordingly. to situate know ledge in and of a local place and time
is judged parochial and thus anachronistic. Partic ularity is to be expunged because it defies the prin-
ciples of ''objectivity, impartiality. and fairness " that Deloria and Treat ( 1999) argue is the Western
big three in the "worl d of systems" (p. 177 ). Modem Wesrem epistemologies claim superiority over
fo lk knowledge by virtue of excluding types of experience considered "idols of the mind," to bor-
ni w Bacon's terms, that are always already defined as nonobjective, biased, and unfair because they
are of limited scope in space and out of sync with current knowledge . To be modem, cosmopolitan,
and objective one must adopt a transcendent gaze that hovers above reality but not in it and synchro-
ni ze one 's consciousness with the current state history in motion. In my own fie ldwork I tried to sus-
tain this " fl oating" gaze for the first year or so, because I thought avoiding attachment to one group,
organization, area, or communi ty would help me preserve an impartial, objective view of things. As
I learned, both from Arapaho people who told me this and from direct experience, one needs a "place"
from which to know anything or get anything done. The floating White man 's gaze actually produces
the most distorted knowledge of all in native communities. Attachment to family, place, and com-
munity engages relations for the exchange of knowledge.
Following the re lational principle of Native American religions, epistemological pluralism
extends to beings other than humans and the types of knowledge such beings can offer human beings.
Contrary to the Great Chain scheme of existence, all species and indiv idual members of them were
created uniquely, as Shooter (Lakota) states, "because each is placed here by Wakan Tanka to be an
independent individuality and to rely upon itself' (quoted in Deloria, 1994, p. 89). In prayers, sea-
sonal ceremonies, curing, sweating, rites of passage, songs, and all other forms of medicine for gen-
erating life, all beings, both sacred and natural, must be called to the occasion, not just symbolically,
but to represent, participate, and contribute their various types of knowledge. Different knowledge
systems at all levels from the individual to the collectivity and even species level have identities and
''places" of their own defined by geography, experience, and unique time-frames. Native American
mythology is replete with stories emphasizing that the transfer of knowledge from one species, peo-
ple, or place to another requires carefully circumscribed boundaries, ceremonial exchange, and rit-
ual controls. Each type of knowledge and associated being must be respected. Distinguishing it from
simple relativism in which "anything goes" or "no unity is ever possible," Deloria recognizes epis-
temological pluralism as a type of pragmatism that defines boundaries beyond which one should not
extend one's own knowledge. Deloria (2004) notes that in Black Elk's famous vision, "he saw
many peoples, each having their own circle in which they lived" (p. 9). Each person, fami ly, band,
nation , gender, age group, species, and sacred being can have its own knowledge, which may be irrel-
evant or even dangerous to others not in the right frame of reference. In tum, to know, learn , and act
in indigenous communities, one must have a "place."
In the traditional Arapaho life cycle, (see Anderson, 2001) there was a type of knowledge,
mode of personhood, and way of communicating that, as elders explained to me, that was right for
t:ach stage of life, though it was not that one stage was superior to all others. Children have knowl-
edge that is right for them, and others for their stages. In speaking in public, the late Pius Moss once
explained, one must be careful to put one 's words in the right place, meaning that one must put the
right boundaries on one's statements. As among other indigenous nations, one must frame reported
knowledge by clarifying, "This is how Arapahos see it," or if it is personal knowledge, one gives the
background about how one acquired that knowledge. Before telling a story, for instance, one must
106 I INDIGENOUS K OWL EDGES AS PHILOSOPHY AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF DECOLONIZATION

