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The Idea of Indigenous People Author(s): André Béteille Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 39, No. 2 (April 1998), pp. 187-192 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/204717 . Accessed: 19/08/2014 20:30 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . The University of Chicago Press and Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Current Anthropology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 81.152.54.124 on Tue, 19 Aug 2014 20:30:58 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Page 1: The Idea of Indigenous People

The Idea of Indigenous PeopleAuthor(s): André BéteilleSource: Current Anthropology, Vol. 39, No. 2 (April 1998), pp. 187-192Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation forAnthropological ResearchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/204717 .

Accessed: 19/08/2014 20:30

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The University of Chicago Press and Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research are collaboratingwith JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Current Anthropology.

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This content downloaded from 81.152.54.124 on Tue, 19 Aug 2014 20:30:58 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: The Idea of Indigenous People

Current Anthropology Volume 39, Number 2, April 1998 1998 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved 0011-3204/98/3902-0001$1.00

fieldwork, Morgan gave a definition for the AmericanIndians and then applied it to ancient Greece and an-cient Rome. Evans-Pritchard in his classic study in EastCOMMENTARYAfrica offered a structural definition, but it was meantto apply to the Nuer and, at best, to similar, neighbour-ing groups.

The demands of a growing discipline called for someThe Idea ofconcerted effort to define the tribe as a social formationand to distinguish it from other social formations. Find-ing a definition of ‘‘tribe’’ that will fit all the existingIndigenous Peoplecommunities that have been described as tribes hasproved to be difficult. It was in a sense easier before theethnographic jungle began to be penetrated, when an-by Andre Beteille1thropologists had only a vague picture of the terrain.The 19th-century view was that the tribe representednot only a particular type of society but also a particularstage of evolution. The presumption with which mostanthropologists then worked was that the tribe was anAnthropology has from the beginning had a special in-isolated, self-contained, and primitive social formation.terest in the customs, practices, and institutions of sim-But even here, differences did not go unnoticed, forple, primitive, or preliterate societies and cultures. EvenMorgan spoke of ‘‘savage’’ as well as ‘‘barbarous’’ tribes,when anthropologists began, some 50 years ago, totribes representing two distinct stages of evolution.study the more complex systems described as civiliza-

The evolutionary conception of the tribe worked bet-tions, they maintained their special interest in the peo-ter in some ethnographic regions than in others. Itple with whose study their discipline began. They areworked best where the tribe was in fact isolated, self-still the acknowledged authorities, in matters of bothcontained, and socially homogeneous to a large extent,theory and policy, on this particular segment of hu-but this was not the case everywhere. The problem as-manity.sumed a chronic form in South Asia, where tribes hadSignalling the extension of horizons in his discipline,coexisted in close and sometimes intimate associationRobert Redfield (1956:2–3), with characteristic econ-with other types of social formation for centuries. Wereomy of expression, drew attention to the recurrent real-they then in fact tribes? Were there objective criteria byity with which his discipline had till then dealt: ‘‘It iswhich they could be clearly differentiated from thethe primitive band or tribe, the small and self-containedother social formations with which they had coexistedhuman settlement.’’ After intensive fieldwork becameand interacted not simply as a result of some recentan established practice and until the 1950s, perhaps the‘‘culture contact’’ but since time immemorial?majority of anthropologists took it for granted that what

The problem becomes apparent as soon as we lookthey were studying was tribes. As Redfield pointed out,into the extensive and on the whole excellent ethnogra-they had an image of a particular kind of social forma-phy of India produced in the late 19th and early 20thtion, and they sought out in North America, in Austra-centuries. Even the best ethnographers habitually con-lia, in Polynesia and Melanesia, and in sub-Saharan Af-fused tribe with caste, which, on any reasonable as-rica communities that corresponded more or less withsumption, is a different kind of social category. Thethat image.same group was described now as a caste and again as aStudents of anthropology became familiar with innu-tribe not only by different ethnographers but sometimesmerable communities in different parts of the worldeven by the same one. It is unlikely that this kind ofthrough monographs and articles published on them:problem would have arisen for the Australian Aborigi-Crow, Omaha, Navaho, Arunta, Walbiri, Onge, Trobri-nes or the North American Indians or the native popula-anders, Nuer, Tallensi, Zulu, Lozi, Toda, Santal, Oraon,tion of Melanesia. Was this, in the Indian case, a failureand so on. These varied enormously in size, mode ofof ethnographic skill, or was there something inherentlivelihood, and complexity of social and political orga-in the reality that made the confusion inevitable?nization. They all came to be commonly referred to as

