Name: What We Can Learn From Indigenous People About Life and Family
Uploaded: 2025-08-08T00:15:05.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'What We Can Learn From Indigenous People About Life and Family' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-08-08. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'What We Can Learn From Indigenous People About Life and Family' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-08-08. Transcript available.

In your book, you also talk about the history of humanity, that what we call
civilization is less than 5% of our existence as a species, right?
That for the entire span of the human genus, that it represents less than 1% of
that time, like our civilization, right?
We're such a small piece of how long humans have been alive.
And we have learned that such groups a long time ago held values emphasizing
hospitality, sharing, generosity, and reciprocal exchange for the purpose not
of personal enrichment, but of connection.
These values were intelligent, time-tested guidelines for mutual survival.
Yes, there was violence and bad behavior and all the rest.
We have never been perfect.
But we knew something about setting the collective context for our humanness to
flourish fruitfully.
Yeah.
That it was a group effort.
It was a group thing, and people never saw themselves as separate from the
environment or from animals.
Right.
Or from other human beings.
Yeah.
And in British Columbia, excuse me, where I live, the indigenous people used to
have a ceremony called a potlatch.
And the potlatch is they would invite all these people, neighbors and other
tribes and so on, and they'd give things to each other.
So it wasn't about getting, it was about giving.
When the British colonialists arrived, you know what they did?
They outlawed the potlatch.
Damn.
Because they wanted to kill that spirit of communality that the indigenous
people thrived on.
So they knew how to do it.
So they forbade a lot of the practices that gave the indigenous people meaning,
including the giving.
And until very recently, decades ago, it was outlawed.
So people had to do stuff in secret.
You know, they outlawed the chanting.
They had to chant in secret.
You know, and because they knew the healing power of the chants.
And the chants really connected indigenous people to their traditions.
Now, the colonialists did this everywhere.
They did this in the United States.
They did it in Australia and New Zealand.
They did it in Canada, of course, parts of Africa.
And so that a real effort was made to divorce people from the essential
communal drives.
Yeah, that's what it feels like.
That's what it feels like inside.
Like, we're not supposed to be doing this.
You know?
One woman that you mentioned, Darcia Narvaez.
Yeah, Darcia Narvaez.
Darcia Narvaez.
Yeah.
Said that we have become species atypical, a sobering idea when you think about
it.
No other species has ever had the ability to be untrue to itself, to forsake
its own needs,
never mind to convince itself that such is the way things ought to be.
Or to destroy its own environment.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah, I still wonder if Mother Nature is mad about, like, if some of the
diseases we have
now are because of, like, what happened to the indigenous cultures, you know?
If some of that just, like, is, like, you know, because Mother Nature remembers,
you know?
And so it's, like, are we still just suffering the sins of, like, what's
happened a long time ago?
We are.
Yeah.
And the problem is we haven't learned from it yet.
Like, actually, I work a lot with indigenous people in Canada.
They often invite me to talk about addiction and stress and trauma and so on.
Oh, some of them, we did a show in Vancouver.
Some of them came out to the show.
Did they?
And they gave me some gifts.
Oh, fantastic.
Yeah, it's really, really beautiful.
Beautiful, isn't it?
Yeah, it was awesome, man.
Yeah, it was great.
It was really nice of them.
But, but, but, so, so I do a lot of that work, but I get so much from it
because there's
such deep wisdom, like, even with all their trauma and all the dysfunction, all
the addiction
and mental illness amongst them, which is strictly a result of colonial trauma,
but there's still
such gentle wisdom.
There's still such connection.
I remember doing a ceremony with them, some indigenous friends, two years ago,
art and
nature.
They talk to every plant.
Wow.
There's so connected, you know, such deep wisdom.
Yeah.
And I actually believe that when this society starts heading, getting its head
screwed on,
right, we'll be very humbly willing to learn from the indigenous people.
Yes.
You know, like, yes, civilization has brought many amazing things, not to
forget that, but what
if we could meld our technological know-how and scientific brilliance with
indigenous wisdom?
Yeah.
What a world we could actually create.
And maybe that is where we're headed, right?
I think that has to be the hope.
Well, I, that's, you know, that's, I believe that's certainly a possibility.
Yeah.
I think that has to be the hope that we take away.
Yeah.
Cause if I were ever a leader, I think we would get back to some of the things
that were important,
you know, you know, one of my favorite times when I was a kid, the power would
go out sometimes.
Yeah.
And so we'd all have to like, mom would put a couple of candles out.
And so we'd all have to be right there together.
Yeah.
And it was just like, I don't know.
All that mattered was just like, um, like you could joke and, but it was like,
I don't know.
Like we just all needed each other.
You need to know where everybody was, everybody here.
I don't know.
There was something special about that.
Well, you can see it even now, um, when there's disasters, people really come
together.
Right.
They tend to come together to support each other.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They'll go out of their way to, to give and to support.
Oh, for sure.
You see it with the flooding and stuff in the Southeast right now, many places
all over the world.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
I think there's so much to learn from our natives, from, uh, from the
indigenous people of the land,
you know, just as we learn from animals and all parts of nature.
Well, Darsha Narva, as the, the scientist, the psychologist that you mentioned,
she's written a book
called The Evolved Nest, and she's talking about our commonality with other
animals,
and how they rear their, their young, and what we could learn from them.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
That's, that's an amazing little book.
I, I, I wrote the foreword for it.
Um, Darsha's done some amazing work on, on the actual needs of human beings.
Really?
She's a pretty fascinating woman?
Oh, she's very interesting.
Very interesting.
If you ever want to talk to her, I'm happy to connect you.
That would be really cool.
Yeah.
You Canadians are dang interesting, man.
Well, Darsha is American.
Oh, she is?
Yeah, yeah, she is.
All right, we'll take it.
Oh, no, she's a retired professor at the University of Notre Dame.
Wow.
And she's still very active.
And this book is called The Evolved Nest.
It's just a slim little volume.
Yeah.
But you should learn about how penguins bring up their kids or wolves.
When a mother dies, then wolves who haven't even been pregnant start lactating
to feed the young ones.
Wow.
You know, and how, when the baby elephant is born, you know what happens?
All the other mother.
Elephants put their trunks on it.
Yeah.
All the other mothers, you know, they, they stand around and they touch the
baby.
They know the need for touch.
Yeah.
I mean, there's incredible wisdom in animals as well.
And Darsha and her writing partner, Gray Bradshaw, they really show us the
lessons
we could actually derive just from watching our animals bring up their young.
And our society we have is women, so, so many mothers have to work.
It's like we, we've just, yeah, we've, we're a little misconstrued.
Well, the United States, 25% of women have to go back to work within two weeks
of giving birth.
And what nature would prefer scientifically and physiologically is for the baby
with the mother
and the mother for at least nine months, but actually for years now.
Or if not the mother, but at least the mother for at least nine months, but
ideally
well beyond them, but with other nurturing adults.
Right.
So it's not just caregivers who give you food and.
Right.
It's the mother, the grandmother, the aunt, the neighbor, the sense of
community, your whole genes
being right there.
Like, yeah, there's, how did we get off on such a different tangent then if we,
if we were supposed to be in these, these tribes, these groups, these, it's
just evolution
and there's nothing we can do about it.
Well, that's, you know, that's civilization.
Right.
Civilization.
Which has obviously brought all kinds of benefits, but also look at all that we've
lost.
So again, it's for me, can we value our achievements and our knowledge
and try to remember what we've lost and try and reconnect
with those parts of ourselves that we've kind of got divorced from.
Yeah.