exp lain how one acquired it. Many Native American languages have obligatory valid ity fonns and
aspectual markers in grammar. as we ll discourse routines in practice, to situate knowledge one is con-
veyi ng in space, time. and type of experience. The shift from nati ve ways of speaking to Engli sh
forms, though, is in man y communities weakening the requirements of situatin g know ledge upon
which epistemological pluralism rests. As Arapaho elders repeated many times, you can just say an y-
thing you want in Engl ish, but in Arapaho you have to be carefu l. In many con texts, the attenuation
of epistemological pluralism and the requirements to locate one's knowledge in pl aces have creat-
ed much confusion and distortion that stands in the way of unified know ledge. Knowledge once con-
fined to one indi genous people or even one family is often ex tended to other peoples or fa milies as
a much broader truth that it was ori ginally. As discussed above, this often happens through standard-
izati on and cultural pluralism that accompanies cu ltura l revitalization efforts.
Also related to pluralism. is the unique indigenous dialectic in which it is always possibl e to imag-
ine "another way of looking at anything." One must always be aware of these other ways of seeing
in order to avoid danger or to take advantage of blessings. Nonetheless, because of the mystery that
always lies beyond the boundaries of one 's knowledge, it is not always possible to do so. This dialec-
tical parallax pervades ancient trickster stories and persists in much modem Native American liter-
ature, such as Shennan Alexie 's popular works . What initially appears as good, true, or beautiful may
shift in fonn to something bad, fal se, and ugly in the next phase of awareness. Thus, an animal can
appear as a human , a human as an animal , and either as a spirit fonn.
Localized knowledge can be transmitted across boundaries, but only through well-defined paths
of exchange. Animal s shared knowledge with humans in the beginning ohime, such as buffalo who
gave culture in many fonns to Arapahos and other Plains peoples. In visions, humans can acquire
the knowledge of animals or spirits. In history, native peoples acquired knowledge from each other,
such as in exchange of ceremonies, social dances, songs, stories, art forms, designs, and more, often
through ceremonial exchanges of bundles or objects representing and containing the acquired knowl-
edge. Knowledge can be shared as gifts among animals, humans, and other beings but only when the
donor recognizes that the recipient is ready and the latter has moved into a state of being that
demonstrates that readiness. The most powerful knowledge embodied in sacred obj ects or stories
co uld thus only be transmitted to those who had been initiated or reached a necessary stage of prepa-
ration. Otherwise, that knowledge and its associated objects were carefully bundled, hidden , or placed
safely away from others. In tum, knowledge once acquired must not be used to extremes or beyond
limits. Though paradoxical from a Western perspective, unified knowledge through pluralism often
required maintaining boundaries rather than universalizing truths to all.
Sharing this pragmatic pluralism, Chief Lone Bear, an earl y twentieth century Arapaho leader
and life-long Catholic and traditi onali st describes what he called the " many roads to God":

I pray acco rding to the way I was taught by the church and when I ge t through I pray the Indian way.
Wherever I go and there is a church and time to go to that church and i f I do not belong to that church, it
does not make any difference. I go over there and go to that church. It is all one God. We are all heading
for the same God. There is no contradiction involved in holding multiple faiths at the same time. Different
roads can lead to the same place. and that truth defined much of Deloria's life wo rk (cited in Fowler, 1982.
pp, 136-- 137).

In conc lusion, Delo ria's ultimate concern was to ex plore the many roads in modem existence and
ancient indigenous religions that can converge in the direction of truth and reality for unifying
 SPACE, TIME AND UN IFIED KNOWL EDGE I 07

knowledge Western academic knowledge is able to map those roads but never follow them. It C3n
engage rel 3tivism toward phil oso phies and cultures outside their well -beaten paths and study them
objectivel y but resist including th ose other path s as part of a genuine ep istemological pluralism.
Ind igenous cu ltures can be sh1di ed as world views but not be deployed in or for the inqui ry itself.
Deloria et al. ( l 999 ) report that a major publish er rejected the title of their work Metaphvsics u(
Jfodern Existence " because no one will buy a book on metaphysics written by an Indian" (p. 5). Given
the defensive borders set up by Western academic di scipl ines against anoma lies, critiques, or "ram-
blin gs of madmen ," Deloria's proposal for un ified knowledge seems ambitious and idealistic. Save
for a few marginal subfields, fields, and scholars, the tendency over the past half century has been
toward increasing specialization accompanied by denial or silence about what highly specialized accu-
mulations of data and theoretical investigations contribute to ultimate concerns beyond those fields
themselves. let alone to the concrete challenges of existence.
To move against th is push away from unified knowledge, those involved in educational praxis
at al l levels should, I suggest, consider these seven lessons taken from the works of Vine Deloria,
Jr. First, it is important to not only engage reflexivity about knowledge by holding up what you know
or your predecessors knew against abstract political, moral, and critical concerns expressed in a half
dozen buzz-words by a few e lite consciousnesses in the academic mainstream but also to consider
the relation of the knowledge at hand to the lived world of indigenous peoples themselves. Second,
this requires broadening the range of voices involved in critical review of knowledge beyond the elite
or cloister of a discipline or academia writ large toward inclusion of indigenous modes of discourse,
dialectics, and argument. Th ird, it is good to ask how one's own frames of space and time are
accepted as given, universal, and natural but actually exclude other shapes of space-time and block
access to sources of knowledge . Fourth, in each field , research project, course, or lesson it is crucial
to consider at every juncture how knowledge is connected to other domains of knowledge and, espe-
cially, to ultimate concerns. Fifth, all educators and educational institutions should examine how their
actions and institutional systems marginalize unifying thinkers, publications, courses, and programs.
Sixth, it is good to make direct and not just gestural connections to the world in which one actually
lives rather than the simu lated world one studies or thi nks about as an academic, including the nat-
ural environment, local indigenous communities and histories, and the full range of sensory data avai l-
able. Seventh and last, as Deloria ( 1979) notes less rather than more effort must be exerted:

When Western thinkers start confronting knowledge directly without feeling obli ged to trace origins, to
app laud our present efforts to gain information whi le rejecting past syntheses of knowledge, and see the
value in discontinuities as well as unifom1ities, then we can bring about unity of human knowledge (p. 211 ).