It may be noted that in the anthropological literature,tribes, although some writers distinguished betweengeneral definitions of the tribe have emerged from thebands and tribes and, among the latter, between seg-North American, the African, and the Melanesian expe-mentary tribes and tribal chiefdoms.rience but not the South Asian one, although the SouthSome of the best ethnographic accounts do not trou-Asian ethnography of what are designated as tribes isble about a general definition of the tribe. Often theyamong the richest in the world. Finding an acceptableprovide working definitions that apply to the particularconception of tribe is not merely an academic require-case under examination. Before the days of intensivement but in some countries also a constitutional andlegal one, now increasingly responsive to political de-mands. Since India has one of the oldest and most ex-1. Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi

110007, India. tensive programmes of positive discrimination or af-

187

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Page 3: The Idea of Indigenous People

188 current anthropology Volume 39, Number 2, April 1998

firmative action, the problem of identifying groups that as ‘‘indigenous’’ derives from a particular history of set-tlement and usurpation. Settlement and usurpationhave to be designated as tribes has been of practical im-

portance for at least 60 years. It may be said that anthro- have taken place throughout human history, but theyhave not left the same marks on the population as apologists in India, both before and after independence,

have been concerned more with the practical problem whole everywhere. In some regions, settlement andusurpation have brought the identities of older popula-of designation than with the theoretical one of defini-

tion. tions into sharper relief by forcing them to remainapart, sometimes at the risk of extinction. In other re-Apart from the question of reaching agreement about

the criteria for defining a particular type of community, gions, there has been a slow and steady process of inter-penetration leading to the virtual obliteration of thethere is also that of finding an appropriate label for it.

Often the label itself becomes an issue in the politics of boundaries between ancient and less ancient settlersand usurpers. If we go by the new anthropological con-identity. The label ‘‘primitive,’’ widely used in the past,

fell out of favour after World War II, and the communi- vention, western Europe will be the only region in theworld without any significant presence of indigenousties freely designated as ‘‘primitive’’ in the past are now

more likely to be designated as ‘‘disadvantaged.’’ But people.A very well documented example of a tribal popula-disadvantages are of many different kinds, deriving

from quite diverse sources, and the labels selected tion that is clearly also the indigenous populationcomes from Australia. The native population of Aus-should not conceal these complexities and their histori-

cal origins. tralia before white settlement was small, dispersed,isolated, and homogeneous to an unusual degree. TheIn the Indian literature, the term ‘‘hill and forest

tribes’’ came to be widely used after the first ethno- communities in which they lived have been describedvariously as tribes, bands, and hordes. They had beengraphic surveys had got under way. The term ‘‘aborigi-

nal tribes’’ was also used, but, as we shall see, the pre- in continuous occupation of the land, with very limitedcontacts with the outside world, when white settle-sumption behind its use did not go unquestioned. The

term chosen by the government of India even before the ment began a little over 200 years ago.White settlement completely transformed the demo-country’s independence was ‘‘Scheduled Tribes,’’ and

this term now has the sanction of the Constitution and graphic composition of Australia within a few genera-tions. Between 1788 and 1966, the indigenous popula-the law. As will be obvious, it skirts the issue of a for-

mal definition and merely stands for a set of communi- tion declined from an estimated 250,000 to below80,000 while the settler population, of predominantlyties listed in an official schedule. The communities

listed number more than 400, and they vary enor- British origin, rose to around 11,500,000. This kind ofdramatic demographic transformation in such a vastmously in population size, geographical spread, mode of

livelihood, and social organization. area over such a short span of time has no historicalprecedent in Europe, Asia, and Africa. By the middle ofthe present century, there were serious concerns thatVague, ambiguous, and ill-defined as it was, the term

‘‘tribe’’ served a useful descriptive and analytical pur- the older population might be eliminated from main-land Australia as it had been eliminated with some usepose in the anthropological literature for 100 years and

more. It now appears to be facing increasing competi- of force from Tasmania. It had been marginalized tosuch an extent that its members were not even enumer-tion from a new phrase that points less to a type of so-

ciety or a stage of evolution than to the priority of set- ated in the census.From the very beginning of their encounter, indige-tlement: where one spoke in the past of the ‘‘tribal

population’’ of a country, one now speaks more and nous and settler populations were marked by the sharp-est contrasts in race, language, and culture. The formermore of its ‘‘indigenous people.’’

