WORDS Laurent Jean Pierre IMAGES Nadge Augustin and Laurent Jean Pierre “What is it that one has in one’s dwelling place, that until you dance with it, it does not work for you?” “The broom.” —Traditional St. Lucian Tim Tim riddle Latanyé brooms (brooms made from the indigenous palm Coccothrinax barbadensis, locally known as Latanyé)
WORDS AND IMAGES Thor Morales At the onset of this decade, members of three ethnic groups gathered in the state of Sonora, northwestern Mexico. Seri (Comcaac), Rarámuri, and Yaqui participants went to the Yaqui village of Vicam to get their first exposure to participatory video (PV), with training provided by the U.K.-based organization InsightShare. Three
D’ulus Mukhin (Even, Russian Federation), interviewed by Galya Morrell IMAGES Galya Morrell “As a child,” says D’ulus, “I was beaten at school on a daily basis. My classmates thought I was ugly. They did not like the shape of my eyes, and my ears were too big for them. I don’t hate my bullies; I
WORDS Kanna K. Siripurapu and Sabyasachi Das IMAGES Chandrasekhar Nemani and Kanna K. Siripurapu A few months ago, I received a document written by my colleague Uday Kalyanapu about the success of a backyard poultry project in the tribal-dominated areas of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The project was started by WASSAN (Watershed Support
WORDS Manju Maharjan and Yuvash Vaidya IMAGES Sheetal Vaidya and Shashank Shrestha We are Newahs, the Indigenous people of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal. We are worshippers in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions and belong to several different ethnic groups, but historically we all spoke a common language, Nepalbhasa. While the language is prevalent among
WORDS AND IMAGES Severn Cullis-Suzuki The Haida people know the cost of disease. They have lived on Haida Gwaii, an archipelago off the west coast of Canada, for the past 14,000 years. In their recent history, after the first encounter with Europeans in 1774, waves of smallpox, measles, and other contact diseases ravaged the Haida
Maya Daurio, Sienna R. Craig, Daniel Kaufman, Ross Perlin, and Mark Turin Maps have long been used for a variety of purposes, including to characterize land use and land cover patterns or to delineate the extent of territorial jurisdictions such as national or regional borders. In this way, cartography has long been a tool of
WORDS AND MAPS Jordan Engel “More indigenous territory has been claimed by maps than by guns. This assertion has its corollary: more indigenous territory can be defended and reclaimed by maps than by guns.” —Bernard Nietschmann, geographer Throughout time and across cultures, the thing that is often most important to a people is land. While
WORDS AND IMAGES Nejma Belarbi “All things in creation are sacred and have a diversity much beyond our understanding.” ―My grandmother, Fakhita Jazouli “Get on your hands and knees on the side of the dirt road and look down to find medicinal plants. A square foot will do.” I immediately felt that would be all
WORDS Ilarion (Larry) Merculieff and Libby Roderick IMAGES Paul Melovidov and Barbara Lestenkof Contrary to most people in modern societies who see words simply as vehicles for conveying information or expressing thoughts and feelings, people in traditional Indigenous societies view words as entities that carry great power; therefore, they must be chosen and used with