Not one tradition but thousands, joined by a pattern: knowledge kept relationally by authorized holders. This profile records what peoples have chosen to publish, under the CARE principles, and names the protocol as part of the knowledge.
Indigenous traditions are named in the plural deliberately: thousands of peoples, each with its own knowledge system, joined here only by a common pattern — knowledge held relationally, in story, ceremony, and practice, by authorized keepers, for the community’s continuance. That pattern has produced precise astronomy (Maya Venus tables), continental ecological management (Aboriginal fire regimes, Amazonian terra preta soils), and navigation systems that crossed the Pacific — achievements the eras in this section record.
The governing issue for any catalog is protocol. Much Indigenous knowledge is not public, and treating it as a data resource repeats the extractive history that mission and empire already ran against these peoples. Contemporary practice — community review, benefit-sharing, the CARE principles for Indigenous data governance (Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, Ethics) — is therefore part of this profile’s content, not an administrative footnote. Where traditions have chosen to publish ecological and astronomical knowledge, this site records it with attribution to the people who hold it.
References
- Global Indigenous Data Alliance, CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance (2019)
- Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies (1999)