30.2 (Summer 2006) Indigeneity in Africa

Rangers by Birth

Mursi, Suri, Nyangatom, Dizi and Me'en have managed the biodiversity in Ethiopia's Omo area for centuries. Is it wise to push them aside in the name of conservation?

Justice as Healing: Indigenous Ways

This book of selections about indigenous, mostly North American, ways of justice is overdue. It can usefully serve as a reference and guide to how Native North Americans dealt with discord in their own precolonial societies and their varied responses to European-based law; it also provides guidelines for those seeking change in existing legal systems.

Indigenous Voices Largely Unheard at U.N. Biodiversity Conference

One of the most encouraging outcomes of the eighth biannual meeting of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, held in Curitiba, Brazil, from March 20–31, was the announcement that several Asian and Pacific Island nations will collaborate to create transnational park reserves.

The largest of these efforts will take the form of a wildlife sanctuary in Kiribati, a tiny atoll nation composed of 33 islands, located approximately halfway between Hawai’i and Australia. At 73,800 square miles, the marine protected area will be the first to include deep-sea habitat.

Indigeneity in Africa

The articles in this issue of Cultural Survival Quarterly relate to the most marginalized and aggrieved peoples in Africa. Some, such as the Batwa (Pygmy peoples) of Rwanda or the San of South Africa, are hunter-gatherers, or former hunter-gatherers who were driven from their lands and lifestyles by colonialism or development. Others, such as the Maasai of Kenya and the Tuareg of West Africa, are pastoralists whose ways of life require the ability to move freely among traditional places to pasture their animals.

A Brush with History

Just six months ago, the majority of the artists now exhibiting at the Woolloongabba Art Gallery in Brisbane, Australia, had never held a paintbrush in their hands. Now, they are among the most celebrated of Aboriginal artists, and their works on canvas attract bidding wars and price tags in the five-figure range.

A Brief History of the Indigenous Peoples of West Africa

Africa has been late in joining the rest of the world in the indigenous movement. It was the persecuted, oppressed, and sometimes-destroyed nations on the American continent that forced the the so-called modern world to recognize the rights of indigenous peoples. Their efforts compelled the United Nations to launch action to safeguard indigenous peoples’ rights in 1982 with the advent of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations.

U.N. Special Rapporteur Reports on South Africa, New Zealand

The governments of South Africa and New Zealand must do more, more quickly, to address the inequalities between their indigenous and nonindigenous populations, according to two recently released reports by U.N. Special Rapporteur Rodolfo Stavenhagen. Although Stavenhagen was “encouraged,” and in the case of South Africa, “tremendously impressed,” by each government's declared commitment to improving the situation of indigenous rights, his reports conclude that the governments of both nations still need to make substantial changes to their current policies.

Toward a Native Voice in Filming History

If Russell Means had been the producer of Disney’s Pocahontas rather than a voice-over actor, would the final product be different? If Wes Studi had been the director or editor of The New World, would the final product be different? If director Phillip Noyce had not faithfully adapted his movie Rabbit Proof Fence from aboriginal author Doris Pilkington-Garimara’s book Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence and consulted with the author at all stages of the project, would the final product be different?

The People Who Don't Exist

Banana leaf ashes float in the haze of charcoals still red from the pottery firing. With long sticks, one man and two women move scorching pots to the side to cool. I was with a group of 40 Batwa watching the pottery firing, close enough to feel the radiant heat on this humid, overcast day. The three potters smiled, happy to show off the work the community had accomplished together.

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