Jean-Guy A. Gouletbetween religion-superstition-revelation and logic-science-rational-
ity divides the world into then and now, them and us.” This central
myth—or belief, in Spiro’s meaning of the term as explained further
in this paper—is so deeply embraced by Europeans and Euro–North
Americans that they cannot spontaneously embrace, as Native North
Americans do, the experiences of elders visiting in one’s dream.
This paper is concerned, therefore, with the following two questions:
How does the ecstatic side of one’s journey in the field illuminate the
scene and the people one seeks to understand and interact with eth-
ically? What are the limitations in the field of foreign-bound ethical
guidelines? To ask questions such as these is to push the boundaries of
conventions within the anthropological profession. Answers to these
questions allow us to respond appropriately to Native North Ameri-
can ancestors who intervene to inform and direct one’s actions in this
world, the world in which we are born and eventually die, the world
of everyday life in which land claims are settled in court and term pa-
pers are submitted in a university setting.
Embracing Aboriginal Cognitive and Spiritual MapsFor all the reasons mentioned above, and more, epistemological and
ethical questions related to fieldwork are generally complex, especially
among indigenous or aboriginal peoples. They are the descendants of
those inhabitants who were living principally from hunting, gather-
ing, and foraging all over the world, before they experienced contact
with European explorers and colonizers. Since then, everyone who
shares in this context of life participates in a complex interaction of
social forces and cultures. These have developed in a process of “co-
formation” through which identities remained differentiated while
being altered (Kahane 2004 , 37 ). In the literature, the term aborigi-
nal is therefore used with a clear understanding that “there is no one
‘Aboriginal’ identity, just as there is no one ‘non-Aboriginal’ identity”
(McNaughton and Rock 2004 , 57 , note 2 ).^2
Notwithstanding their distinctive philosophies and histories, on
all continents, aboriginal peoples are increasingly aware and critical
of what others have written and write about them. More and more