Image of Nâmkek Portrait by Chris Pappan, 2022
October 8 marks Indigenous Peoples’ Day in Salem, and the City will recognize the occasion with its annual flag-raising ceremony at City Hall. It is an opportunity to recognize the deep Indigenous history of the place we now call Salem and the Massachusett Tribe, who continue to honor and hold this land today.
But before it was called Salem, it was referred to as Nâmkek, a name associated with the Indigenous people who lived and traveled throughout this region. Nâmkek is commonly translated as “fishing weir,” reflecting the area’s longstanding relationship with its waterways and coast. Generations of Indigenous people farmed, fished, traded, raised families, and developed relationships with this land long before European settlement.
That history is important to remember on Indigenous Peoples’ Day. But it also raises a larger question:
What can Indigenous knowledge teach us about how we understand and respond to the environmental challenges facing our communities today?
Indigenous knowledge and influence should not be limited to a single day on the calendar.
Western climate science has given us an enormous amount of information about how our climate is changing. Scientific research helps us understand rising temperatures, changing weather patterns, sea-level rise, and other environmental changes. While that knowledge is essential,by helping us understand what is happening, it does not always tell us how a community should respond, whose experiences should guide that response, or what our relationship with the environment should look like.
In Traditional Knowledge in a Time of Crisis, Robin D. K. Herman argues that climate change is not simply a scientific or technological problem. It is also a cultural problem. The ways societies respond to environmental change are shaped by their values, histories, relationships, and understandings of the world. Indigenous or “Traditional knowledge” can offer another way of understanding our environment, one developed through generations of observation, experience, and relationships with particular places.
The goal isn’t to replace Western climate science but to recognize that Western climate science is one knowledge system among others and create space for different knowledge systems to inform climate action.
Massachusetts’ Tribe at Ponkapoag Seal
So what can we learn from Indigenous knowledge?
Indigenous knowledge is not simply a collection of facts from the past. It can include observations, practices, stories, relationships, and responsibilities developed over generations of living within particular environments; it is heavily place-based, embodied, and relational. It views humans as a part of the environment utilizing systems based thinking. Reiterating that people are part of a larger network of relationships with plants, animals, water, and land.
This creates a different way of thinking about climate change:
- Instead of asking only → “How can we manage environmental change?”
- Indigenous/Traditional knowledge asks → “What responsibilities do we have to the places and other living beings we depend on?”
The difference may seem small, but it changes how we understand environmental problems and the solutions we imagine by forcing us to be directly involved.Recognizing that our actions hold power.
Whose knowledge counts?
One of the most important lessons from Indigenous climate knowledge is that climate justice is also about recognition.
Climate justice is not only about who experiences the greatest environmental impacts. It is also about who gets to participate in decisions and whose knowledge is recognized as legitimate. Historically, Indigenous knowledge has often been dismissed as folklore or anecdotal because it does not always fit the rigid standards of Western scientific institutions. This exclusion has greatly limited our ability to respond effectively to climate change. That does not mean that Indigenous knowledge should replace scientific knowledge. Instead, we should move towards decolonizing climate action through asking what becomes possible when different knowledge systems are allowed to learn from one another. Scientific knowledge and Indigenous knowledge can provide different perspectives on the same environment. Bringing those perspectives together can give communities a more complete understanding of the challenges they face.
However, to truly decolonizing climate action we must do more than just incorporate Indigenous perspectives into existing Western frameworks. It requires Indigenous people to lead these conversations and have their voices, priorities, and knowledge systems at the center of decision-making. There is a risk of extracting knowledge from Indigenous communities, treating it as a form of universal “Native wisdom,” and applying it without acknowledging the people, histories, and relationships from which it comes. Instead, meaningful collaboration requires building long-term relationships with Indigenous communities, respecting their sovereignty, and supporting existing Indigenous governance structures in shaping decisions that affect their lands and futures. Indigenous knowledge should not simply be something that non-Indigenous institutions learn from; Indigenous peoples must have the authority to determine how their knowledge is shared and how it informs climate action.
The history of Nâmkek makes this especially meaningful in Salem, it reminds us that knowledge is connected to a place. The City of Salem’s own land acknowledgment describes Nâmkek as a place where generations of Indigenous people lived and passed through, farming, fishing, trading, raising families, and honoring the land. That history reminds us that knowledge about an environment doesn’t come only from textbooks, laboratories, or scientific instruments. It can also come from long-term relationships with a place. When we think about climate change in Salem today, we are thinking about a coastal community, facing inequitable high heat, inequitable high heat, coastal flooding, and port energy transition . Our relationship with the environment continues to shape the community. Recognizing the history of Naumkeak therefore isn’t only about looking backward. It can also encourage us to think differently about how we understand and care for the environment going forward
Stock image of hand holding plant and soil.
Indigenous Peoples’ Day is an opportunity to keep listening
The flag raised in Salem on October 8 is a meaningful recognition of Indigenous presence and history. But recognition should not end when the flag comes down. Indigenous Peoples’ Day can also be an invitation to continue asking what Indigenous knowledge can teach us not only about history, but about our relationships with land, water, community, and the environment.
A beautiful example of this is when Emily Flaherty and all the 4th graders across the Salem school district collaborated with members of the Massachusetts Tribe to revitalize an ancient tradition through rebuilding connections between people and the natural environment. Students visited Cat Cove Marine Lab in Salem to participate in building a fish weir with members of the local Massachusetts Tribe. While at the site, students learned about this Native American practice, had the opportunity to taste smoked fish, and learn about Indigenous culture that still exists today. Students also were also able to actively engage in erosion activities hosted by Salem Sound Coastwatch.
As climate change continues to affect communities around the world, we need scientific research, technology, policy, and innovation. But we also need knowledge rooted in lived experience, place, culture, and generations of observation. There is no single form of knowledge that has all the answers. However, creative solutions deeply informed by different knowledge systems can help us get one step closer in tackling these ever changing problems and build more resilient communities.