宇宙之旅是由不断进步的科学发现和人文科学交织组成的，历史、哲学、艺术、宗教统统都含括在内。 这门课由一系列20个与科学家与环境学家关于宇宙之旅的访谈组成。前10个访谈是与科学家和历史学家的访谈，它们帮助我们深化对宇宙、地球、人类进化过程的理解。后10个访问是与环境学家、教师和艺术家的访谈，它们探索了宇宙奥义和人类社会之间的联系。
土著人的认知方式（南希•马里博尔及大卫•比盖）
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宇宙之旅：对话 (Journey of the Universe: Weaving Knowledge and Action)
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From the lesson
体化知识: 食物，能源和健康
理解了宇宙的自组织特性后，我们再来想一想星系。正是星系的螺旋结构才能产生恒星。椭圆星系没有这种螺旋结构，因而也失去了产生恒星的能力。水，土壤和空气年复一年地产生生命。特别是土壤，它是一种动态结构，需要三十亿年时间才能形成。我们现在就拥有土壤，只要能维持它的健康和完整，就能源源不断地产生食物。但如果我们破坏了土壤或是海洋的动态结构，就要等上数十亿年才能让它们恢复。
Meet the Instructors
Mary Evelyn TuckerSenior Lecturer and Senior Research Scholar
Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
John GrimSenior Lecturer and Senior Research Scholar
Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
[MUSIC]
David, welcome, it's wonderful to have you here with us and thank you for
coming up from Santa Fe.
You have a degree in indigenous education, a PhD and
you have other degrees in political science and law.
And you're also a co-principal investigator in this wonderful
project with Cosmic Serpent.
You've also worked as a consultant with NASA.
And we want to have a sense of this amazing knowledge that you're trying to
bring forward for education, for curriculum, for your own Navajo tribe.
As well as for the larger understanding of people of this
sense of how we are located in place,
land, animals, water, air and the stars itself.
Can you begin with a sense of, perhaps Navajo cosmology and the stars.
How does that orient us?
>> Let me start by saying that, I'm very pleased and honored to be here.
I want to try to talk about your questions,
answer your questions using the Navajo ways of knowing.
Sense of place, how we say
is [FOREIGN], meaning Earth.
There's a place, and we're connected to that place, that consciousness of thought.
That there's a place that human connection to earth,
that goes always into the consciousness of the traditional people and
in this case Navaho, that I am a member of.
Also the universe, [FOREIGN] we call it, upper darkness and
all the celestial bodies and upper darkness.
The upper sky, the universe and so there's a sense of place.
As a matter of fact, there's so
much connection that when every we greet people,
we say [FOREIGN], refers to the upper darkness, the universe.
[FOREIGN] refers to the existence of the universe.
So whenever we greet somebody we
greet them with the acknowledgment that we exists within Earth,
on Earth and there's also a universal connection.
>> That's a magnificent way, isn't it, of greeting one another, and reassuring,
in a sense, because we live in a time that we feel may be disconnected.
But how does that carry forward into ceremonies, or
into seasonal relationships, or food raising, or the stars in our stories.
How does Navajo knowledge carry that forward to ground a person in place?
>> It's a totally different mindset.
It carries a different world view.
And so I have to get out of that consciousness to
really talk about the native world, because it is different.
It's a world to itself, and it's very hard
to talk about these things in English, because English doesn't quite carry it.
Most of the time I struggle trying to say something and English breaks down on me.
And so I have to really stretch far and
deep to try to get the interconnected feeling,
interrelated feeling that's inherent in nature and
try to articulate that in my language and also the English language.
And so how we express these things and how we try to express
the native knowledge is a very, very complicated process.
For example, the word land, L-A-N-D,
in English, the English definition,
it could refer to real estate or soil, or a piece of land.
In our language, we say [FOREIGN].
It talks about the moccasin.
[FOREIGN] refers also to that bottom of the moccasin and
the connection to Earth.
