This thesis examines the relationship between the commodification of indigenous knowledge on one hand and the inalienability of forms of indigenous knowledge that I term energetic gifts on the other hand in order to further scholarly discussion about intellectual property rights and indigenous people. I explore this relationship through the medium of Ecuadorian Amazonian indigenous medical knowledges and intellectual property rights. The arena of intellectual property rights gives rise to various positions, the extremes of which are: indigenous people need to participate in the commodification of knowledge in order to benefit from and protect their medicinal knowledge, or, conversely, commodification is an imposition of alien values and a continuance of colonialism. I argue that current intellectual property rights are unsuitable for indigenous medical knowledge.