Indigenous Wisdom

Throughout history, Indigenous peoples around the world have been subjected to brutal regimes of colonialism and dispossession. Many cultures have been destroyed by forces of colonial greed for power, land and control of resources. Sadly, these invasions have resulted in the erasure of countless individual lives and cultural identities. Incredibly, however, through community, strength of culture and sheer perseverance, many have survived. These are the stories of those people, past and present.

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The Chuvash (Russian: чуваши) are a Turkic people, related to the Oghurs, who are native to a region extending from Central-Western Russia to Siberia.  Many live in Chuvashia and ethnic communities throughout Russia, and continue to speak Chuvashi language, which diverged from other Turkic languages over a thousand years ago.  They have been subjected to much outside influence, not only from Russian and Turkic peoples, but also from neighbouring Finnic tribes, with whom they have been wrongly identified for centuries.  Today, many Chuvash practice a syncretised form of Orthodox Christianity and Shamanism. Traditional clothing of Chuvash women is complex and varies greatly between regions. A distinctive feature is the rich ornamentation of headdresses and jewellery with decorative silver coins. The most unusual feature is called shulkeme - the breast adornment worn by a young married woman. The full set of jewellery a Chuvash woman would wear during the ceremony could weigh up to 16kg. Traditionally, the size and weight of the jewellery displayed the wealth of the bride's family and was a fundamental part of her dowry. The traditional headdress of a married Chuvashi woman is called khushpu. It is worn over the surpan, a strip of white fabric with embroidery at the ends. The khushpu pictured here is one of the oldest and rarest in existence, dating back to the 18th Century.  📸 Alexander Kimushin

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Young Korafe boy Tufi, Papua New Guinea 📸 Jimmy Nelson

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Young Nanai girl The Nanai are a Tungusic people of Eastern Asia who traditionally live along the Heilongjiang, Songhuajiang and Wusli rivers of China and Russia. Roughly translated, their name for themselves means “People of the Earth” (Nanai) or “People of the lower river” 赫哲" (Hezhe).   To the Nanai, fish were most valuable and sacred. In the summer months, they fished all season long, with the sturgeon being greatly respected. In winter, they ate dried fish. Large fish weighing over 50kg were turned into clothing by drying and pounding the flesh with a mallet until it was smooth and malleable. This custom earned the Nanai the nickname “Fish-skinned Tartars” (鱼皮鞑子, Yupi Dazi). They are a generally Shamanist people with great reverence for the bear (Doonta) and the tiger (Amba). They believe that all things in the universe possess their own spirit which wanders freely throughout the world. They worship the natural world and pay tribute to the sprits of the Sun, Moon, Mountains, Water and Trees, and believe that a great serpent once arose from the Earth and gouged out the great valleys of the land. The Nanai practice a lengthy and elaborate funerary ritual which assists the soul of the deceased in travelling safely to the underworld. After death, a persons soul is moved into a temporary shelter made out of cloth, before it is transferred into a small, wooden doll called a panyo.  The panyo is taken care of as if it is a living person; for example, it is given a bed to sleep in each night, with a pillow and blanket to match its miniature size.  Each night this family member puts the panyo to bed and then wakes it in the morning. The doll has a small hole carved in its mouth so that a pipe may be placed there, allowing the deceased to smoke.  In the final part of the ritual, called the Kasa Tavori, the Nanai feast for three days as the soul is transferred from the panyo into a full-sized, human looking wooden figure.   On the final day, this wooden statue, possessed with the soul of the dead, is strapped to a dogsled and transported by the shaman on a long and dangerous journey before the sun sets. This journey marks the start of the soul’s transition into the Buni, or underworld, where it will reside for eternity.  📸 Alexander Khimushin

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Taz woman. The Taz are a Russian and Mandarin-Chinese speaking people who live in South-Eastern Russia. Formed out of intermarriages between Udege, Nanai and Han Chinese people, the Taz currently number only roughly 270 individuals. Their local dialect, comprised of North-Eastern Mandarin and Tungusic languages, is in steep decline, with most people speaking Russian out of necessity.

Unfortunately, little is known about the Taz, and it seems inevitable that their culture and language will continue to be subsumed by the dominant Russian influence in the region.  

