30.3 (Fall 2006) Two Countries, One People

As the largest tribe in the United States that has land stretching across a border, the Tohono O’odham have struggled to maintain their traditional way of life as security along the U.S.-Mexico border has increased dramatically since the September 11 terrorist attacks. In response to the closing of several major ports of entry, illegal immigrants and drug traffickers have turned to Tohono O’odham lands for passage into the United States.

Altaquer, Colombia

In 1842 the Mohawk community of Akwesasne was bisected by the U.S.-Canadian border, severing their communal lands into two equal Canadian and American sectors. Today Akwesasne is a kaleidoscope of cultural and political elements in layered complexity. Traditional practices and law of the Mohawk nation coexist with the philosophies, policies, and regulations of one state, two provinces, two federal governments, and their respective officials. The result is a shifting design of interactions and tensions. Since the hardening of the U.S.

The Tohono O’odham Nation encompasses nearly 4,600 square miles, the second largest Indian reservation in the United States, roughly the size of the state of Connecticut.

In July, Cultural Survival asked the National Geographic Society (NGS) to suspend its global DNA sampling program, the Genographics Project, until the society addressed indigenous peoples’ fears about harm the project might cause.

This summer, I had the extraordinary fortune to travel to the Autonomous Republic of Buryatia in Siberia to attend the Altargana Festival.

After more than 30 years of struggle, the Abenaki of Vermont have finally won recognition by the state, as Bill S.117 was signed into law on May 3rd. Proposals to recognize the tribe had been introduced in the Vermont legislature year after year in various resolutions and in bills that always stalled in committee. “Resolutions aren’t enough,” said Vermont State Senator Diane Snelling, who sponsored the bill.

A leading United Nations human rights body has issued a report blasting the United States for its systematic abrogation of its treaties with Native Americans, stealing of reservation land, and the loss of billions of dollars of Native A

Roberto Cachimuel is one of the founding members of Yarina, a family of musicians from Otavalo, Ecuador, that has received wide acclaim in their home country and abroad.

Chief Nancy Lyons has a vision: a “reverse boarding school” that will restore to her Koasek Abenaki Nation their language, ceremonies, history, foods and agricultural methods, and traditional basketry and other crafts. She calls it the Koasek Cultural Academy. In the four months since the Koasek named her chief, along with co-chief Brian Chenevert, she has earned enthusiastic support from her people as well as from outside communities.

Maintaining cultural identity is hard enough for indigenous peoples in countries that are politically stable, but the problems are vastly more difficult when war and persecution push indigenous people into refugee camps across a bor

In the mountainous region around the border between Siberia and Mongolia, time, politics, and boundaries have mixed to give indigenous peoples a new lease on life and new threats to their traditions.