REFERENCES
Anderson, B. R. 0 . ( l 991 ) . Imagined Comm unities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationa lism. London:
Verso.
Anderson, J. D. (200 1). The Pour Hills of life: Northern Arapaho Knowledge and Life Movement. Studies in the
anthropology of North American Indians. Lincol n: University of Nebraska Press .
Bender. T.. Bernstein, C , Bromwich, D., Brown, W., Cornell , D., De loria. V.. Jr., Wiene r, J. ( l 998). Thinking in pub-
lic: A forum. American Literary History. /0( l ), 1- 83.
Bourdieu, P. ( 1990). The sc holasti c point of vi ew. Cultural Anthropolog v, 5(4), 380-3 91 .
l 08 j INDIGE NOUS KNOW LED GES AS PHILO SOPHY AND THE IM PLICATIONS OF DECOLONIZATION

Cass irer. E. ( 1953 ). Th e Philosophy o/Symbolic Forms . New Haven: Yale University Press .
Conger. (i P. ( 1967). Theories o{ A.facmcosms and Microcosms in 1he llistorv of Phi/o.wphy . New Yo rk: Russell &
Russell.
Deloria. V. ( 1969). Cusier Died /i1r fo ur Sins; An Indian .\ fani/es10. New Yo rk: Ma cmi ll an.
Deloria, V. ( 1979). The Metaphysics o{Jfodern £xi.Hence. San Franc isco : Harper & Row.
Deloria. V. ( 1994 ). God Is Red. A Native View of Religion. Gol den. CO : Fulcrum .
Deloria, V. ( !995). Red Earth , White Lies.· Na ti ve Americans and the Mr1 h of Scientific Fact. New Yo rk : Scnhner.
Deloria, V. (2004). Philoso ph y and tribal peo ples. In A. Waters (Ed.), American Indian Thought. Philosophical ｅ ｳ ｳ ｡ ｽ ｾ ｾ＠
(pp. 3·· 11 ). Malden. MA : Blackwe ll.
Deloria, V. (2006). Th e Wo rld We Used to Live in: Remembering the Powers of the Ml!dicine Men. Golden, CO :
Fulcrum.
Deloria, V., Deloria, P. J., & Bernste in, J. S. (2009). C G Jung and 1hl! Sioux Traditions. Dreams, Vis w ns. Nature
and the Primitive. New Orl eans: Spring Jo urnal.
Deloria, V.. Deloria, B .. Foe hner, K., & Scinta, S. ( 1999). Spirit & Reason: The Vine Ddoria. Jr. . Reader. Go lden ,
CO : Fulcrum.
Deloria, V., & Treat, J. ( 1999). For This Land: Writings on Religion in America. New York : Routl edge.
Duran, E. (2006). Healing rhe Soul Wound: Counseling with American Indians and Other Native Peoples. Multicultural
foundations of psychology and counseling. New Yo rk : Teachers College Press.
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. ( 1940). The Nuer. A Description (}/ the Modes ofLi velihood and Polirical Institutions ofa Nilotic
People. Oxford: Clarendon.
Fabian, J. ( 1983 ). Time and the Other: Ho w Anthrop ology Makes fls Object. New Yo rk : Co lumbia University Press .
Fowler, L. ( 1982). Arapahoe Politics, 1851- 1978.· Symbols in Crises of Authori(y. Lincol n. N E: University of
Nebraska Press.
Geertz, C. ( 1973 ). Th e Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic .
Giddens. A. ( 1984). Th e Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory (}f Structuration . Cambridge: Polity.
Hallowell, A I. ( 1955). Culture and Experience. Philadelphia: Uni versity of Pennsy lvania Press.
James, W. ( 1936). The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. New York: Modem Library.
Kant, I., Gu yer, P., & Wood, A. W. ( 1998). Critique of Pure Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. ( 1980). Metaphors We live by . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
LeGoff, L. ( 1982). Time Work and Culture in the Middle Ages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Popper, K. R. ( 1959). The Logic of Scientific Discove1y. New York: Basic Books.
Storm, H. ( 1972). Seven Arrows . New York: Harper & Ro w.
Thompson, E. P. ( 1967). Time, work di scipline, and industrial capitalism. Past and Present. 38, 56-97.
Tinker, G. (2004). The stones shall cry out: Consciousness, rocks, and Indians. Wicazo Sa Review, 19(2), 105- 125.
Waters, A. (2004). American Jndian Th ought: Philosophical Essays. Malden, MA: Blackwell.