It also connotes a mother infant relationship.
This is my connection, this is where I come from.
I go back to the earth when I finish existing as a human.
So there's a mother-infant relationship.
It's ancient, because the Earth is ancient.
So it's not just words, it's a feeling that's real
and it becomes alive through the consciousness of thought.
And nature has the answer.
That's what we see.
So some of these ceremonies are really to draw
up on the natural energies and the natural forces to bring about healing.
So these ceremonies are all about nature's processes and
really communicate with nature's processes.
The songs that native people sing are not identified as human songs.
They're songs coming from nature, mountain songs,
water songs, all these other different kinds of songs.
They come from different elements and they come from different animals and species.
Songs of birds, songs of buffalo, songs of different animals.
And so the energies come from those connections,
because we are in fact all related.
That's a big teaching among indigenous people,
native people here in this country.
And so even the little insects, there's a connection,
healing can come from these insect, like little tiny spider.
That's life, it has all the energies,
it has all the connection to the world, just like any other living thing.
A lot of these stories and, for example, connection to starlight,
native people say there's information, historical information.
Because we go back in time to a time when we were
an integral part of the process by which we became to be.
We're literally a process that emerged from way back,
and we are in this form, a human form.
And so this whole process and our connection,
even though we say star it seems to be a separation in
the word how we use the word stars are out there but
In Native thinking, there is really no separation.
It's constantly in motion, it's constantly in process,
and the manifestation and how things evolve continues,.
It's a whole universe acting, all at one time and
we're just an integral part of that process.
What we see, what we do, how we think
is the universe thinking, the human thinking is just
an integral part of this whole much bigger process.
>> Beautiful.
Thank you for that sense.
I can feel as you talk, some of the glimpse into the sense that there's
voices all around us, and these voices are speaking to us and songs come to us.
That sense that the animals and the fish and the birds and
the insects are our kin,our relations and as you say,
we don't have the language fully to describe that energy.
But what is this deeply respectful exchange of energy
then with our kin around us in the natural world?
>> Like many other questions, I'm not even sure
if we can ever answer a question like that fully.
I think we can talk about a human experience.
For example, back home,, we have different ceremonies,
one of them we call Blessing Way ceremony.
In the morning, predawn hour, we sing these songs, one of them is mountain songs
and we sing these songs and it's all sung in unison.
And most people there are elders from before, some of them are still living,
the real old elders, they tell us that you really connect with
all of the universe through the mountains.
The acknowledgement of this connection is
acknowledged throughout the night, at that time,
predawn hour, and so when the acknowledgement is made,
they say we're going to sing your song.
It's your song, we're just borrowing it to bring about restoration
to a person, or to bring harmony.
They know that the energies are there and so
when they sing, it's the mountain singing and they know that.
That's not thought about.
That's not just thinking, it's felt.
It's experienced and then nuances,
the spiritual feeling is felt throughout and so
they sing with those feelings and those spirits.
They know that things are happening and sometimes,
it is very hard when people do not have that background, that life experience.
>> I empathize deeply because my world of study has been Asia.
And the differences of Asian ways of thinking and the Japanese, in particular,
I think have this marvelous intuitive,
very poetic ways of knowing that goes beyond language.
The haiku poetry, for example.
But I would love perhaps for
you to help us to see into this way of knowing, these multiple ways of knowing.
Perhaps through the stars and the cosmology of the stars.
Can you give us a little opening into our connection to the stars and
how does Navajo knowledge place a person in the universe through the stars.
>> There's two ways of looking at the stars.
One is through our subject-object in thinking.
I think there's two consciousness going on at the same time.
One is that we're here and the stars are up there.
The second one is the stars are up there, but not really up there, but
they are here, we are of the star, and so the language,
if we were to follow the language, [FOREIGN], my ancient relation.
My ancient relation from which I came, from which we came,
there's a historical ancient connection, that even though it's ancient,
it's way out there going back in time, it's just a word.