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The Itneg people, also known by the Spanish word Tinguian or “Mountain Dwellers”, are an ethnic group from the upland province of Abra in northern Luzon, Philippines. Through immigrating higher into the mountains, they eventually descended from the Kalinga, Apayao and Kankana-ey tribes to form their own distinct culture, and have divided further into another 9 subgroups. The Itneg inhabit a deeply spiritual world, where many day-to-day activities such as growing food, hunting and building dwellings are deeply interwoven with their connection to the spirit world. To the Itneg, there are two distinct classes of spiritual beings: natural spirits, who have existed eternally, and the spirits of the dead, who reside forever in Maglawa, a place between the Earth and the Sky. Natural spirits include the creator Kadaklan who watches over all things, Kabonīyan who guides and offers assistance, and Alan, a mischievous but kind half human half bird-being. Periodically, these beings are addressed through ritual, which often includes music, prolonged dancing and the sacrifice of pigs, where the blood is mixed with rice and offered to the gods.  Women often wear a tapis, a wrap-around skirt that reaches below the knees, and a ceremonial short-sleeved jacket. Beads are highly important to the Itneg, signifying wealth and social status, and often accompany rituals such as engagement, where bracelets of colourful beads are curated by men to prove their affection to their potential bride. Men wear a ba-al to cover their privates, a long-sleeved jacket for ceremony and hunting, and a large, dome-shaped hat. Hunting and fishing are sacred practices for men, who employ snares and woven basket traps to catch small game and freshwater eels, fish and crustaceans. Most important of all weapons is the lance or pīka, a long spear used for hunting pigs and in defending their land from neighbouring tribes. The blade of the pīka is extremely sharp and often barbed, and often has a metal or material covering, allowing it to be used effectively as a staff for mountain climbing. Some subgroups utilised a detachable blade, which, attached to the handle with a heavy line, would stay stuck into the animal and as it attempted to escape, would become increasingly entangled as the line was dragged through the undergrowth.         The Itneg cultivate a variety of different fruits and vegetables, including yams, sweet potato, coconut, mango and bananas. Of all crops, however, rice is the most valuable. Cultivated traditionally in wet terraces, rice forms not only the staple of their diet, but the centerpiece of many rituals and customs. Furthermore, basi, a liquid of fermented sugar-cane juice and cinnamon, is used both ritualistically and as a recreational intoxicant. Besides being used to wish for health and well-being to a newly married couple, basi is used as an offering to bring protection from spirits of the dead, and as a tool in ceremony to achieve spirit possession, where one of the many natural spirits uses the body of a shaman as a medium to communicate to the mortals of the tribe.  Today, although subject to attempted colonization by the Spanish and Americans, many Itneg continue to practice their traditional lifestyle in their mountainous homelands of northwestern Luzon. They currently number approximately 50,000 individuals, or 3.17% of the population of Abra.  2nd and 4th photos c. 1885, Museum of Ethnology, Dresden. 1st and 3rd photos source unknown.

