"As cultures and languages disappear from the Earth at a shocking rate, it becomes all the more urgent for us to know and value the world s many ethnic identities. National Geographic's Book of Peoples of the World propels that important quest with concern, authority, and respect. Created by a team of experts, this hands-on resource offers thorough coverage of more than 200 ethnic groups - some as obscure as the Kallawaya of the Peruvian Andes, numbering...

This final segment of the Diary depicts the ceremony known as the "ox of ilbaa," from which Miisia emerges, acknowledged as a man.

Young men are ritually prohibited from eating grain. Several of them steal one of the Laibon's goats and then must make reparations.

Retracing Rockefeller's steps, journalist Carl Hoffman traveled to the jungles of New Guinea to solve a decades-old mystery and illuminate a culture transformed by years of colonial rule.

Filmed over a span of 8 years, this film is based on dialogue between Zulay Saravino, an indigenous Otavaleña of Equador, and Mabel Prelorán, an Argentine anthropologist living in Los Angeles. The Otavalo Indians are industrious landowners and farmers who have also transitioned somewhat to a textile-based economy, selling handwoven garments to tourists at markets in Quito. The film shows the beautiful mountainous landscape of Zulay's home and the...

At the age of 26, Maarten Troost, after racking up useless graduate degrees and muddling through a series of temp jobs, decided to move to Tarawa, a remote South Pacific island in the Republic of Kiribati. He was restless and lacked direction, and the idea of dropping everything and moving to the ends of the Earth was irresistibly romantic. This book tells the hilarious story of what happens when Troost discovers that Tarawa is not the island paradise...

This series of five films by Melissa Llelewyn-Davies looks at daily life among the Maasai. The films are presented as a diary of a 7-week visit to a single village. The structure is episodic and the content dependent on various events or stories, some of which are developed through more than one film. The tapes can be used independently or together, to give an in-depth sense of Maasai life. The senior man in the village is the most important Maasai...

'How the Word is Passed' is Clint Smith's revealing, contemporary portrait of America as a slave owning nation. Beginning in his own hometown of New Orleans, Smith leads the reader through an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks - those that are honest about the past and those that are not - that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nations collective history, and ourselves.

Made at the request of the people of Mornington Island, this film was the first of five made by Curtis Levy for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (now AIATSIS). Lurugu is the name of an initiation ceremony that had almost died out on Mornington Island (in the Gulf of Carpentaria in north Queensland) after mission contact during World War One. This film records the community's efforts to revive the ceremony after a lapse of 14 years. Before...

This series documents life in a Yucatan village, focusing on one family over the course of a year. The films explore the ancient agricultural and religious customs that ground contemporary Maya life in traditional values - even as modern Mexico comes to the village. In Maya, Spanish, and English, with English subtitles. Film Festivals, Screenings, Awards CINE Golden Eagle Award PBS national broadcasts Margaret Mead Film Festival honoree Choice Outstanding...