traditional ways
Lepcha Culture Vibrant, But Threatened
Hard News, an Indian monthly magazine, posted an interesting, in-depth story on its website last Friday about the culture and society of the Lepchas of Sikkim. It is printed in the August issue of the magazine. The author, Deepak Roy Delhi, a film-maker, provides an effective background for understanding the Lepchas and their culture. He […]
Birhor Knowledge of Natural Resources
The Calcutta Telegraph reported last Friday that a Birhor village in Jharkhand State has been closely involved with a natural inventory project known as the People’s Bio-diversity Register (PBR). The PBR documents the natural and human ecology of villages in India. It includes the lifestyles of the people, their socio-economic conditions, and the flora and […]
Traditional Nubian Culture Featured in New Film
An independent travel/ethnographic film about the culture and music of the displaced Nubians will be screened at a festival in Bahrain early next month. According to the February 6 – 12 issue of Gulf Weekly, the film, “Memories of Utopia,” will be shown at the Coral Beech Club on the Al Fateh Corniche in Bahrain. […]
Integrating Traditional Inuit Values into Contemporary Nunavut Government, Part 2, the Legislature [journal article review]
When the government of Canada created the Nunavut Territory in 1999, the Inuit people, the majority of the inhabitants, hoped their new government would be based on their values. Inuit leaders at the time not only wanted their territory to have an Inuit character, they also expected it would not “duplicate Yellowknife,” the capital of […]
Preserving the Culture of Igloolik [anthology chapter review, part 2 of 3]
Traditions were really unimportant to the Inuit people of Igloolik before they encountered outsiders, according to Nancy Wachowich. One elder explained to the author, “we didn’t talk about traditions in the past. There were no other cultures here with us and we didn’t think about preserving anything because we were living it. It was all […]
Kadars Adapt to Difficulties [review of two journal articles]
The Kadars of South India have significant economic problems due to their remote forest locations, according to two different articles published last year in the journal Studies of Tribes and Tribals. In an article published in July 2005, Seetha Kakkoth indicates that 320,967 people in the State of Kerala were listed as members of Scheduled […]
Lepcha Nature Worship [magazine article review]
Deepak Roy, producer of a well-received film earlier this year about the Lepchas, “Children of Kanchenjunga,” has written a feature article on the society last week (July 22) in the online publication HardNews Magazine, India. He opens the article by explaining that the word “Lepcha” is a misnomer, the mispronunciation of a term used for […]
Orang Asli Religions and Cultures Challenged
The New Straits Times recently reported that the Orang Asli (original peoples) of Malaysia are increasingly being converted to Islam, Christianity, and Bahai, a trend which threatens to destroy their culture. This story supplements a recent scholarly article on the same subject by Kirk Endicott and Robert Knox Dentan which was reviewed here last year. […]
Ifaluk Canoe Building Fosters International Friendship
Three canoe-builders from Ifaluk Island, in the State of Yap, Federated States of Micronesia, are teaching canoe-building skills and helping forge an international community in the process. The Honolulu Advertiser reported on August 21 that three people from Ifaluk (or Ifalik as it is called in the story) have joined five others from New Zealand […]
Cultural Assimilation and Change among the Batek
Among the Batek, “man and woman are equals … there is no men’s or women’s work,” declared Kirk Endicott, an anthropologist who sees many advantages for that Malaysian Orang Asli society in retaining its traditional culture. Endicott and Robert Welsch, both professors from the anthropology department at Dartmouth, discussed the issues confronting indigenous societies that […]
