Ian S.

They call themselves yalu, an Aboriginal (Yolngu) word meaning "bird’s nest." But in this case yalu is a metaphor for the learning or nurturing place that six unemployed Yolngu women--Lawurrpa, Garngulkpuy, Bepuka, Yungirrnga, Djalingirr, and Wirriny Wirriny--have created at Galiwin’ku to help community youth grow and "teach them to fly." Representing the Warramiri, Birrkili, Wangurri, and Djambarrpiuyngu Mala (clans), they have united in the pursuit of one principal goal: to combat the steady decline in recognition by authorities of Yolngu health, education, and governance priorities, and

By Richard I. Trudgen

Aboriginal Resource and Development

Services Inc., 2000 (Paperback)

ISBN: 0 646 39587 4

At the recent World Conference Against Racism (where indigenous peoples had a particularly strong showing), Canada's National Chief Matthew Coon-Come reiterated his call for indigenous peoples to enjoy just and equitable treatment within the states they now live in as vulnerable and threatened nations. Said Coon-Come: "We have been deprived of our means of subsistence and our lands, and are being denied our right to benefit fully and equitably from our natural wealth and resources.... Our communities are overcrowded. They often lack adequate sanitation and clean drinking water.

By Shari M. Huhndorf

Cornell University Press, 2001 (Paperback)

ISBN: 0 8014 8695 5

Native Americans figure heavily in the European American cultural imagination and Going Native: Indians in the American Cultural Imagination is a detailed examination of the Euro-American predilection for scopophilia -- taking other people as objects and subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze. Author Shari Huhndorf's thesis is that popular culture -- movies, books, world expositions, etc.

For indigenous Dinka, the threat of annihilation at the hands of Sudan's Islamic north is ever present.

South Africa's Apartheid system facilitated the forced removal from their homes of more than three million people and the imprisonment of a similar number for pass law offenses.

"There are nine different words in Maya for the color blue in the comprehensive Porrua Spanish-Maya Dictionary but just three Spanish translations, leaving six butterflies that con be seen only by the Maya, proving beyond doubt that whe

Xavante shaman Waparia, the first Brazilian Amazonian Indian to stand before a UN podium, performs a ritual of healing so that Summit participants will comprehend the sacred and global role played by indigenous forest dwellers.

Alexander M. Ervin

Allyn and Bacon, Boston. 2000.

ISBN 0-321-05690-6 (paperback)

REVIEWED BY IAN S. McINTOSH

Violence erupted in Seattle at the World Trade Organization (WTO) summit in December 1999.

Jeremy Narby and Francis Huxley, Editors

Tarcher/Putnam, 2001

ISBN 1 58542 091 3 (Hardcover)

Anna L. Peterson

University of California Press, 2001

ISBN 0 520 22655 0 (Paperback)

In December 1997, the Supreme Court of Canada issued the landmark Delgamuukw Decision on Native land entitlements -- a progressive (some would say activist) decision that in many ways parallels the Australian High Court's Mabo Decision regarding Australian Aboriginal property rights. The ground-breaking ruling for the Git...an and Wet'suwet'en(1) of British Columbia was that aboriginal title was not extinguished by European conquest.

In the Fulani village of Bainjong in Cameroon, a calf afflicted by an infectious disease is treated with a preparation that begins with the harvesting of certain mistletoe leaves; ethnoveterinarian Ardo Umaruis completes this task early in the morning before speaking to anyone. He pounds the leaves into a dry powder and washes a verse from the Koran, written in Arabic ink on a Koranic board, into the powder. When sprinkled onto the calf for seven days, this mixture provides immunity for one year. Alternatively, the inner fibers of the bark of a particular legume are tied into seven knots.

The year 2000 heralds a new beginning for Cultural Survival's Education, Research and Advocacy Program.

Anachronistic and divisive colonial and post-colonial policies, senseless destructive nuclear testing and hazardous waste dumping, over-exploitation of natural resources, the threat of global warming and island inundation - these are so

I doubt if there is another book quite like this one. An international team specializing in anthropology, literature, and art history discuss the historical and cultural significance of the west's fascination with cannibalism - not so much ritual, survival, or mortuary practices, but the rabid and insatiable hunger for human flesh - in a categorization designed to dehumanize and subdue the exotic Other and justify colonialism.

There is a fascinating introduction by editor Peter Hulme in which he debunks the classic hoax of Caribbean cannibalism.

Reconciliation, like self-determination, is a buzz word in Indigenous circles.