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The Evenks are a Tungusic people who live primarily in Siberia and China, with a small population present in Mongolia, where they are called the Khamnigan. In Russia, they inhabit a vast territory, ranging from the Okhotsk Sea in the East, to the River Ob in the West, from the Arctic Ocean to the North, and Manchuria to the South. Traditionally, as well as presently, the Evenki practiced a combination of hunter-gathering and pastoralism, centred around the domestication of reindeer for milk and transportation of their camp. Different populations of Evenks throughout North Asia skewed further towards a strict hunter-gathering or pastoralist culture. Generally, they roamed the Taiga in the warmer months, and camped in conical tents made of birch trees and reindeer skins. When they moved camp, they would leave the birch tree frameworks in place, and take the reindeer skins to their next destination. In winter, the hunting season, Evenks build one or two large tents in which the whole community resides for warmth and sharing of meals. Early in the spring season, winter camps broke up and moved to places more suitable for calving.   Evenks are masters of reindeer. Their skill at riding allowed them to travel through areas of dense Taiga which other groups could not reach. Using the reindeer as pack animals, they covered vast distances, traveling on handmade snow shoes and skis. Generally, each band would run around 25 reindeer, and utilise the animals for a variety of reasons. They would use leather from the animals to make saddles, baby cradles, and the thick winter clothing pictured above, all unique to the Evenks. Most importantly, the reindeer gave life and sustenance to the traveling band through their milk and other dairy products. The Evenks would not eat their domesticated reindeer.  The Evenks are also formidable and respectful hunters. Different bands hunted different species across varying geographical regions, including elk, wild reindeer, and fowl. For the Evenks who lived near the Okhotsk Sea, seal was a staple of their diet. Using handmade bows with a variety of arrow sizes, the Evenki skillfully sourced their own food to be shared amongst the band. Evenki hunters always carried with them a prized item called a pike - pictured in the second image with a reindeer antler sheath. The pike is a large knife on a long wooden handle, which serves multiple purposes such as slashing through thick Taiga foliage and hunting large animals such as bears. The Evenki forbade themselves from torturing any animal, defiling a dead animal, or killing an animal that was fleeing another predator or seeking safety. They would only kill animals they rightfully earned. The Evenks deeply respect the natural world, and worship elemental gods as well as their ancestors. Their universe is divided into three realms, the Upper - spirit realm, Middle - Earth, and Lower - ancestral realm. Shamans are known to be capable of traveling between these realms. Traditionally, they practised a “wind burial”, where the bones of their loved ones were placed inside a hollow birch log, and suspended by posts of birch.  Today, in both China and Russia, they are an officially recognized ethnic group, numbering around 30,000 individuals in each country. Fortunately, many Evenks continue to practise the traditional lifestyle of their ancestors, such as within the Evenk Autonomous Okrug, where thousands of Evenks control a vast area of Siberia and still hunt, gather and domesticate reindeer.    📸 Alexander Khimushin

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this post contains images of people who have passed away. A young Australian First Nation’s woman. Unfortunately, not much is known about the subject of this photo, although she is likely to be from Queensland or New South Wales. 📸 Charles Kerry, circa. 1892.

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Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this post contains images of people who have passed away. “NorWest Natives” by E.L Mitchell, circa. 1910. A proud First Nation’s man and his son, from North Western Australia. The man is carrying two boomerangs, and likely a woomera spear on his back, with the spear-thrower in his left hand. The woomera is a deadly spear throwing system, capable of launching a spear with four-times the kinetic energy of an arrow shot by a modern compound bow. The young boy is wearing a beautiful pearl shell pendant which was highly prized by the people of the region and was a precious item for trading with other clans. It is known that these pendants carried great spiritual significance and were used ritually and ceremonially. These rituals often varied between different tribal groups throughout Western Australia to which the shell had been traded. The pearl shell indicates that this photo was taken somewhere along the Kimberley Coast. However, this region was and still is extremely rich and diverse in culture. As such, it is difficult to determine where these two hunters are from. Some potential groups from the Kimberley Coast are the Balanggarra Uunguu, Dambimangari, Mayala and Bardi Jawi peoples. A great number of tribes still survive in the region today, many of which have achieved Native Title status in their respective regions.    

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The Khakas are an Indigenous People of the Republic of Khakassia in Southern Siberia. The origin of the Khakas people is still disputed. It is believed that they are descendants of the Yenisei Kyrgyz - an ancient Turkic people. From the 3rd century BC to the 13th century AD they lived on the banks of the largest river of Siberia flowing into the Arctic Ocean. The heart of their homeland was the mountains just north of Mongolia. The Yenisei Kyrgyz took over the leadership of the Turkic Empire (Khaganate) from the Uyghurs, expanding its territory from ancient Siberia into the Central Asia. It resulted in mass migration and formation of the Kyrgyz Republic (Kyrgyzstan), the land of the modern day Kyrgyz People. The Khakas People have chosen to stay in Siberia. Traditionally they have been practicing nomadic herding, agriculture, hunting and fishing. Herding sheep and cattle is still common in rural areas. Today, Khakas People comprise only about 12% of the population of their own Republic. Their language, having existed for over a thousand years, has lost over 20% of its speakers in just one decade. According to UNESCO, Khakas language is an endangered language . 📸  Alexander Khimushin

