An indigenous culture with sufficient territory, and bilingual and intercultural education, is in a better position to maintain and cultivate its mythology and shamanism. Conversely, the confiscation of their lands and imposition of foreign education, which turns their young people into amnesiacs, threatens the survival not only of these people, but of an entire way of knowing. It is as if one were burning down the oldest universities in the world and their libraries, one after another — thereby sacrificing the knowledge of the world’s future generations.

~ Jeremy Narby, “The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge

Jacob Hamblin Arch, Coyote Gulch, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah – photo by Andrushko Galyna, bigstockphoto.com