Watchful eyes, thoughtful mind: meteorology

28 Apr 2009

Learn from the past

I'm sharing with my readers two interesting links that I came across through David Kinnicutt (@HD_EcoDave) on Twitter. Both links are to do with one of my favourite topics, ancient knowledge. These examples of traditional advanced knowledge of two different indegenous people from different continents point to an advanced society that had a different way of life than us. They were definitely muh closer to nature than us but not primitive as we like to think.

Indigenous Australians have long held their own seasonal calendars based on the local sequence of natural events. The Australian bureau of meteorology has these calenders on their website along with the knowledge of the aborigines about the various seasons etc.

Deep in the Suriname rainforest, an innovative conservation group is working with indigenous tribes to protect their forest home and culture using traditional ethnobotanical knowledge combined with cutting-edge technology. Key to the process is bridging the generational gap between indigenous elders and youths: the shamans provide the younger rangers with the historical and cultural information needed to add critical details to the maps.

I would strongly recommend my readers to click on both links and read on about this amazing treasure of knowledge that the past has provided these simplistic people.