Chapter 34 Further Reading: Indigenous Philosophy — Land, Relationship, and Relational Ontology

A Note on This Reading List

This list prioritizes works by Indigenous scholars, philosophers, storytellers, and community members. Learning from Indigenous traditions means learning from Indigenous voices — not primarily from non-Indigenous academics who write about those traditions. Where secondary scholarship by non-Indigenous scholars is included, it is because it provides useful bridging or context that is otherwise unavailable; the primary voices should always be read first.

Essential Primary Texts — Begin Here

Vine Deloria Jr. (Standing Rock Sioux). God Is Red: A Native View of Religion
Fulcrum Publishing; 3rd revised edition, 1992 (originally 1973)
The single most important entry point for Western-trained readers approaching Indigenous philosophy seriously. Deloria systematically compares Native American and Western (primarily Christian) philosophical frameworks across ontology, ethics, theology, and philosophy of religion. His central argument — that Western philosophy is organized around time/history while Indigenous traditions are organized around space/place — is philosophically sophisticated and carries profound implications. Deloria is sharp, occasionally polemical, and absolutely precise. He doesn't soften his critique of Western philosophy, which is part of what makes this book philosophically valuable: it forces the reader to see Western philosophy's assumptions from outside. Essential reading.

Robin Wall Kimmerer (Citizen Potawatomi Nation). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
Milkweed Editions, 2013
Perhaps the most accessible and beautiful introduction to Anishinaabe and Potawatomi philosophical thought available to general audiences. Kimmerer is a professor of plant ecology as well as a Potawatomi language learner, and her book weaves together rigorous botanical science and Indigenous philosophical teaching in ways that illuminate both. The chapter on the grammar of animacy ("The Grammar of Animacy") is one of the finest pieces of contemporary philosophical writing on ontology and language. The Honorable Harvest sections are a complete relational ethics for the non-human world. This book changes how people think. Read it.

Vine Deloria Jr. and Daniel Wildcat. Power and Place: Indian Education in America
Fulcrum Publishing, 2001
Deloria's collaboration with Wildcat (a Muscogee/Creek philosopher at Haskell Indian Nations University) extends the philosophical framework of God Is Red into educational philosophy and epistemology. The concept of "power and place" — the idea that genuine knowledge is rooted in specific places and the power that comes from right relationship with those places — is developed here in accessible but philosophically serious terms. Excellent for understanding the epistemological dimensions of Lakota and wider Native American philosophical thought.

Anne Waters, editor. American Indian Thought: Philosophical Essays
Blackwell, 2004
An essential anthology gathering work by Indigenous philosophers engaging with Western philosophical traditions. Contributors include Vine Deloria Jr., Anne Waters (herself a philosopher), Dennis McPherson, J. Douglas Rabb, and others. The essays address metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and philosophy of religion — all from within or in dialogue with Native American philosophical traditions. This book demonstrates, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Native American philosophy is academic philosophy in the fullest sense: rigorous, systematic, self-critical, and engaged with the broader philosophical conversation. Required reading for any student who wonders whether Indigenous thought "counts" as philosophy.

Indigenous Philosophy in Specific Traditions

Lee Hester (Choctaw) and Jim Cheney. "Truth and Native American Epistemology"
Social Epistemology 15:4, 2001
A rigorous philosophical article on the nature of knowledge in Native American traditions, accessible to readers with some epistemology background. Argues that Native American epistemologies are not merely alternative belief systems but constitute genuine epistemological alternatives to Western foundationalism.

Daniel Two Feathers Consulting. Works on the Great Law of Peace
Various publications and academic articles
The philosophical content of the Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace is best approached through Haudenosaunee scholars and the Confederacy's own documentation. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy has published materials explaining the Great Law; seek out these primary sources alongside academic commentary.

Witi Ihimaera and various Māori scholars. Works on Te Ao Māori
For Māori philosophy specifically, the work of scholars at the University of Auckland's Te Wānanga o Waipapa and at Victoria University of Wellington's Te Kawa a Māui (School of Māori Studies and Pacific Studies) provides rigorous philosophical engagement with Te Ao Māori. Rangi Mātāmua, Mere Roberts, and Mason Durie are among the scholars who have published on Māori philosophy in accessible forms.