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Full Moon, Assiniboine Northern Great Plains F.A Rinehart, 1900

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A chief’s daughter from the Nakoaktkok Nation. Known in English as Francine, this woman was of the ʼNakʼwaxdaʼxw tribe of British Columbia, Canada, which was forcibly relocated from their native homeland in Ba’as (Blunden Harbour) in 1964. Presently, the ʼNakʼwaxdaʼxw have formed a banded government with the Gwa’sala, who were also forcibly removed by the Canadian government from the Smith Sound and Smith Inlet area. Together, they formed the Gwaʼsala-ʼNakwaxdaʼxw Nations, who have their main reserve at Tsulquate (Port Hardy). The two groups are part of the wider Kwakwakaʼwakw or Kwakiutl Indigenous peoples. Photographed by Edward Curtis in 1914, the chief’s daughter is pictured here wearing a thick but soft cedar and wool blanket, abalone shell earrings, copper and abalone headpieces, a nose piercing made of bone, and inscribed metal bracelets. Abalone shell earrings are a sign of high social status among many Kwakwaka’wakw nations.   

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Young Wodabe child of Fulani ethnicity at the Gerewol celebration Chad Jimmy Nelson

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Ainu (アイヌ) elder Hokkaido, Japan The man in this image is carrying an Ainu ceremonial sword, called an emush. These swords were originally obtained from the Japanese, and were later embellished with accoutrements which represented the Ainu’s political, social and religious beliefs. On his head sits the sapanpe, a wooden crown. This crown was decorated with curly wood shavings and highly detailed, carved images of animal gods and other ornaments in the center-piece.  Both men and women would keep their hair level at their side of the head, and trimmed semi-circularly at the back. Once Ainu boys became men, they never shaved for the rest of their lives. When an Ainu man proposed to a woman, he visited her house, ate half a full bowl of rice handed to him by her, and returned the rest to her. If the woman ate the rest, she accepted his proposal. If she did not and put it beside her, he had been respectfully rejected.

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The Naga are an ethnic group comprised of at least 39 tribes native to North-Eastern India and North-Western Myanmar. Numbering over 2 million people, the different tribes share similar culture and traditions, and form the majority ethnic group in Nagaland, with a sizeable population in the Indian regions Manipur, Arunahal Pradesh and Assam.    Many Naga tribes traditionally exhibited a strong patriarchal, warrior-like and headhunting culture. The village area, distinctly divided among neighbouring groups, was fundamental to Naga identity. Each village was divided into a certain number of clan territories known as khels, in which nearly all homes reared pigs and each had its own distinct physical and social identity. Monogamous marriage was common and fidelity was a highly prized virtue. Within the khel, the family unit was fundamental to Naga identity. Found within each khel was a self-governing body called a morung which aimed to protect the village by training young men to be warriors and channel their fertility back into the community. The morung was typically the second most decadent building in the village behind the central town hall, and was usually located near the entrance to the village, effectively acting as a guard tower. Beginning at puberty, young boys and girls were admitted to their respective gender dormitories. Elders conveyed the Naga culture, customs, and traditions  to these youths through folk music and dance, folk tales and oral tradition, and wood carving and weaving. Important community events, such as announcements of meetings, the death of a villager, and warnings of impending dangers were made from the morungs by the beating of log drums.  All Naga tribes are expert craftspeople. Their dwellings are made of ornately carved wood and straws, and are lavished in (predominately red) colour. Both men and women wore extensive amounts of jewellery, utilising beads with variety, profusion and complexity, along with a wide range of materials, including glass, shell, stone, teeth or tusk, claws, horns, metal, bone, wood, seeds, hair, and fibres. In many Naga tribes, the intricate detail of one’s woven shawl would typically dictate their social status, and individuals within a certain khel or community would each wear similar jewellery, amplifying their own identity and distinguishing them from neighbouring tribes. Within each khel there was a skull house which each man was expected to help fill, which exhibited the victories in battle of individual men.   In modern times, colonisation and economic development of the land on which the Naga reside has resulted in dramatic changes to the centrality of the khel and the family unit. The morung has since vanished, leaving many youths to experience difficulty connecting to their culture. With increasing tendency to adopt Indian ways of living, high respect for elders and the associated systems of cultural transmission, as well as the social structures of the khel and the village have been upended and replaced with a more detached, nuclear way of family life.

