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Mapping the Sacred

Dinah Norman Marrngawi is a senior Yanyuwa woman who lives at Borroloola in the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria in the Northern Territory of Australia. She spoke to me as we sat quietly on her verandah looking through draft maps associated with the development of an indigenous atlas of the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria.

Defense of the Sacred "Ancient Code"

The Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association (AAPA) rose to prominence fighting for the rights of Aboriginal people in the early 1920s. They are today recognized as the first united, organized pan-Aboriginal political group. The AAPA realized early on that the survival of Aboriginal people and culture was savagely threatened by insidious government policy.

Siberians Visit The Six Nations Indian Museum

On Friday, October 8, 1999, the Six Nations Museum in upstate New York had the unique pleasure of being visited by fourteen Mongolian people from the Republic of Buryatia in Russian Siberia.

Buryatia is located in central Asia and is about the size of Germany. On the north west edge of the republic is Lake Baikal, the largest lake in the world, holding about one-fifth of the world's fresh water supply.

Why Subsistence is a Matter of Cultural Survival: A Yup'ik Point of View

Once there was a little blackfish swimming up a stream. Every so often he would swim up to the surface and look around. The first time he had surfaced he saw a camp where people were living. The people there were very careless. Their camp was unkempt and their belongings were strewn around. He noticed that when the people ate, they ate very carelessly. Bits of whatever they were eating would drop from their hands or out of their mouths onto the ground as they talked.

"Women Work Harder Than Men"

In the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, women must cope with two types of male domination: an indigenous form based on men's traditional role as warrior and defender of the village and an externally imposed one that makes paid employment a male privilege. Yet despite this double burden, Highlands women are strong and assertive - and aware of their shared interests as women. They actively and aggressively exploit the opportunities that are available to them.

Traditional Eastern Highland societies relegated women to a distinctly second-class status.

Negotiating Sea Rights

If I were to visit another country. I would ask my local companion, before I saw any museum or library, and factory or fabled town, to walk me in the country of his or her youth, to tell me the names of things and how, traditionally, they have been fitted together in a community. I would ask for the stories, the voice of memory over the land. I would ask to taste the wild nuts and fruits, to see their fishing lures, their bouquets and fences. I would ask about the history of storms there, the age of the trees, the winter color of the hills...

Introduction - 15.2

This installment of Cultural Survival; Quarterly is special in number of ways. It is the first issue specifically dedicated to one of the sub groupings of the Pacific islands, to Melanesia in particular. The contributors were asked to explore variations on a theme that looms large in the region's future: development and control of ancestral homelands and seas. This framework is also directly relevant to the quests for territorial rights of Aborigines (non-Melanesians)) and Torres Strait Islanders (a Melanesian people who are Australia's other indigenous minority).

The Diplomatic Dance: Cambodia on the International Stage

Cambodia has not known peace since well before the United States' withdrawal from Saigon on 30 April 1975. With each palace coup, and even with the arrival of the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975, many Cambodians believed that finally the wars were at an end. They welcomed Pol Pot's soldiers with hope for the future.

But the war did not end with Pol Pot's arrival, nor with Vietnam's liberation of Phnom Penh in January 1979 from the horrors of his regime. Nor has it ended with Vietnam's withdrawal in September 1989.

Adolescent Sexual Training and Behavior

Every society has cultural rules and customary strategies whose intent is to ensure reproductive continuity from generation to generation.

Logging Disrupts Solomon Islanders' Customary Way of Life

In northern New Georgia Island of the Solomon Islands, the Levers Pacific Timbers Company is presently cutting about half of the 50,000m(3) of rain forest logs that are exported annually from the Solomons. On Kolombangara Island, all accessible lowland rain forest has already been cleared by Levers, a subsidiary of Unilevers, the world's sixth largest company. In the clearing process, about 60 percent of the island's archeological and historic sites were destroyed.

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