The ancient connection is also here.
There's no separation.
We have a word for it.
We call it the [FOREIGN].
It's one universal process, undivided wholeness and
so only our words separate them.
We can only process one thing at a time.
We have to take something that's moving, freeze it, put a noun, name to it.
Take it out of the verb piece process and so
it's become like a static consciousness.
What you get through the indigenous mind and
the Native mind is a process that's not really reality.
There's tremendous communication going on that we don't understand,
have not yet maybe began to understand and the universe,
natures always talking to us that the things are imbalanced.
Whether we recognize it or not or the night, it's always telling us.
We're polluting the waters, the oceans and
the air and everybody's really concerned about climate change and
global warming and we got to do something and
assume that people are getting a little bit more and more concerned.
Somewhere people have to think different.
The understanding that the earth goes through organizations and
reorganizations and generation and regeneration and revitalizations.
The natural ability to go through that and
constantly provide balances at multiple levels,
not just at the real simplistic macro level but
at a much more intimate level and levels upon levels and
upon levels and levels of balances,
dynamic balances that nature provides.
But in all that process, the universe interacting with earth,
it's constantly going through this gift of rebalancing.
It's really unique, when you think about it.
It's a gift.
We are a gift.
Our connection to earth and understanding that is really a gift.
And so that deep appreciation, deep, deep,
deep appreciation that we've been provided these wonderful gifts
to exist the way we exist and to live and
experience the world as we see it and as we know it,
and that we know se can go back to, is a wonderful gift.
>> So it's a universe of gift, clearly, I love that word.
And a universe of movement and change and dynamic.
David, you've spoken about this difference of a world of flow for
Navajo knowledge, Navajo ways of knowing.
And you've also spoken about the Western way of knowing as much more frozen,
taking a picture, if you will.
How can we see these two worlds?
Can you give us a description of them, of the frozen and flowing worlds?
>> Let me start by giving you a way in to talk about your question.
The reductionist approach, reducing things
down to smallest common denominator, we do that all the time.
I took science courses just like every body else, we look at the organic body and
we look at the tissues and the molecules and the atoms and
the subatomic particles and you keep going down and somewhere, it turns into flux.
And I know people are stuck there, I guess you could say.
We haven't developed a language that talks in the flux and processes.
Over here on the Native side, it's not this equation, that's too simple.
That's the whole universe acting, an evolution as a whole system.
It's the whole universe acting.
Anytime you see nature, it's like that.
For example, a tornado.
When the tornado comes out of the clouds, it's
gravity acting.
It's the Sun acting.
It's the clouds acting.
It's the Earth acting.
It's the universe acting.
It's a whole universal activity.
You see it.
Nature at its best and its own right and its own way.
It's a whole process, the whole process thinking.
It's constantly in motion.
It goes, it comes, and then it disappears, then it's not there anymore.
Where did it go?
It comes and goes.
It manifests into a cyclonic action,
and in this case, a tornado, and then it disappears.
When you use the traditional mind to talk about those things,
you use a verb based language to get a better understanding of
the movement and how things are in processes.
>> And it's why story perhaps is so important as a way of understanding
these changes and these elements in relationship to ourselves.
Yeah.
>> David, thank you so much.
A pleasure to be with you and we wish you well in your work.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
[MUSIC]
>> Nancy welcome it's so good to have you and thank you for coming up from Santa Fe.
You're a Navajo and a Cherokee, you've done a PhD in Indigenous Science.
You've been a president and founder of the Indigenous Education Institute and
now you're directing this amazing project that the National Science Foundation has
funded, called Cosmic Serpent.
Lots to talk about today, welcome.
>> Thank you very much.
It's a real pleasure to be here.
>> We'd love to have you describe a bit in your studies of
the cosmology and the indigenous science of Navajo ways of knowing,
of ways of being, of ways of living.
