Indigenous oral traditions reveal millennia-old volcanic risk knowledge, challenging modern hazard models
Original framing: “Ancient stories inform modern understanding of volcanic eruptions” — bing news
Indigenous communities are often the first responders to volcanic hazards but are excluded from global disaster governance frameworks like the Sendai Framework, which prioritizes state-led interventions. The erasure of their knowledge in policy is exemplified by the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption, where Icelandic authorities dismissed Sámi oral histories of ash cloud patterns despite their relevance to aviation safety. This exclusion perpetuates colonial power imbalances in environmental decision-making.
The study’s revelation that Indigenous oral traditions hold millennia-old volcanic risk knowledge underscores a systemic failure in disaster risk reduction: the privileging of institutionalized science over community-based epistemologies.
This bias is not merely academic but rooted in colonial power structures that have historically erased Indigenous expertise, as seen in the dismissal of Māori and Sámi knowledge during eruptions like Taupō (1314 CE) and Eyjafjallajökull (2010). Cross-culturally, Indigenous frameworks like Māori *kaitiakitanga* or Andean reciprocity with volcanoes offer holistic models for coexistence with natural hazards, contrasting with Western approaches that frame disasters as problems to be 'solved' rather than relationships to be stewarded. The path forward requires decolonizing science through co-designed governance, legal recognition of Indigenous knowledge, and ethical data practices—ensuring that the communities who have safeguarded this wisdom for generations are not only acknowledged but empowered to lead. The trickster’s laughter in this narrative is the absurdity of a system that scrambles to 'innovate' solutions to problems it once deemed 'myth,' while the real innovation lies in listening to those it has long silenced.