Indigenous Beliefs Research Articles

Regulation Model of Religious Rights and Freedoms for Local Religious Believers in the Majapahit Constitution

This article unfolds that the Majapahit Kingdom of Indonesian history has accommodated religious rights and freedom for local religious believers/adherents in its constitution. The kingdom was known in history as tolerant, harmonious, and had reasonable regulations to avoid faith-based conflicts. This finding is significant amid the rising concern over respect and protection of local indigenous religious beliefs in contemporary Indonesia. This research used normative legal methods with statutory, historical, and case approaches. The results and discussions were: first, the weakness of the Indonesian constitution’s model of regulating religious rights and freedoms was that it closed access for local religious believers to adhere to and carry out their religious teachings; second, the model regulating the right to religious freedom for local religious believers needed to distinguish the status of religions in Majapahit. Local religions retain an equal position in the constitution. In addition, this constitution also guided religious believers in Majapahit as part of the regulations in the field of religious rights and freedoms. This research concluded that equalizing positions and concepts of spiritual development allows regulating religious rights and freedoms in its constitution to make Majapahit a tolerant, harmonious country that avoids faith-based conflicts.

Oleps’ Traditional Beliefs of the Clouded Leopard the Top Predator of Bhutan

The Oleps are the first human inhabitants of Bhutan and the country’s last remaining hunter-gatherers. We conducted a preliminary study into the meaning of the traditional Bhutanese saying tog-ge-teng-nang-gong; gong-ge-teng-nang-thee (Ole) and tag-ge-ta-lay-gung; gung ge-ta-lay-theb (Dzongkha). Tag in Dzongkha refers to Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris) and gung refers to clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa). The saying describes the existence of a species, which Oleps people believe is the clouded leopard, that is superior to the apex predator the tiger. The saying is further elaborated as gung-gi-ta-lay-theb (Dzongkha), which means that a skilled human hunter is superior to the clouded leopard. We used semi-structured interviews to ask 19 Oleps people to explain this traditional saying and narrate the beliefs embedded in it. Participants related the saying to their views of the clouded leopard, and we explored how these views might influence the current conservation status of clouded leopards living in the Oleps’ locality. Our interviews showed that Oleps revered and respected clouded leopards, but they also viewed them and other wild cats as harmful to livestock, and some expressed a desire to acquire clouded leopard pelts or to keep them as pets. Indigenous knowledge and beliefs are important to consider in the development of a conservation plan for clouded leopards. We recommend that Oleps’ sayings and stories be documented for posterity and that conservationists continue to engage in dialog with Oleps people to better understand the effects clouded leopards and other wild cats have on their livelihoods.

A qualitative exploration of indigenous breastfeeding beliefs and practices among lactating mothers in rural northern Ghana

A qualitative exploration of indigenous breastfeeding beliefs and practices among lactating mothers in rural northern Ghana

English

This study focused on how counsellors in Botswana handle belief systems, spiritual, and religious orientations of clients. It explored common beliefs clients up-held about what causes distress. It explored ways in which counsellors addressed clients’ indigenous cultural beliefs and perceptions about the origins of illness, misfortune, and other forms of distress. In-depth interviews were the main data collection tool while content analysis was used in data analysis. Thirty counsellors from different parts of Botswana participated in the study. The study revealed that clients uphold metaphysical views on causation namely, transcendental forces, malevolent forces, witchcraft and sorcery, and disconnection from one’s social and spiritual environment are causes of their misfortune and distress. It showed that most counsellors had limited knowledge and skills on how to handle indigenous cultural beliefs of clients. It highlighted deficiencies in counsellor training to prepare counsellors on how to respond to culturally-grounded behaviours and manifestations.   Key words: Metaphysical views, counsellors, Botswana, cultural beliefs, causation.

