This was a longer section. Reindigenization spoke about what reindigenization is, and how it can be achieved.
The first story featured three men, Greg Cajete, John Mohawk, and Julio Valladolid Rivera. Mohawk says reindigenization is, "...to rebuild that which was there before [colonization] happened, both in the form of human cultures and in the form of bringin back the biodiversity that existed prior to the colonization" (254). Their topics were widespread, but a few general themes stood out. All three discussed the importance not just of education, but of the right kind of education. After Rivera's graduate school agricultural education, he had to spend years unlearning things so that he could commune with the plants again, and really listen to what they were telling him. It is important to be schooled in your own culture, and to learn the old ways so that you, too, can pass on the knowledge of your people, they say. The all talk about intellectual property rights, and whether they have any business existing at all. Rivera doesn't believe in them for living things, in part because companies take advantage of the generous nature and indigenous knowledge of the Andean campesinos to patent new species of plants. Mohawk doesn't like them for living things either, as the people claiming to invent the plant or the animal didn't actually invent that thing, the Creator did. Cajete calls the sanctity of life into question when one starts patenting it. A patent isn't showing respect to the plant, and that is wrong. Mohawk ends the section with a call to action, asking people to stop lazing around doing nothing and stand up to the murderous, rampaging culture that's been throwing rationality out on the street since 1450. We know it is there, we know it exists, so now we just need to figure out a way to neutralize it.
The second story is about ecopoetics and the importance of words. Speaker believes that language is the key to a communal mestizo consciousness. She also thinks poetry is the way to explain the "oneness" of all living creatures to people, and a good way to bridge the gap between people.
The third story, by Melissa K. Nelson, deals with the "trickster consciousness". She works with The Cultural Conservancy, and over the years they have been helping Indigenous Peoples record their knowledge to use in teaching tools and for preservation. She calls out binary thinking for invading our brains and not allowing us to see the whole story, and all of the connections between things. Nelson also gives a definition of reindigenization, "...reconnection to our cultural heritage and our native imagination" (293). A specific example, the Paiute Salt Song, is espoused, as a response to the boarding schools many Indians were forced to attend as the government attempted to make them "assimilate". Language, Nelson closes with, is what needs to be protected, because it holds all the land based practices; cultural knowledge is lost as natural resources and biodiversity are lost.
Tirso Gonzales tells the fourth story, a short piece about colonization. He begins by calling out European ways of thinking, for many of them are "anthropocentric and grounded in the Judeo-Christian and Cartesian cosmovision" (299). The importance of the individual over the group, and the lack of respect to the world around them anger Gonzales. He desires a return to ancient Indigenous Peoples' worldview, one where "sacredness, reciprocity, nurturing, and respect are key concepts..." (300). However, the Indigenous population is growing, and the number of people who no longer believe in these main European constructs is too.
Taro root is the subject of the fifth story. Three people, Mark Paikuli-Stride, Eric Enos, and Nalani Minton, talk about the Hawaiian indigenous culture. The native Hawaiians have lost much of their traditional land to the government or rich developers, yet they do the best with what they have. In an attempt to regain access to some of their lands, they are trying to share their culture with those around them, bring people back to the taro patches so that people will understand why these things are important. The history of the particular valley they discuss is laid out, from the barren and dead beginnings to the greenery and fertility of recently. Success here is helping heal the island, and open up minds to change.
The final story asks us whether or not we're being human beings. John Trudell asks us to thing clearly and coherently, and look at the world that we live in. We all have power, "...the individual experience of being and how that being evolves as we go through the human experience; this is what's connected to the realities of what power really is" (320). The things we view as power are just "systems of authority" (320). Trudell also calls hope evil, arguing that it did come out of Pandora's box of evil. It tricks people into being content and not thinking, just hoping. We need to think, not believe, because when we think, we can recognize life for what it is, and when we see what is in front of us, we cannot have that reality "mined" away from us.
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