There are three common sources within Indigenous knowledge inquiry. Mohawk scholar Marlene Brant Castellano suggests that Indigenous knowledge has a multiplicity of sources, including traditional, spiritual, and empirical (Dei, Hall and Rosenthal, 2000). The plurality of Indigenous knowledge engages a holistic paradigm that acknowledges the emotional, spiritual, physical, and mental well-being of a people. An Indigenous knowledge framework is developed to address critical issues of colonialism appropriating Indigenous authority, of misrepresentation, and of using western cultural constructs of “valid empirical research” to marginalize Indigenous ways of knowing (Dei, Hall and Rosenburg, 2000; Battiste and Henderson, 2000; Smith, 1999). .
