3) INDIGENOUS CIRCLE OF LIFE

The Indigenous Circle of Life describes essential self-organizing interactive fractal* or meme* components upon which human life and society are built.  Indigenous societies have compassionately and carefully orchestrated this design around the world over millennia.  Fractal* Design implies structural patterns or elements across infinite micro to macro scales which repeat themselves.  We exist as individuals, families, extended families, communities, cities, regions, provinces, states, nations, confederations, continents, hemispheres and as a planet.  When design is self-organizing then the intelligence of each conscious part is actively contributing to the whole through its groupings at different levels.

Like DNA as a genetic code upon which plant and animal life builds its structures and channels energy, human society has codes or operating rules and ‘etiquette’ (French = ‘prescribed-behaviour’) of interaction based in consciousness, which keep us in equilibrium.  If we wish to understand sustainable development, change or break or wish to rebuild these codes, we should be aware of their impacts at various levels of our existence over time.  Time itself is infinite recreating its patterns across history recorded and unrecorded.  The Indigenous Circle of Life is a broader view of the Great Law of Peace (mutual-aid in multihome living & inclusive economy of the Production Societies) found in Indigenous societies around the world.  See also the following section A. HOME 9) MUTUAL-AID.

* Fractal is derived 1975, from Fr. fractal, from L. fractus "interrupted, irregular," lit. "broken," pp. of frangere "to break" (see fraction). Coined by French mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot in "Les Objets Fractals."  Fractals are components organized into patterns which repeat themselves at each level of human & nature's endeavour & activity.

Many important spatial patterns of Nature are either irregular or fragmented to such an extreme degree that ... classical geometry ... is hardly of any help in describing their form. ... I hope to show that it is possible in many cases to remedy this absence of geometric representation by using a family of shapes I propose to call fractals -- or fractal sets. [Mandelbrot, "Fractals," 1977]  http://www.ted.com/talks/benoit_mandelbrot_fractals_the_art_of_roughness.html

* A meme (/ˈmiːm/; meem)[1] is "an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."[2] A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures.[3]

The word meme is a shortening (modeled on gene) of mimeme (from Ancient Greek μίμημα Greek pronunciation: [míːmɛːma] mīmēma, "imitated thing", from μιμεῖσθαι mimeisthai, "to imitate", from μῖμος mimos "mime")[4] and it was coined by the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene(1976)[1][5] as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given in the book included melodies, catch-phrases, fashion, and the technology of building arches.[6]

Indigenous technologies engender sustainable development.

3 RELATIONAL ECONOMY

A DEFINITION:       A  FULL  CYCLE OF  GIVING  &  RECEIVING

INDIGENE, Elemental Design,  2/9/10 Douglas Jack, eco-montreal@mcgill.ca  Eco-Montreal Tiohtiake Green Map www.eco-montreal.mcgill.ca Tiohtiake, Kanien’keh, Turtle Island, Mohawk Placename Mapping Sustain-ability Rooted in Heritage http://cbed.geog.mcgill.ca/WIP.html  Indigene Community www.indigenecommunity.info

Two Row Wampum Treaty: The Kanien'kehaka 'People of the Flint' lived in Kanien'keh a nation between Montreal and New York City as part of the Haudenosaunee 'People of the Longhouse' confederacy (Iroquois).  Reference: p10 Wampum Belts by Tehanetorens, '93, Iroqrafts, Ohsweken, Ontario, N0A1M0. This belt symbolizes the agreement and conditions under which the Iroquois welcomed the white (Dutch) peoples to this land.  "You say that you are our Father and I am your son."  We say, "We will not be like Father and Son, but like Brothers".  This wampum belt confirms our words.  "These two rows will symbolize two paths or two vessels, traveling down the same river together.  One, a birch-bark canoe, will be for the Indian People, their laws, their customs and their ways.  The other, a ship, will be for the white people and their laws, their customs and their ways.  We shall travel the river together, side by side, but in our own boat.  Neither of us will make compulsory laws or interfere in the internal affairs of the other.  Neither of us will try to steer the other's vessel."  The agreement has been kept by the Iroquois to this date.