Indigenous Health Care Practice of Tribal People: A Case Study of Gadadi Village, Kalahandi, District of Odisha

Herbal medicine, spiritual beliefs, & procedure treatments and activities are utilized in indigenous healing beliefs and practices to make a diagnosis, cure, and protect each and every disease rather than ailments. According to the World Health Organization, it is mainly started practicing by indigenous or native communities, or near to 80% of the demography for certain Asian countries depend upon it for general practice. An ethnobotanical investigation of such tribal regions confirmed that indigenous tribes in Kalahandi district, Odisha, have been using 30 tree species. Herbal medicines have been identified to be more broadly used by modern medicine mostly in the study region. Paper plants for different diseases have become explored, as are their utilizes, horticultural identities, local names, parts of the plant used, and medicinal preparation. Keywords: Traditional Medicine, Traditional Healer Practice, Environment, Superstitions, Traditional Health Care System

Indigenous Cultural Practices and Environmental Conservation: A Case Study of Ogiek Community of Mau Forest of Kenya

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine how cultural practices are used by the Ogiek indigenous community to enhance environmental conservation.
 Methodology: The study drew on the descriptive survey design. The data collection tools comprised of closed questionnaires and semi-structured interview guides. The study constitutes a sample size of 417 (male & female) respondents 18 years of age and above. The study participants were selected through simple random sampling and purposive sampling techniques. Quantitative data was collected through the questionnaires and was coded and entered the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25 for analysis. Thematic analysis was employed in analysing qualitative data. Inferential statistics was used to run frequencies, pie charts, cross tabulations among others for analysis and interpretation.
 Findings: Findings revealed that cultural practices such as Totemism, taboos, and sacredness of water sources within the Ogiek indigenous community are essential to environmental conservation since they foster environmental conservation. Sacredness of water sources is among the technique used to enhance the conservation of water bodies. Cutting certain trees is considered taboos among the Ogiek Community. Such trees are always conserved and available in plenty. Their totems include certain animals such as Owl and dear and plants such as Mukeu that serve as honey bees’ attraction for the production of honey. The strategies adopted in enhancing cultural practices in conservation efforts among the Ogieks indigenous community are the use of decrees of deities which define the relationship between community members and the environment. Orders are also given by the council of elders on the restricted killings of certain animals, cutting of trees, and limited access to certain water sources to enhance conservation.
 Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: On integration of cultural practices among the Ogieks community into modern-day conservation techniques, both local and national government should support the council of elders and local administrative leaders with material and financial resources to streamline their abilities in the management of natural resources and the environment. Indigenous education methods including community dialogue, apprenticeship, and community elder are word of mouth and indigenous innovations need to be engaged. Challenges faced by the Ogiek community in maintaining cultural practices in conservation efforts include lack of policies and legislation to protect indigenous values, beliefs and practices relating to environmental conservation, inadequate support by both the National and County governments, interference of cultural practices by the Top-Down decision-making and framework formulation policy, negative attitude of some Ogiek community members who shy away the indigenous people from showcasing their conservation knowledge.

Elderly women and COVID-19 vaccination in the indigenous religio-culture of the Ndau of south-eastern Zimbabwe

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is steadily becoming a tameable, mild communicable disease globally. In the Western countries and some countries in Asia, such as China, for example, this milestone is owed to a high response to vaccination programmes. The same cannot be said of Africa, where the uptake of vaccines has not been encouraging. In Zimbabwe, for example, the government had intended to vaccinate at least 10 million of its estimated 16 million population in order to reach herd immunity. The figures are still very small, indicating vaccine hesitancy. In this article, it is contended that vaccination campaigns must be adapted to local religious culture and engage critically with the elderly women in particular. Indigenous religio-cultural beliefs and practices can either mobilise or immobilise individuals and communities in implementing the COVID-19 containment measures, depending on how they are approached. To this end, any response to the pandemic should never be exclusively unidirectional. This article employs cultural hermeneutics as its lens of analysis. It does not only seek to promote life-giving values associated with elderly women in African religio-cultures but also to interrogate negative practices driven by religio-culture that put their lives at risk in the era of COVID-19. Elderly women are at worst vulnerable to the disease, and at best they are the hub of communities’ health services. Packaging the vaccination campaigns in the religio-cultural and spiritual consciousness of a people has a potential to increase vaccine uptake in line with the spirit of Goal 3 of the United Nations Agenda 2030. This article is both theoretical and empirical. It uses the Ndau of south-eastern Zimbabwe to ascertain the meaning that they create about the elderly women’s interaction with the public health call for vaccination in the context of their religio-culture. The term ‘religio-culture’ has been used because throughout Africa, religion and culture are inseparably tied together. Data are generated through interviews with key informants.Contributions: Elderly women are vulnerable to COVID-19. Despite their vulnerability, Ndau elderly women find themselves compelled by their religio-culture to respond to the crisis in their communities. There is no literature that addresses the paradox and its attendant opportunities and challenges that characterise the circumstances of elderly women in the context of COVID-19 in the efforts to motivate vaccine uptake. The article shows that indigenous religio-cultural beliefs and practices can either mobilise or immobilise individuals and communities in taking the COVID-19 vaccines, depending on how they are approached.