There are of course regions of the globe where the were widely and quite unself-consciously referred to bythe latter as Aborigines or simply Abos or Blackfellows.tribal population is the indigenous population and this

can be clearly established by historical evidence. There They had no resources for withstanding the onslaughtof the settlers, who not only greatly outnumbered themare other regions, very large ones at that, where this is

by no means the case, and the blanket use of ‘‘indige- but were also technologically immeasurably their supe-riors. Their rights were treated with disregard and con-nous people’’ in place of ‘‘tribal population’’ then be-

comes seriously misleading. But the new phrase has the tempt, and there was very little regret for their fateamong those who set about building a new society inmerit of political correctness, and it is by no means easy

to dislodge from academic discourse a phrase that be- Australia. That regret was to come much later with achange in the political climate the world over.comes established by virtue of its being politically cor-

rect. The same kind of encounter took place in NorthAmerica, on a larger scale and over a longer stretch ofThe designation of any given population in a region as

‘‘indigenous’’ acquires substance when there are other time but with broadly similar results. The populationsinvolved were, on both sides, larger and more differenti-populations in the same region that can reasonably be

described as settlers or aliens. A significant dimension ated. Though by no means evenly matched in terms ofweaponry or numbers, the native tribes put up a muchof the identity of the populations correctly designated

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Page 4: The Idea of Indigenous People

beteille The Idea of Indigenous People 189

more protracted resistance, particularly after they had east, overran the territories of settled populations in rel-atively recent periods.secured access to horses and to firearms and where they

had the advantage of the terrain. By the middle of the The tribal population was commonly referred to as‘‘aboriginal’’ or ‘‘autochthonous’’ by the colonial ad-19th century, however, over vast tracts of the United

States and Canada, the American Indians had been ministration, and, indeed, the word ‘‘Adivasi,’’ nowwidely employed in self-designation, has that meaning.defeated. Their inevitable dispossession of their tradi-

tional homelands has been described over and over As I have already indicated, the presumptions behindthe designation require to be carefully scrutinized. In aagain but never so memorably as by Alexis de Tocque-

ville in the 1830s. detailed critique first published in 1943, G. S. Ghurye(1959) brought forward a wealth of evidence from classi-Through their long encounter with the settlers, na-

tive populations did not remain tied to their homelands. cal, medieval, and modern sources to demonstrate theinterpenetration of tribal and nontribal cultural prac-There were long and continuous migrations in the

course of which communities were dispersed, broken tices and social organizations.The distribution of physical or racial traits showsup, and attached to fragments of other communities.

The tribes that were studied by ethnographers in the no marked cleavage between tribal and nontribal popu-lations as it does in Australia and to a large extent20th century were very different from those that had

existed in the 18th. In some cases, such as that of the also in North America. There is considerable diversityof physical traits in the tribal population, reflectingMakah studied by Elizabeth Colson (1953), the ‘‘tribe’’

owed its identity not so much to immemorial tradition the diversity in the general population. The Todas,the Oraons, and the Angamis, all designated as tribes,as to the work of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. Nev-

ertheless, in the United States as in Australia, there has differ from each other in physical characteristics asmuch as any three groups of comparable size in thenever been any serious doubt about the quite different

origins and identities of indigenous and settler popula- general population are likely to differ. The larger tribesin the interior of the country are racially closer to attions.least some sections of the nontribal populations of theregion than they are to the tribes on the frontiers of theIn regions of older settlement, in Asia, in particular,

population diversity has arisen and been maintained by country.This leads to the question of habitat. The distinc-processes of a somewhat different nature. There, tribal

and nontribal populations have coexisted for centuries tiveness of the tribal habitat appears striking at firstglance and must have appeared more so in the last cen-and millennia. Confrontation and usurpation have cer-

tainly occurred but not in ways that have led to the de- tury, but closer examination reveals many complexi-ties. There have been slow but continuous movementsstruction of the tribal population or its decisive defeat

and containment by nontribal groups of clearly alien of population on the subcontinent over a very longstretch of time. These movements have been not onlyprovenance. Indeed, in the Islamic regions of south-

western Asia and North Africa, the confrontation be- of castes of various ranks but also of tribes. It may wellbe that tribal movements were in many cases impelledtween tribal and nontribal groups had often led to the

defeat and withdrawal of the latter rather than the for- by pressures from nontribal groups with superior mili-tary and productive technologies. But there were othermer. In these regions, the distinction between ‘‘tribal’’

and ‘‘nontribal,’’ no matter how we make it, does not reasons as well, and there is some evidence that largeragricultural tribes displaced or marginalized smallercorrespond in any significant way to that between in-

digenous and settler populations. tribes or bands dependent on hunting and gathering.The problem here is that it is impossible to disentangleIn India, the history of interaction between tribal and

