Center for World Indigenous Studies

Center for World Indigenous Studies Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Center for World Indigenous Studies, Charitable organisation, PMB 214, 1001 Cooper Point Road SW #140, Olympia, WA.

The mission of CWIS is to advance traditional knowledge in the fields of traditional healing arts and sciences, and development through public policy analysis, clinical services, research, and education to solve problems in Indian Country.

đŸŒș Ancestral Wisdom in the Voices of Indigenous WomenThe Winter 2026 issue of the Fourth World Journal closes with a tho...
05/05/2026

đŸŒș Ancestral Wisdom in the Voices of Indigenous Women

The Winter 2026 issue of the Fourth World Journal closes with a thoughtful review of "Feathers of Wisdom: Words and Art Illuminating the Legends and Myths of Indigenous Women Throughout the Ages." The book, created by Kait Matthews - Artist, Illustrator and Leigh Podgorski, is reviewed by Amelia (SkWumqnĂĄlqs) Marchand.

This remarkable volume brings together 44 legends from diverse Indigenous Peoples across the Americas and Oceania, weaving original artwork, ancestral storytelling, and carefully researched historical context. More than a collection of myths, the book is an act of cultural restoration—honoring Indigenous women as leaders, goddesses, spirit beings, and cultural bearers whose stories have too often been suppressed through forced assimilation and colonial violence.

The review highlights how Feathers of Wisdom not only preserves stories but restores relationships: with memory, with land, with identity, and with intergenerational wisdom.

One of the featured stories is that of Laka, the Hawaiian goddess of hula and nature. Through her story, we are reminded that before entering the forest, we must ask permission; that dance is prayer; that creativity is life force; and that living in harmony with the natural world is a daily practice.

“Become the dance. There are many paths that lead to your heart.”

At a time when cultural memory continues to face erasure, Feathers of Wisdom stands as both a living archive and a creative celebration—an invitation to remember that these stories are not merely the past, but guidance, resilience, and future.

📖 Read the full review featuring the story of Laka, Goddess of Hula and Nature: https://fwj.cwis.org/index.php/fwj/article/view/367

05/01/2026

This poem, featured in "Emita. Healing Hands, Cleansing Hands", honors the women who carry ancestral medicine across generations.

It portrays the healer as a living presence—rooted in relationship with plants, spirit, and community. A woman shaped through learning and transmission, whose work moves between body and soul with intuition, humility, and care.

Read the full piece, with its accompanying drawings and narrative, in the special edition issue of the Fourth World Journal: https://fwj.cwis.org/index.php/fwj/article/view/366

We invite you to read “Emita. Healing Hands, Cleansing Hands: An Unexpected Farewell,” a moving tribute to Ema, a forest...
04/27/2026

We invite you to read “Emita. Healing Hands, Cleansing Hands: An Unexpected Farewell,” a moving tribute to Ema, a forest healer whose life was devoted to the sacred art of plant medicine and spiritual ritual.

We encourage you to explore this literary piece, featured in the latest special edition of the Fourth World Journal, and to take time with the illustrations, narration, and poems that carry Ema’s spirit across the page. This contribution reflects the transmission of Indigenous knowledge between mentor and apprentice—knowledge rooted in relationship with Pachamama, the spirits of the forest, and the healing of children and community.

This article is a testimony. A remembrance. A reflection on the wisdom of women healers whose knowledge continues to live through those who receive and carry it forward.

Read the full article: https://fwj.cwis.org/index.php/fwj/article/view/366

04/23/2026

In many Indigenous communities, midwives and wise women carry more than medical knowledge—they carry trust, memory, and responsibility.

They guide pregnancies, share plant knowledge, and support families through moments that often happen beyond the visibility of formal health systems. Yet their work is frequently misunderstood, stigmatized, or even criminalized, caught between ancestral practices and modern pharmaceutical models.

The article "Revitalizing Kichwa Midwifery Medicinal Plant Knowledge for Pregnant Women in San MartĂ­n, Peru", featured in the latest special issue of the Fourth World Journal, explores how knowledge is passed from generation to generation, and how wise women continue to protect cultural continuity while navigating suspicion, changing social norms, and shifting ideas about health and healing.

A story about care, resilience, and the constant tensions between recognition and marginalization.

Read the full article: https://fwj.cwis.org/index.php/fwj/article/view/365

🌿 Revitalizing Kichwa Midwifery: Medicinal Plant Knowledge and Community CareHow is traditional midwifery sustained thro...
04/20/2026

🌿 Revitalizing Kichwa Midwifery: Medicinal Plant Knowledge and Community Care

How is traditional midwifery sustained through generations of knowledge, care, and relationship with plants?

This article shares the teachings of Kichwa midwife MamĂĄ Conzuelo Tapullima de Tuanama Tuanama, highlighting medicinal plants, pregnancy and childbirth practices, and the cultural revitalization of Indigenous midwifery in San MartĂ­n, Peru.

A powerful reflection on Indigenous knowledge, community health, and the role of wise women in sustaining cultural continuity.