Maybe we could just begin with the cosmology of the home, the hogan.
How is it oriented?
The directions, the stars, the openings?
Can you tell us about the hogan?
>> Sure, I'd love to.
First of all, it's set out on the Navajo nation, and
it's surrounded by a sky, and that sky is thought of as a dome.
It's another home almost.
The roof of the hogan is also thought of as being that sky, that roof.
The whole hogan Is centered and place based according to
the cardinal directions and it's linking between earth and sky.
I's round, because so many things in Navajo cosmology are round,
in terms of cycles, and circles.
It's door is always facing east and when the sun comes in, like it
will a few days from now, the solstice, it will come straight in that door and
hit on a point opposite the door and that's the alignment.
Then you always know where north, west, south, east, where they all are.
It's a way of grounding you and placing you in your land.
>> So, this orientation to land and the larger via region and the cosmos itself?
>> And the sky, and there's a smoke hole up there, you can look up,
you can see certain stars as they go, during ceremonies,
you'll see stars go by >> But you always know what time it is.
The ceremonies can be completed at dawn and so, way before the sun comes up, but
a predawn and you're just in harmony with the natural rhythms of the land.
>> So the stove is the center, with the cooking and
the smoke going through the- >> Yeah, yeah.
The stove is the center and it's like the central fire.
And so is the North Star, for example, that's the center fire of the sky.
It's like the center fire of a hogan.
So there's a real feeling of centeredness and things happening around that center.
When you go into a hogan,
you will go clockwise, you don't ever go the other way.
And women will sit on the north side,
men will sit on the south side and so it's very place based.
>> And children, moving between the two?
[LAUGH] >> They're not supposed to be running
around during a ceremony, but these are living homes too, so
there really is almost unspoken protocol that you do go this way.
>> Even for everyday movement?
>> Yeah, yeah.
>> Yeah, and what about then the relationship to the grazing animals or
crops and so on?
How does that work in relation to where families are based,
hogon and grazing pastures and so on?
>> Today, it's a little bit different because with a lot of people who
are living in homes now and they'll put their corral and
their water source where it's the most convenient for them.
A long time ago, they would plant different kinds of cornfields
like a square, a circle, a triangle, or a rectangle.
Today, it's what's the most convenient.
And you usually see them planted in rectangular fields.
But the livestock is not that far away from the house and
it's kind of like an extension of the family.
>> So this orientation to ground and
to place is also contained in myths and stories and creation stories.
How does that help give a sense of the past of a people, and
their sense of their own individuality, and their future directions from story?
>> Everything in native cosmologies has to do with a sense of place and
so you always know where you are.
You have a sense of centeredness.
And that really applies all through educational practices,
all kinds of things because we always start with the center and then you go out.
You start with what you know and then you go out toward your family and
then your tribe and then your state and your country and so
it's thought of as you are the center.
And wherever you go, you are your own center too.
That's the thinking.
So I'm here in Richmond,
California today but now that's the center of everything for me, why I'm here.
So, when you look at what's important and maybe distinguishes indigenous ways of
knowing from some of the more Western ways of knowing or Western sciences,
one of the things that's extremely important is that place-based knowledge.
What the cycles of the animals are in that place.
When the certain plants come up.
What the people would be doing.
It's all inter-related.
So some of the keywords, you could say, is a sense of interrelationship of all
things, it's very important as a way of knowing, anything relational.
Another thing that's very important are ways of knowing process,
everything's moving, it's a dynamic universe, nothing is static.
And these things play out through the language.
But in the native languages, particularly Navajo, it's all to do with the verbs.
It's a totally different way of looking at the world when you look at everything in
motion, everything's alive, everything has relationship with each other.
So that sense of place is comforting because you know
where you are, you know what you should be doing.
And I'll give you an example, there's a constellation that we think is
absolutely fascinating called the Thunderbird, i'ni it's called in Navajo.
