“We Do Go to Visit the Moon and Moon People All the Time” (Inuit peoples in Alaska)

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“An anthropologist working with Inuit peoples in Alaska told them of the first moon shot, and of astronauts walking on the moon. The Inuits began laughing, and when the anthropologist inquired why, they replied: “We didn’t know this was the first time you white people had been to the moon. Our shamans have been going for years. They go all the time.” The woman who told this story added, “We do go to visit the moon and moon people all the time. The issue is not whether we go to visit our relatives, but how we treat them and their homeland when we go.””

“Pity the Indians of Outer Space”: Native American Views of the Space Program (M. Jane Young, 1987)