Land, Kinship, and Non-Human Personhood in Indigenous Thought

A recurring feature of Indigenous American philosophies is the extension of kinship and, in a meaningful sense, personhood beyond the human species to encompass land, water, plants, and animals, framed not as poetic metaphor but as a literal ontological and ethical claim about the kind of beings these entities are. The Lakota phrase Mitákuye Oyás'iŋ, commonly translated "all my relations" or "we are all related," names this extended kinship directly, and is recited in Lakota ceremony to affirm that human beings stand in a relationship of mutual obligation with the buffalo, the rivers, the winds, and the earth itself, rather than in a relationship of ownership or mere instrumental use over an inert, resource-like nature.