Indigenous Spirituality, Decolonization, and Restoration of Traditional Elders’ Ancestral Knowledge Today: Social Work and Aging

This chapter discusses colonization of Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island (North America) and the manner that Indigenous elders and other aging people are struggling to maintain language, culture, transgenerational ancestral teaching, and transmission of ancient knowledge to younger generations in the light of the intensifying violence of neocolonization and forced assimilation into the dominant Euro-American/Canadian settler-colonial culture. The chapter proposes social work strategies and measures that preserve Indigenous elders’ priceless ancestral knowledge and highlight how traditional healers of the older generation are facing pressures from all sectors of society and also from within Indigenous communities to surrender traditional languages, ways of healing, and understanding of knowledge and assimilate into the hegemonic Euro-capitalist culture. Unfortunately, such healers from the older generation are becoming fewer and are often passing on without being able to train young practitioners in traditional healing and wisdom ways. This chapter calls for the decolonization of all Indigenous communities globally and return of all Indigenous lands as now demanded by the Land Back Movement and other Indigenous self-determination movements on Turtle Island so that traditional Indigenous languages are taught by elders to the younger generations and the flow of culture and language into the next seven generations is continued.