STORIES FROM INDIGENOUS CULTURES 105
mitakuye oyasin , from the Lakota language, translated variously as “all
my relatives,” “all my relations,” or “we are all related,” is a metaphor
reminding the native person that community includes all beings and
the responsibility to respect and care for all of life (Brown 2001;
Cajete 2015). This phrase, often used as an opening invocation and a
closing benediction for many ceremonies, describes the epistemology
of the Indian worldview. Everything is alive and making choices.
Every being shares responsibility for impacting the rest of the world.
These ideas are consistent with contemporary theories in philosophy
and in the physical and social sciences.
2. The importance of community
A story was once told to Belisario Betancur, a former president of
Colombia, about a tiny Indian village near Lake Titicaca in Bolivia
(Weisman 1998). A bank president had gone with a team of
engineers to do a feasibility study for a proposed hydroelectric dam.
After the team finished its work, there was leftover funding. Seeing
that the village was in need of almost everything and grateful for
their hospitality, the bank officials offered to fund a development
project for the village. After meeting together, the elders of the village
replied that what they most needed were new musical instruments
for their band. The bank’s spokesman asked if they wouldn’t like to
have an engineering project such as running water or a sewer system.
The elders explained that in their village everyone played a musical
instrument. On Sundays after mass everyone gathered for a concert.
Only after making music together did they speak of any problems
in the community and how to solve them. They explained that
their instruments were old and falling apart and that without their
musical instruments the community would also fall apart (Weisman
1998, pp.5–6).
According to Gregory Cajete (2015), “Relationship is the
cornerstone of Indigenous community, and community is the place
where we learn what it is to be related” (p.23). Thus the Lakota
phrase mitakuye oyasin , “all my relations,” encompasses the common