Casting a Constitutional Light on the Cultural Defence in South African Criminal Law

Abstract South Africa’s criminal courts have often dealt with cases where accused who committed culturally motivated crimes tried to escape criminal liability through a so-called “cultural defence”, a defence that does not currently exist in South African criminal law. However, most of the case law dealing with this matter predates the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. Consequently, the Constitution’s cultural and religious freedom rights can be used to justify the formal recognition of a cultural defence in South Africa’s criminal law. Simultaneously, the Constitution contains limitation clauses that could counteract such a step. This article evaluates these contentious arguments and concludes that the conflict between the common law and African customary law in South Africa’s criminal law can be resolved by aligning the indigenous beliefs and customs in African customary law to the values underpinning the Constitution.

African Traditional Religion and moral philosophy

AbstractThe article provides a philosophical explication of an African religious moral philosophy. Often philosophers repudiate the view that African Traditional Religions (ATR) can embody a religious moral philosophy. Theologians, on the other hand, tend to believe that ATR can, but they often do not provide a systematic account of such an ethical system. The article demonstrates that ATR can embody an under-explored moral philosophy. ATR refers to indigenous religious ideas, beliefs, and practices of the indigenous people below the Sahara. The article will invoke the metaphysical and moral concept of vitality as the basis to construct an African religious moral philosophy. (It is worth noting that this article merely constructs, but it does not defend, this ethical system.) Vitality is the spiritual energy that originates, maximally inheres and defines God, and God has since distributed it to all that exists, albeit in varying degrees. By ‘moral philosophy’, the article focuses on (1) meta-ethics (it proffers a vitality-based account of the moral terms right and wrong); (2) normative theory (it expounds on the perfectionist and deontological principles of right action); and (3) applied ethics (it invokes a vitality-based conception of moral status to explore environmental ethics and select bioethical themes).

The intersections of postcolonialism, postsecularism, and literary studies: Potentials, limitations, bibliographies

ABSTRACT This article presents some features, potentials, limitations, and bibliographies of the intersection of postcolonialism, postsecularism, and literary studies. It examines literatures, cultures, religions, indigenous beliefs and practices, and political imaginaries from Africa, Europe, and South Asia. The religions discussed include Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism. The article shows how the institutional and discursive emergence of postcolonial postsecularism, including its intersection with literary studies, can draw lessons from similarly contestatory fields of study, such as postcolonial theory, postcolonial feminism, and intersectional feminism. The article includes bibliographies of literary works that address secularism and postsecularism, including their intersection with postcoloniality.

African Worldviews, Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Development

This paper explores the role of African worldviews in biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. African worldviews recognise the interdependence and interconnectedness of human beings, animals, plants and the natural world. Although it is not always the case that what one does depends on what one thinks and believes, indigenous African people's ideas and beliefs about the human–nature relationship have influenced what they have done in and to nature. In African worldviews, the present generation has moral obligations to the ancestors and future generations. It ought to preserve the environment, which is rich in biodiversity, for posterity. This paper insists that it is extremely urgent that every effort be made to document the knowledge of peasant farmers and indigenous people in general. This paper further stresses that indigenous environmental knowledge makes a big difference to sustaining diverse environments, and it is imperative to preserve such knowledge before it dies out.

