Mention the Bushmen of southern Africa and millions of people will think of the idyllic Kalahari Desert scenes portrayed in the immensely popular 1980 film “The Gods Must Be Crazy.” But how accurate, really, was the romantic portrayal of the peaceful Ju/’hoansi in that film and in its 1989 successor,… Continue reading…
The black and white photo on flickr of a Ju/’hoansi woman winnowing grain is only mildly interesting until you notice the dog-tag hanging around her neck—she is number 73. Her face is mostly obscured by her right arm holding up a handful of grain, which adds to the power of… Continue reading…
Mention the Bushmen of southern Africa and millions of people will think of the idyllic Kalahari Desert scenes portrayed in the immensely popular 1980 film “The Gods Must Be Crazy.” But how accurate, really, was the romantic portrayal of the peaceful Ju/’hoansi in that film and in its 1989 successor,… Continue reading…
The black and white photo on flickr of a Ju/’hoansi woman winnowing grain is only mildly interesting until you notice the dog-tag hanging around her neck—she is number 73. Her face is mostly obscured by her right arm holding up a handful of grain, which adds to the power of… Continue reading…
A new study of six indigenous societies in Venezuela concludes that playing games by children helps promote their growth and the successful transmission of their culture. The Inter Press Service, a news agency devoted to disseminating news from the developing countries, reported Tuesday that a team under the leadership of… Continue reading…
A number of nonwarring societies can be identified in the ethnographic literature, and some of them, according to Douglas Fry, have even formed peace systems—alliances that help them avoid warfare with one another. A professor at the Abo Akademi University in Finland, Fry analyzed the external nonviolence of peaceful societies… Continue reading…
Why do the supposedly peaceful, traditional Nubians practice female genital mutilation, a violent, seemingly barbaric, custom? The procedure, often known by the acronym FGM, is widely condemned by so many authorities that it is almost startling to read a scholarly article proposing that it is important to understand the cultural… Continue reading…
The Indian Army has restored a fort built near Leh in the 1830s by the Dogra conquerors of Ladakh, and it is now offering a light and sound show to commemorate the military victory. The major reason for the conquest 170 years ago was the pashm trade. The incredibly fine,… Continue reading…
Fall shooting season in America took a horrifying turn on Monday morning when a deranged man shot and killed a number of Amish girls in a one-room schoolhouse. The 32 year old man, Charles Carl Roberts, IV, left suicide notes for his family, took three guns into a one-room Amish… Continue reading…
Christie McDonald, who edited a book on the American artist Anne Eisner and her paintings of the Mbuti, has helped produce an exhibition of Eisner’s works that opened on Monday at Harvard’s Houghton Library. The book, and a still earlier journal article by Eisner, have both been reviewed in this… Continue reading…