Environmental Philosophy and Indigenous Thought

Robin Wall Kimmerer (Citizen Potawatomi Nation). Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses
Oregon State University Press, 2003
Kimmerer's earlier book, focused specifically on mosses, demonstrates the integration of scientific and Indigenous knowledge that Braiding Sweetgrass expanded into a full philosophical framework. Beautiful and precise.

Kyle Whyte (Potawatomi). Multiple articles available online
Whyte is a professor of environment and sustainability at the University of Michigan and one of the most important current philosophers working on Indigenous environmental justice. His articles on collective continuance, climate justice, and Indigenous sustainability are widely available online and are rigorous philosophical work accessible to motivated undergraduates. Search "Kyle Whyte collective continuance" and "Kyle Whyte Indigenous climate justice."

Decolonial Philosophy and Epistemology

Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Māori). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples
Zed Books, 2012 (2nd edition; originally 1999)
Smith's landmark book is the most important text in the decolonial methodology literature. It examines the relationship between Western research methods and colonial power, arguing that research itself — the systems of knowledge production and validation — has been a tool of colonial domination. Essential for understanding the epistemological stakes in the knowledge extraction case study. Written by a Māori scholar from within a Māori philosophical framework, though engaging comprehensively with Western methodology.

Walter Mignolo. The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options
Duke University Press, 2011
Mignolo is a non-Indigenous decolonial philosopher who provides extensive philosophical context for the colonial suppression of Indigenous knowledge systems. While this list prioritizes Indigenous voices, Mignolo's work is useful for connecting Indigenous epistemological critique to broader decolonial philosophy. Read alongside, not instead of, Indigenous scholars.

N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa). The Way to Rainy Mountain
University of New Mexico Press, 1969
Momaday's meditation on Kiowa history, myth, and his own family's place within that history is a profound work of philosophy in narrative form. The philosophical content — the relationship between story, place, and identity — is not incidental to the literary form but inseparable from it. Required reading for anyone who wants to understand why Indigenous philosophy is transmitted through story rather than systematic treatise.

Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo). Ceremony
Penguin, 1977
A novel that is also a philosophical text: the healing journey of the protagonist Tayo enacts the Laguna Pueblo philosophy of right relationship, healing through connection to land and community, and the consequences of violation of relationship. Essential for understanding how philosophical concepts are transmitted and embodied in narrative practice in Native American traditions.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
Beacon Press, 2014
Dunbar-Ortiz (of mixed descent, with Cherokee ancestry) provides the essential historical context for understanding the colonial suppression of Indigenous cultures and philosophical traditions in North America. Understanding the history is necessary for engaging with these traditions honestly — you cannot understand why the survival of these philosophical traditions is remarkable without knowing what was done to suppress them.

Robin Wall Kimmerer (Citizen Potawatomi Nation) and others. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World
Scribner, 2024
Kimmerer's most recent book extends the Honorable Harvest philosophy into a complete philosophical account of the gift economy — reciprocity, abundance, and right relationship as the basis for a different kind of economics. A natural companion to Braiding Sweetgrass.

On Māori Law and Philosophy

Jacinta Ruru, editor. Māori Land Law
LexisNexis NZ, 2018
For readers interested in the philosophical implications of Māori philosophy for legal theory — particularly the Whanganui River legal personhood case — Ruru's work on Māori land law provides the necessary context. The legal arguments for granting rights to natural entities are philosophical arguments about personhood, standing, and relationship, and understanding them requires this grounding.

A Final Note

Engaging with Indigenous philosophical traditions calls for the same intellectual humility that all good philosophy requires — plus a willingness to recognize that you may be encountering genuinely different assumptions than the ones you have been trained in. The natural tendency is to translate Indigenous concepts into Western philosophical categories (relational ontology, non-anthropocentrism, virtue ethics, consensus democracy) and evaluate them from within those categories. That translation is sometimes useful, and this chapter has attempted it carefully. But the translation always loses something. The goal is not just to evaluate Indigenous ideas by Western standards but to let them challenge the standards themselves.

The best approach: read widely in Indigenous voices, attend to what they actually say rather than what you expect them to say, and hold your translations lightly.