WESTERN CULTURAL HEGEMONY AND ENGLISH RHYMES IN INDIAN SCHOOLS: IMPLICATIONS FOR CULTURAL IDENTITY AND SELF-ESTEEM

This research paper titled “Western Cultural Hegemony and English Rhymes in Indian Schools: Implications for Cultural Identity and Self-Esteem” explores the impact of Western cultural hegemony and the teaching of English rhymes on Indian schools, and its implications for the cultural identity and self-esteem of Indian students. It embarks on a historical exploration, tracing the origins of English rhymes in India during the British colonial era. Furthermore, the present research paper argues that the teaching of English rhymes in Indian schools is a manifestation of cultural imperialism, colonization, and hegemony, where Western cultural values and beliefs are imposed on Indian cultures. The theoretical framework of the paper is based on the concept of cultural hegemony, cultural imperialism, and cultural colonization, which are used to understand the impact of the teaching of English rhymes on Indian schools and its implications for the cultural identity and self-esteem of Indian students. The paper also traces the history of the introduction of English rhymes in India during the British colonial period and shows how it was part of a larger project of English language education that aimed to produce a class of Indians who could serve as intermediaries between the British colonial administration and the Indian population. The research study argues that the teaching of English rhymes in Indian schools reinforces the idea that Western culture is superior to Indian culture, erodes the self-esteem of Indian students, and leads to the erosion of indigenous cultural practices and beliefs.

Memory, orality and ‘God-talk’ in sub-Saharan Africa

The indigenous people of sub-Saharan Africa approach their Supreme Being and express their reverence in diverse ways, as depicted in the different local names that describe this supernatural being. The African cultural worldview foregrounds that virtuous rapport with the Supreme Being provides wisdom and facilitates good cohabitation among humans. It is argued in this article that teachings from the Christian Bible contribute negatively to the disintegration, fragmentation and death of indigenous knowledge systems, which include African cultural values, memory and oral traditions. Recently, some African scholars have begun to create awareness of some of Africa’s lost treasures. However, such contributions are disappointingly few. This study argues that memory and orality among Africans should be promoted and supported through various platforms, such as academic writing. This article will discuss memory, orality and ‘God-talk’ in terms of the following: teachings on moral values (e.g. relationships, marriage, humaneness [ubuntu or hunhu]) and the preservation of cultural heritage. The discussion uses qualitative analysis of secondary data and personal observation.Contribution: Firstly, the present study will provide for the readership in general, and academia in particular, a new perspective on African customs and indigenous belief systems about a Supreme Being. For example, Musiki as a Shona local dialect name for ‘God’ was already in use before the emergence of Christianity in Southern Africa. Secondly, previous contributions have not sufficiently explored memory and orality. This investigation serves as a resource or starting point for further research on memory and orality.

Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo

Reviewed by: Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo Michele Levy NoViolet Bulawayo Glory New York. Viking. 2022. 403 pages. BOOKER PRIZE–NOMINATED Glory traces the tragic descent into violent despotism of democratic, newly free Zimbabwe (alias Jidada). This powerful allegory embodies hybridity, braiding African and global elements to shape its timely content. Its comic anthropomorphism (e.g., four-footed creatures, “mal” and “femal,” “hinding,” strutting, orating, taking selfies, etc.) may distance us initially, but the line between species soon dissolves as we feel the pain of humans caught in a bloody historical cycle. A third-person omniscient narrator both recounts events and enters the minds of dictators, generals, police, elites (educators, spiritual leaders, businessmen), women, children, artists, and revolution-ists. These multiple perspectives guide us through Zimbabwe’s recent history, wherein rampant greed led to wide-scale corruption, ethnocide, misogyny, and weaponized Christian and indigenous beliefs that destroyed democracy and drove the masses to guilt, fear, and submission. Glory’s twenty-one sections, including “Defending the Revolution, 1983” and “Defending the Revolution, 2019,” each [End Page 68] with many subsections (among them “Defending the Revolution, 1994” and “Defending the Revolution, 2008”), signal the cyclical plot. But if past is embedded in present, future remains a dream, as the section “Past, Present, Future, Past” underscores. Amid the large cast of characters, an unexpected, aptly named protagonist, Destiny, comes to personify that canceled future. Her mother’s Ndebele family having been annihilated in the Gukurahundi (a horrific ethnic massacre), Destiny’s journey to their now-deserted homeland, Bulawayo (“place of massacre”), climaxes the novel. Various strategies satirize the cultural, political, and socioeconomic costs of colonialism and neocolonialism. So, for example, Jidadan English incorporates current American slang—for example, “She’d be first-rate . . . supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” “Ginormous” and “humongous” modify Jidadan phenomena (a python, a crocodile, their war). And the newly ousted Father of the Nation (aka Mugabe), who prides himself on speaking English “better than the English,” shocks his sycophants by yelling, “A fatherfucking coup wena nja mgodoyi msanthanyoko!” When possible, even the too-many poor Jidadans consume global capitalist culture—Coca-Cola, Princess Diana, Czech boots, Arsenal caps, and Samsung phones— enjoy “eat-all-you want Chinese buffets,” post selfies online, and eventually “seek refuge in virtual living.” Before and during the election of 2019, they tweet the hashtag #fairfreencredibleelection and upload to Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp photos of themselves sporting “I voted” stickers, while Siri becomes Tuvy’s (aka Mnangagwa’s) muse. But North Korea and China, too, make disastrous inroads here. The former nation trained Jidada’s bloodiest combat unit to conduct the Gukurahundi. Even while publicly scorning communism, Jidada’s leaders call the Chinese “comrades” and offer them rights to essential Jidadan assets. Riffs on Swift, Dickens, Conrad, and Orwell further link Africa and the West. The monster crocodile is “Brobdingnagian.” The section “Tholukuthi A Tale of Two Countries” explains why Jidadans live online: “it was the worst of times . . . the worstest of times.” Sensing Jidadans’ hate for the blood he let, the Father of the Nation dreams of “running into the very terrible heart of redness.” Contemporary Western and traditional African expressive modes likewise intertwine. Tweets from Zimbabwe and elsewhere comprise entire subsections, while whole pages reiterate “take-take-take,” “I can’t breathe,” or “and talks to the dead.” That leaders and elites call their nation “Jidada with a -da and another -da” seems innocuous at first but increasingly signs jingoism. Countering this, Tholukuthi (“as is true”), often placed first in a sentence, acquires the force of chant, while some later subsections begin, “When those who were there told it . . . what they meant was . . . ,” the “it” content repeated word for word after the second ellipsis. This imparts the reverential tone of oral epic. The ancestral voices, Destiny’s recitation of her written narrative, and the “we” evoke the griot tradition. All tell their stories so “they will be told right.” As Glory follows Jidada deeper into the darkness, horror eclipses satire. Mugabe is dead; Mnangagwa persists. Free Zimbabwe remains a dream. Pledged “to all Jidadas, everywhere,” this haunting novel recalls too many bloody national histories but cites Zimbabwean author Yvonne Vera to remind us: “The dead are not dead...

