Rhetorical engagement in civil society is a survival strategy for Natives and is key to hold settlers accountable – this does not preclude Decolonization.

The issue of participation generates epistemological problems of reconciling indigenous forms of knowledge with Western European philosophy. It also generates practical problems: How are indigenous voices to be accommodated in the legal and political discourses of the state? I contend that the intellectual work required to bring (or force) indigenous voices into the dominant intellectual community is the responsibility of a group of indigenous intellectuals called 'word warriors.' Word warriors reconcile the forms of knowledge rooted in indigenous communities with the legal and political discourses of the state. They do this for two reasons. First, our survival as indigenous peoples demands that in order to assert and protect the rights we believe we possess, we must engage the discourses of the state more effectively. Second, indigenous knowledge offers legitimate ways of understanding the world - ways that have never been respected within the legal and political practices of the dominant culture. To make matters worse, these ways have not played a significant role (except in the early treaties) in determining the normative language of the political relationship. Word warriors do the intellectual work of protecting indigenous ways of knowing; at the same time, they empower these understandings within the legal and political practices of the state. Word warriors listen to their 'indigenous philosophers' while engaging the intellectual and political practices of the dominant culture. 9