And the constellation will take nine months to manifest,
so it's across time and it's across space, and
western constellations are not thought of in this way.
But this is a grounding, you will always know where you are.
And so you will see certain stars will come up October, November, December,
January, February.
And at a certain point in February, when the sixth star appears,
that's when the first thunder will come down, the first lightning.
And those thunder waves will go deep into the Earth, you can imagine thunder.
And that's when a part of the Thunderbird constellation,
a part of a Bear constellation are just peeping over the horizon.
And at the same time those sound waves go down the Earth,
they wake up all the animals that are hibernating, the snakes and the bears.
And the plants start growing.
And so there's a knowledge there that
exactly where you are in that cycle of seasons.
At the same time that people stop telling winter stories and
stop talking about coyote stories or star stories, and
you just leave them and you will pick them up again in the fall.
So it is a plant cycle, it's an animal cycle, it's a water cycle,
it's a meteorology cycle.
The stars have to line up and the people are doing things.
And so it's a way of being totally interrelated with where you are.
>> And I can imagine in those large, open spaces, the power of thunder.
>> Yeah.
>> And certainly lightening.
>> Yes, yes.
>> And all the people know it immediately.
>> Yes, yes, you know that's first thunder.
And it'll come up on the radio stations, too.
They'll say, Window Rock just had its first thunder, or
White Rock's just had first thunder.
And then you don't do anymore winter ceremonies.
There's a real transition there.
>> So spring ceremonies begin, or the next season gradually comes into being.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> And then in the fall, it's at some point the same.
And because of climate change,
there are some things happening where what the animals and plants are doing don't
exactly line up with the stars anymore, because of the global warming.
And so even at home, people are trying to discuss,
well, when should we start the ceremony?
Should it be according to the stars, or the plants?
And it's all nature, so they are having to make some decisions.
>> And do the elders pretty much make those decisions?
>> Yes, uh-huh.
>> And solstice and equinox, are those also times for ceremonies and
transition for the people?
>> Yeah, people are very aware of those dates,
and certain things are able to be done at those times.
It's kind of the same as the English word solstice which implies a standstill,
where the sun stands still and
then starts its journey back either from south or from the north.
And so these were very important indicators a long time ago and
actually they still are of when to plant, for example.
Everything's tied together and when the big heat is coming or
when the big coldness is coming in the winter.
So if you think of it as a big circle with equinoxes and solstices, it's very clear.
>> Yeah, and a child is introduced into this cosmos then, right,
by ceremony and ritual and song.
And the community would welcome the child into this world.
>> Yes and they honor things like a first laugh and a puberty ceremony.
All the way along there are ceremony markers,
as you make a transition from one stage to another.
And a lot of that still continues on today.
>> I love the first laugh ceremony.
>> Uh-huh.
>> That must be quite special.
>> Uh-huh, it is.
>> This indigenous way of knowing and our cosmology, and
a sense of the stars that orient one, it's really a different portal, isn't it?
To a deep knowledge of place, as you've said.
>> Exactly, you said that very well.
Yeah, I love that word, I love that concept.
It's a portal to another way of knowing and that's why I think diversity is so
important in this country and this world today.
We need all the diversity we can, we need all the traditions and
the languages still.
All the places where knowledge is held that
informs how we can live on this Earth and it can only come
if we respect the integrity of all these diverse ways of knowing.
>> I sometimes have this image, especially across the Great Plains of
North America of these fires, these ceremonies, these campfires,
these rituals that are keeping alive these very ancient ways of knowing.
>> Mm-hm.
>> And I think of them with great gratitude.
Because that sense of retrieval and recovery and
restoration of these traditions I think will help the whole human community.
>> I do too, and I think they all carry a sense of keeping the balance,
keeping harmony between Earth and sky.
As we see the Earth going more out of balance,
Mother Earth is in trouble right now, and so I have a lot of gratitude to all
the tribes that are carrying on ceremonies to restore that balance.
[MUSIC]
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