Decolonial Ch’owen Across Abiayala and Turtle Island: Calixta Gabriel Xiquín’s Poetic Invocations of Kaqchikel Spirituality, the Cardinal Points, and Trans-Indigenous Grandmothers

Kaqchikel intellectual and ajq’ij (spiritual guide, daykeeper) Calixta Gabriel Xiquín connects Kaqchikel Mayas with other Indigenous activist initiatives throughout the hemisphere through her explicit references to the cardinal points in La cosmovisión maya y las mujeres (2008). As Gabriel Xiquín engages other Indigenous women in Turtle Island and Abiayala, she incorporates Pan-Maya references from the Popol Wuj and invokes female Indigenous spiritual beliefs from other Native American communities, namely the Sioux legend of the White Buffalo Calf Woman. Grounding her work in Kaqchikel Maya spirituality, Gabriel Xiquín denounces the oppression of Indigenous peoples and their cultures throughout Abiayala and Turtle Island in this decolonial project. The Kaqchikel poet and ajq’ij joins other Native voices in cross-cultural exchanges across the hemisphere, as she looks to the cardinal points to reimagine trans-Indigenous possibilities for ch’owen (dialogue).

Queering the black Atlantic: transgender spaces in Akwaeke Emezi’s writing and visual art

ABSTRACT The last two decades have witnessed an emergence of African queer representations in literature and the arts that have been framed as interventions in cultural politics and as expressions of dissent. In this vein, I contend that it is necessary to consider queerness and diaspora together in order to rethink Gilroy's black Atlantic. Another important pursuit since the publication of The Black Atlantic (1993) has been reclaiming the place of Africa and its broad cultural production, which was largely overlooked in Gilroy's Westernized discussion of modernity. This article thus explores the growth of African queer studies in African literature and film, and goes on to focus on Nigerian-born transgender writer and visual artist, Akwaeke Emezi. Their experimental videos and photographs use Igbo traditions as part of their own expression of a gender non-binary African self in the diaspora. In their essay, ‘Transition' (2018a), Emezi challenges Western notions of gender through an African lens and reclaims their indigenous beliefs from a decolonial perspective. In defining what it means to be transgender, Emezi posits the notion that they might be an ogbanje, a spirit child found in some African pre-colonial cultures that does not conform to Western ideas of gender. Likewise, in the critically acclaimed debut novel Freshwater (2018b), the artist draws in part from their own life to tell the story of Ada, a young Igbo and Tamil woman haunted by the ogbanje, offering a poetic account of gender transition through the polyphonic voices of spirits that inhabit the protagonist. Emezi’s combination of personal experience and art makes visible multiple African, diasporic, and gender identities in the black Atlantic.