Read the full article: https://fwj.cwis.org/index.php/fwj/article/view/365

We invite you to read this article from the latest special edition of the Fourth World Journal, and to enter the world o...
04/09/2026

We invite you to read this article from the latest special edition of the Fourth World Journal, and to enter the world of Mamita MarĂ­a Dolores, a KamĂ«ntĆĄĂĄ elder and healer from Colombia’s Sibundoy Valley.

Through Rozalia Agioutanti’s contribution, "Oral Testimonies of Traditional Medicine: A KamĂ«ntĆĄĂĄ Woman’s Legacy," Mamita’s life—rooted in midwifery, herbal medicine, and communal care—emerges as a living testimony of how Indigenous women carry memory, culture, and connection across generations.

Her stories trace the threads that connect body, land, and community: the care of the womb, the teachings of the chagra, and the rituals that sustain life across generations. Each practice reflects a way of understanding healing as relational, grounded in place, and sustained through shared knowledge.

Accompanied by striking photographs, this piece offers a window into the living heritage of Kamëntƥå women.

Read the full article: https://fwj.cwis.org/index.php/fwj/article/view/364

04/05/2026

These words reflect a Māori worldview in which healing, identity, and culture are inseparable. They name relationships—to land, ancestry, body, and spirit—that continue to shape Indigenous pathways to wellbeing.

Aotearoa — New Zealand
Māori — Indigenous peoples of New Zealand
Mana Wahine — the authority of Māori women
Wāhine — Māori women
Tīpuna kuia — ancestral women
Whakapapa — genealogy; lineage
Whenua — land
Wairua — spirit; spirituality
Mauri — life force
Moko kauae — traditional chin tattoo for Māori women
Te ao Māori — Māori world

Keeping these words alive matters because they carry a worldview where healing is embodied, ancestral, and collective. They remind us that wellbeing is rooted in cultural continuity, land, and intergenerational knowledge.

These concepts are explored in depth in "The Healing Power of Māori Women’s Ancestral Mark" by Shonelle Wana, Ph.D., published in the Fourth World Journal, where moko kauae is affirmed as a living practice of healing, sovereignty, and Mana Wahine.

Read the article: https://fwj.cwis.org/index.php/fwj/article/view/363

We want to thank ElevenLabs for supporting the development of the narration in our documentary, Break Point: The Untold ...
04/03/2026

We want to thank ElevenLabs for supporting the development of the narration in our documentary, Break Point: The Untold Story of the Constitution Express.

The film traces the Constitution Express—one of the most significant Indigenous rights movements in modern Canadian history—when thousands of First Nations citizens traveled across the country to defend their inherent rights.

As a small Indigenous-directed production, recording time and resources are limited. With ElevenLabs, we were able to create preliminary voice-over versions, listen to the script, and refine tone, pacing, and delivery before the final recording stage.

This process allowed us to approach the narration with greater clarity, use our time with the narrator more intentionally, and shape the storytelling in advance.

Ancestral Healing, Living Knowledge Healing is not only a clinical process; it is also an act of remembering. In "The He...
04/02/2026

Ancestral Healing, Living Knowledge

Healing is not only a clinical process; it is also an act of remembering. In "The Healing Power of Māori Women’s Ancestral Mark", Dr. Shonelle Wana explores moko kauae as a living healing practice rooted in Mana Wahine, the cultural authority of Māori women. The article centers Indigenous epistemologies and lived experience to show how healing unfolds through identity, genealogy, spirituality, and the reclamation of ancestral knowledge.

By examining the impacts of colonization on Māori women’s roles as leaders, healers, and knowledge holders, the paper highlights how practices such as moko kauae were disrupted, devalued, and reframed through a colonial lens. At the same time, it affirms the resilience of Māori women who have continued to carry and transmit these traditions across generations.

This article offers a powerful reflection on healing as both personal and collective, emphasizing the importance of cultural identity, embodied knowledge, and Indigenous frameworks in understanding mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. It is an essential read for practitioners, educators, and readers interested in Indigenous healing, decolonizing health, and culturally grounded approaches to trauma and restoration.

Read the full article in the Fourth World Journal: https://fwj.cwis.org/index.php/fwj/article/view/363

04/02/2026

In Nomadic Tribes and the Integration of Health, Wellness, and Traditional Ecological Knowledge in India, Amit Rawat, Ph.D., advances a deeper critique: the crisis is not only access to healthcare, but access to recognition.

Through a feminist and decolonial lens, the article reveals how women’s health knowledge—midwifery, herbal medicine, reproductive care, ritual healing—is systematically dismissed as folklore or superstition. This reflects a broader pattern of epistemic injustice, where mobile, oral, and relational knowledge systems are devalued in favor of codified, extractive, and patentable forms of medicine.

The paper challenges dominant integration models that isolate medicinal compounds while stripping them of cultural and ecological meaning. True integration, Rawat argues, requires co-existence rather than absorption, and public health models that respect mobility, ecology, gender, and cultural identity as determinants of health.

Health, in this framework, is not a service delivered—it is a relationship sustained.

📚 Full article: https://fwj.cwis.org/index.php/fwj/article/view/361

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PMB 214, 1001 Cooper Point Road SW #140
Olympia, WA
98502

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