Worldview: How You See Changes What You See
Worldview: How You See Changes What You See
Native Studies 30 | Unit 1: Identity, Worldview, and Rights | Lesson 2.2
Native Studies 30 | Unit 1: Identity, Worldview, and Rights | Lesson 2.2
Learning Goal: I can explain what a worldview is and describe at least two ways that an Indigenous worldview differs from a Western worldview. I can connect worldview to how people understand their relationship to the land, to other living things, and to their responsibilities.
A worldview is the set of beliefs and values that shape how a person or community understands the world. It is deeper than opinion. Most people never stop to examine their worldview — it operates in the background, shaping what they think is normal, what they think is right, and what they think the land, time, and other living things are for.
Canada's legal system, its school system, and most of its institutions are shaped by a Western European worldview — a set of beliefs rooted in the Enlightenment, in Christian theology, and in the philosophical traditions of Europe. This worldview values individual rights over collective ones, sees the land primarily as a resource to be owned and used, and understands time as moving in a straight line from past to future.
Indigenous worldviews across Canada are diverse. The Cree, Saulteaux, Dakota, Blackfoot, and Haudenosaunee peoples do not all share an identical worldview, any more than European nations all share one. But there are broad patterns that appear across many Indigenous knowledge systems — patterns that differ significantly from the dominant Western framework.
In many Indigenous worldviews, the land cannot be owned. Humans do not stand above the natural world — they exist within it, in a relationship of responsibility and reciprocity. Animals, plants, water, and the earth itself are not resources to be extracted. They are relatives, or at minimum, living beings with their own needs and rights. Chief Dan George, a Tsleil-Waututh leader and writer, expressed this directly: "We did not own the land. The land owned us."
This is not only a spiritual belief. It shapes how communities make decisions about hunting, harvesting, and resource management. Many First Nations have traditional laws governing how much can be taken, when, and how it must be treated. These systems sustained complex societies for thousands of years before European contact.
Where Western law focuses heavily on individual rights, many Indigenous governance systems place collective responsibility at the centre. Decisions affect the whole community, including those not yet born. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy's Great Law of Peace instructs leaders to consider the impact of every decision on seven generations into the future. This seventh generation principle is one expression of a worldview in which time does not end with the living.
In many Indigenous knowledge systems, knowledge is not stored only in books or institutions — it is passed through relationships: with Elders, with the land, through ceremony, through story. This is not less rigorous than Western science. It is a different method, refined over thousands of years of careful observation and transmission. Courts in Canada have increasingly recognized Indigenous oral history as valid evidence precisely because it is a serious, disciplined form of knowledge transmission.
Key Idea: A worldview is the framework of beliefs through which a person or community understands the world. Many Indigenous worldviews understand humans as existing within the natural world — not above it — and emphasize collective responsibility over individual ownership. Understanding these differences is essential to understanding most conflicts over land, governance, and rights in Canada.
Battiste, M. (2002). Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogy in First Nations Education. National Working Group on Education, Government of Canada.
Simpson, L. B. (2011). Dancing on Our Turtle's Back. Arbeiter Ring Publishing.
The Canadian Encyclopedia. (2023). Indigenous Worldviews. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/indigenous-worldviews
First Nations University of Canada. (n.d.). Indigenous Knowledge Systems. https://www.fnuniv.ca
Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass. Milkweed Editions.