All peoples have 'knowledge' that makes it possible for them to live together where they are. This should produce respect on our part and a willingness to learn from them. Here we'll consider their 'knowledge'.

Knowledge is defined as "a conscious intellectual and technical control of the circumstances in which they are involved." There is an area of knowledge here that should be respected.

Having said that, there are many kinds of knowledge:

Physical and chemical properties, such as the physical use of levers and stress (like in making houses, bridges, canoes, etc.) and the chemical use of poison to kill fish, birds, people, etc. For examples, the first discovery of tranquilizers came from India. They gave part of a plant called 'rolwofia' to people who were insane to calm them down. When studied, it opened up another valuable area of chemistry. Everything isn't spiritual in their minds, it may be just good medicine.

Example: Among the Cubeo, the art of poisoning is quite well developed. They have at least seven different leaf and berry poisons they use in sorcery.

Methods for reckoning time and distance. The Kiowa Pache had a calendar that enabled an Indian to recount to a professor incidents that happened back in 1840-1860, about the time when they came in contact with whites. That's how good the calendar was - it was by incidents.

The Kwakiutle knew the calendar of all the different fish runs on their coast.

The Semai divided the day (24 hours) into 6 parts with activities and taboos governing each part.

Engineering skills, such as house-building and bridge-building.

Methods of navigation. Fore example, Melanesians were good sailors and could take off for a very small island over 100 miles away over the horizon. They would do it without what we would call knowing patterns of the stars, etc.). They would hit it right on the spot just by reading the ocean, when the currents change, etc.

Flora and fauna. When moving through the jungle, they think everybody knows about the jungle around them. So they don't want to insult us by explaining everything.

New Guineans can see clear distinctions between trees that look like the same to us. They would say: this one the ants will eat, the other one they won"t.

When the Tiv people wanted to teach L. Bohannen about different types of leaves - pointed out and gave names. Then she did, but failed. Went through three or four times. They quit saying: some other day we'll have the next lesson. They wondered about the whole thing, shaking their heads, the kids laughed, but it was only about 25 types of leaves.

System of counting. An Ethiopian tribe can only double and halve numbers, yet they can take any two numbers, multiply them, and come out with the right answer. How? Say a man wants to buy 13 sheep for 15 Ethiopian dollars each, he puts 13 in the left column, 15 in the right. Halve the figure on the left: you get 6 1/2. Ignore the 1/2 - they don't deal in fractions. Double the right hand figure. Keep this up until the left hand figure is 1. Now you have:

13 15

6 30

3 60

1 120

Even numbers in the left hand column are evil according to superstition and must be destroyed with their guilty partners. So scratch out 6 and 30. Now add the right hand column and you have the right answer: 195.

This tribe can't understand our system. Of course, we understand how his works, or do we?

NOTE: You may find it easiest to file or record one of these areas under one particular heading first. Like engineering skills in house building may be better under "housing and community setting' first. When you find the same technique goes through several areas, you can abstract it and put it here. "They have a lot of knowledge in ..."