Indigenous Traditions and Ecology: The Interbeing of Cosmology and Community

A collective work containing studies on indigenous communities whose sovereignty and ways of life are threatened by the exploitation of natural resources, political, military or economic  colonisation, and the globalisation of economic markets. This work looks at the ways of life of a number of indigenous peoples, as well as the methods they employ to resist change and regenerate that enable them to maintain a spiritual equilibrium with the forces of the Cosmos at the same time as they adapt in a creative fashion to environmental, social, economic and political changes. The authors provide examples that show how by means of rites and sustainable practices indigenous cosmologies describe the indissoluble links that these communities have with life, the Earth, and how their religion cannot be separated from nature.