“I Wish They Were All Christians”: On Isabella Bird’s Grapplings with Indigenous Beliefs in Unbeaten Tracks in Japan

The religious aspect of Japanese life has a prominent place in Bird's Unbeaten Tracks in Japan. And her lengthy explications of the irreligious state of Japan contributed greatly in popularizing the image of the passive "Oriental" as they were quoted by those interested in disseminating knowledge on the religious plain of the “Far East.” Despite the importance of religion in Unbeaten Tracks, there are no focused studies of Bird's interpretation of Japan's indigenous religions such as Shinto and Buddhism. This study explores how Bird, even as she acknowledges Japanese modernity, demotes the Japanese to second-rate citizens in the hierarchy of peoples. The double role Japan plays as the modern subject and the “uncivilized Oriental” reveals the flexibility of the Victorian triad, and allows Bird to widen the gap between Japan and the “properly civilized” nations of the West. While there are vociferous locals who refute the premise of the triad, Bird sutures the holes they puncture in her Eurocentric narrative by using plural temporalities.

Religious Freedom of Indigenous Beliefs in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Following the recent changes in laws regarding national identity card for the adherents of indigenous beliefs in Indonesia, this study tries to examine 21 types of regulations to see how freedom of indigenous beliefs is in Indonesia from their adherents’ perspective. This is done through conducting semi-structured, in-depth interviews with three groups of indigenous beliefs in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The types of regulations examined are taken from The Religion and State Project Round 3 by Jonathan Fox of Bar-Ilan University that has been used widely to gather cross-country data on religious freedom. The result of the interviews shows that there are at least four restrictive regulation points, namely on places of worship, surveillance, antireligious campaign and religious education.

Kajian Yuridis Masyarakat Hukum Adat

The Indonesian Parliaments has included a law draft concerning about customary law community in the National Legislation Program Priority of 2020 – 2024, while the provisions on customary law communities have been regulated in several laws. The questions that is examined in this article are how are the regulations regarding customary law communities in the laws and regulations and what is the evaluation of these laws and regulations? This study uses a a statutory approach. The results show that the provisions regarding customary law community are sporadically regulated in Law no. 5 of 1960, Law no. 39 of 1999, Law no. 41 of 1999, Law no. 7 of 2004, Law no. 18 of 2004, Law no. 27 of 2007, and Law no. 2 of 2009. Several evaluation points are (1) the recognition of customary law communities whose conditionality causes the recognition of customary law communities only at the level of discourse; (2) the use of the term is inconsistent; (3) the implementing regulations of Article 18 B paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution have not been/not formed; (4) recognition of customary law communities should include recognition of indigenous peoples' original beliefs.

Integrative review of the needs and challenges of indigenous palliative care in rural and remote settings.

To appraise and synthesize the empirical literature on the needs and challenges of Indigenous peoples' accessibility to palliative care in rural and remote settings. Whittemore and Knafl's updated approach to integrative reviews, PRISMA guidelines and CASP (2020) checklists for narrative analysis were followed. A systematic search of the published empirical literature from 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2021 was undertaken in five databases. Twenty-four studies met the research question and the inclusion criteria. Four themes describe the findings: Respect of Indigenous cultural beliefs on death and dying, connection to the land, needs for culturally responsive care and presence of institutional and systemic barriers. These themes indicate a pressing need to increase the accessibility and utilization of palliative care. Most of the studies were qualitative and conducted by teams of Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers. Integrating Indigenous knowledge and providing culturally responsive palliative care are steps towards achieving the decolonization of palliative care and responding to Indigenous people's needs of palliative care services. Institutional and systemic racism affect Indigenous peoples' access and delivery of palliative services in Canada and globally. The review highlights the need for establishing partnerships and building local capacity with Indigenous communities to develop and implement culturally responsive palliative care programmes in remote locations.