Before the massive environmental change wrought by the European colonization of the South, hundreds of species of birds filled the region's flyways in immeasurable numbers. Before disease, war, and displacement altered the South's earliest human landscape, Native Americans hunted and ate birds and made tools and weapons from their beaks, bones, and talons. More significant to Shepard Krech III, Indians adorned themselves with feathers, invoked avian powers in ceremonies and dances, and incorporated bird imagery on pottery, carvings, and jewelry.

Krech, a renowned authority on Native...

Indigenous knowledge has become a catchphrase in global struggles for environmental justice. Yet indigenous knowledges are often viewed, incorrectly, as pure and primordial cultural artifacts. This collection draws from African and North American cases to argue that the forms of knowledge identified as "indigenous" resulted from strategies to control environmental resources during and after colonial encounters.

At times indigenous knowledges represented a "middle ground" of intellectual exchanges between colonizers and colonized; elsewhere, indigenous knowledges were defined...

Indigenous knowledge has become a catchphrase in global struggles for environmental justice. Yet indigenous knowledges are often viewed, incorrectly, as pure and primordial cultural artifacts. This collection draws from African and North American cases to argue that the forms of knowledge identified as "indigenous" resulted from strategies to control environmental resources during and after colonial encounters.

At times indigenous knowledges represented a "middle ground" of intellectual exchanges between colonizers and colonized; elsewhere, indigenous knowledges were defined...