Indigenous source citation

Rachel Chong

UNDRIP Article 31.1

“Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their… oral traditions, [and] literatures.  They also have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions.” (United Nations, 2007, pp. 22-23)

Print

  • Cite all published materials as you would for any regular academic writing.
  • When possible, acknowledge the author’s Nation in the body of your writing.

Oral

  • Most citation styles do not require citation for “personal communication” or information shared orally.
  • Most citation styles note that Indigenous Peoples come from an oral culture, which requires special consideration.
APA, MLA, and Chicago Manual of Style offer varying degrees of guidance regarding the handling of Indigenous oral teachings. Regardless of their recommendations, full citation of oral sources, which honour the requests of the Elder or Knowledge Keeper are encouraged.
This supports the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (United Nations, 2007) which was passed in British Columbia legislation in November of 2019 (Government of British Columbia, 2019).

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Indigenous Information Literacy - 2nd Edition Copyright © 2026 by Rachel Chong is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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