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The Ainu are an Indigenous people of Hokkaido in Japan, and the Sakhalin and Kuril Islands of Russia. DNA evidence demonstrates that the Ainu are direct descendants of the Jōmon, an ancient people who inhabited Japan and the Russian Archipelago for at least 12,000 years. The garment being worn by the woman pictured, called an attush, was spun from the inner bark of an elm tree and salmon skin. Her necklaces of metal plates and glass balls, called rektunpe, were also designed to protect from spirits attempting to enter the body. Tattooing was common in Ainu culture, and was strictly reserved for women. The tattoo process would begin as one small spot above the upper lip when a girl was about six years of age. As they grow older, the tattoo is expanded as a line which curves towards the ears, which is later filled with colour. The pain experienced throughout this process was thought to help prepare the woman for the pain of childbirth. A completed lip tattoo represented that a woman had reached maturity, and helped to prevent spirits from entering the body through the mouth. The tattooing process was done with a traditional knife-like instrument called a makiri. Before the invention of this tool, razor sharp obsidian points were used which were wound with a fiber to control the depth of the incision. As the cutting intensified, blood was wiped away with a cloth saturated in nire, a natural antiseptic procured from hot ash wood or spindlewood. Dark black soot was then rubbed deep into the wound as the woman’s tattooist (usually her aunt or grandmother) sung a yukar, a portion of an epic poem which said: “Even without it, she is beautiful. The tattoo around her lips, how brilliant it is. It can only be wondered at.” Afterward, the tattooist recited a spell or formula as more pigment was laid into the skin: “pas ci-yay, roski, roski, pas ren-ren”, meaning “soot enclosed remain, soot sink in, sink in.”

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The Rengma Naga are a Naga tribe found in Nagaland and Assam, India. They are one of the largest tribe’s of the Naga, currently numbering around 56,000 people. It is generally accepted that the Rengma’s ancestors migrated from China during the Qin Dynasty (221-207 B.C). They are traditionally known as brave, champion warriors. The traditional Rengma clothing consists of various types of clothes, which are indicative of the status and position of the weavers. A man who has not been able to offer a great feast, or has never killed an enemy, may wear an ordinary type of cloth called rhikho. Rhikho is a white cloth with four narrow black bands. The number of black bands varies with the age of the wearer. Moyet tsu is another ordinary type of cloth, worn by the young men. It is a dark blue cloth with a very broad median band, and embroidered with a thin zigzag pattern in red at the edges. Alungtsu is a cloth for well-to-do men, who have not yet offered a great feast. Teri Phiketsu is a shawl, which requires the wearer to perform the head hunting ceremony. Rengma’s claim that they are native aborigines of the Karbi-Anglong in Assam. In recent times, Rengma militant factions have been created in retaliation to Indian government policies which affect local interests and unity among the different Naga tribes.

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A pre-WW2 postcard of a young Atayal woman, taken by the occupying Japanese in the early 20th century.  The Atayal ( 泰雅), also known as the Tayal and Tayan, are the third largest Indigenous group in Taiwan, and traditionally inhabit the central-northern region. Atayal means “genuine person”. The Atayal are genetically distinct from Taiwan’s largest Indigenous group, the Amis, and the Han Chinese, suggesting little mingling between the groups. According to stories told by their elders, the first Atayal ancestors appeared when a stone, Pinspkan, cracked apart. There appeared three people, but one decided to go back into the stone: one man and one woman who lived together for a very long time and loved each other very much. But the boy was shy and wouldn't dare approach her. Whereupon, the girl came up with an idea. She left her home and found some coal with which to blacken her face so she could pose as a different girl. After several days, she crept back into their home and the boy mistook her for another girl and they lived happily ever after. Not long after, the couple bore children, fulfilling their mission of procreating the next generation. The Atayal custom of face tattooing may have come from the girl blackening her face in the story. The use of the word “savage” to describe Taiwan’s Aboriginal population was commonplace, as the Japanese saw the original inhabitants as being lesser-people, and suppressed much of the Indigenous groups’ traditional ways of living.