ABSTRACT
Territorial boundaries—not understood by white colonists—contained the Indigenous persons’ resources for daily living as dictated by their totems. Within these territorial boundaries they had a nomadic existence based on necessity in response to seasonal changes and animal movement. The 1999 Declaration on the Health and Survival of Indigenous Peoples proposed a definition of Indigenous health: Indigenous peoples’ concept of health and survival is both a collective and an individual inter-generational continuum encompassing a holistic perspective incorporating four distinct shared dimensions of life. This Declaration says that improvement to Indigenous health requires a ‘broad approach covering a wide spectrum of intervention’. Service providers to Indigenous people need to consider approaches that are different from those of the usual service provider; they need, in a reversal of the missionising approach, to actively engage with processes which lead to personal and community empowerment.