nontribal populations has been a long and complex one history from mythology in the available accounts of mi-gration. What has to be noted is that there are descrip-in which both populations have undergone many trans-

formations through usurpation, miscegenation, and mi- tions of both military victory and military defeat in thetribes’ accounts of their own migrations.gration. By the middle of the 19th century, what are

called tribes today had on the whole been either subor- Next to habitat, language and dialect have been re-garded as markers of tribal identity. South Asia is a re-dinated or marginalized economically, politically, and

socially. This could be seen quite clearly in their gen- gion of bewildering linguistic diversity, with innumera-ble forms of speech and writing belonging to manyeral concentration in the hill and forest areas in the in-

terior or on the frontiers of the subcontinent. Indeed, different families. In India itself there are over a dozenliterary languages divided into two major families, thecommunities were often categorized as tribal by reason

of the habitats in which they were found at the time of Indo-European languages employed mainly in the northand the Dravidian languages current mainly in thethe first ethnographic surveys. Neither the subordina-

tion nor the confinement of the tribes was absolute, south. There are, in addition, innumerable dialects,themselves belonging to different families, without tra-however, and this becomes clear when we take a long

historical perspective. In earlier historical periods the ditions of writing that are spoken principally by the var-ious tribal groups. The geographical distribution oftribal groups were sometimes the dominant and

usurping ones, and some, like the Ahoms in the north- these languages and dialects gives some indication,

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Page 5: The Idea of Indigenous People

190 current anthropology Volume 39, Number 2, April 1998

though by no means always a dependable one, of the It can hardly be denied that most of the tribal reli-gions of India are indigenous in the sense that they havemovements of population on the subcontinent.

It was earlier believed that the distinction between acquired their shape and form in the land of their pres-ent existence. But Hindus too believe that their religionthe ‘‘primitive dialects’’ belonging to the Austro-

Asiatic, the Tibeto-Burman, and other families, on the is rooted in the soil they inhabit, and it is very difficultto deny that belief. In any case, Hinduism is indigenousone hand, and the ‘‘advanced languages’’ belonging to

the Indo-European and the Dravidian families, on the to India in a sense in which Christianity is not indige-nous to Australia or North America or, for that matter,other, corresponded to the distinction between tribal

and nontribal populations. While this is to a large ex- even Europe.tent true, there have to be many reservations and quali-fications. Several tribes, including some of the larger The phrase ‘‘indigenous people’’ is a little like the term

‘‘native’’ in colonial usage, with the moral significationones, speak a form of the regional language and do nothave any distinctive speech of their own. How long this reversed to some extent. In late-19th- and early-20th-

century London, it was the Indian or the African andhas been the case it is by no means easy to tell. It isbelieved that the adoption of the regional language in not the Briton who was likely to be called a native. The

native was a man of colour who carried his identity asplace of its own dialect was everywhere a significantstep in the transformation of a tribe into a caste. In the a native with him no matter where he went or what he

did. Is there now such an essentialist view of indigenousprecolonialperiodanduptothe19thcentury, therewouldalways be, at any given time, a number of communities people in which they carry their identity with them

wherever they go and whatever they do? Has the crudeat various stages in the passage from tribe to caste.Most of the languages and dialects of contemporary anthropological association of race and culture acquired

a more refined form in the concept of the indigenousIndia have been in use in the country for a very longtime, if not in their present form then in some recogniz- people? However distasteful or galling this presumption

may appear to well-meaning advocates of cultural sur-able ancestral form, and even while retaining their dis-tinctive identities they have influenced each other to a vival, it has to be seriously examined.

The problem is simpler, at least in principle, with thevery large extent. Traditional grammarians were awareof the infiltration of words of tribal origin into what old usage of ‘‘tribe.’’ In India, it can be easily established

that some tribes have ceased to be tribes and have be-they regarded as the more chaste literary languages.One cannot say in every case that a tribal dialect has come castes or something else, and this has happened

extensively elsewhere as well. But what about the in-had a longer presence in the land than each of the majorregional languages. Some of the tribal dialects crossed digenous people of the New World? Will they cease to

be indigenous people at some point in time, or will theythe frontiers into India relatively recently, and some ofthe regional languages have been current in their pres- carry their identity as indigenous people for all time to

come?ent regions for a very long time. Several tribes—the Or-aons, the Gonds, and others—speak dialects belonging The idea of indigenous people must have some basis

in the territory inhabited by them in the past and theto the Dravidian family, to which such major literarylanguages as Tamil and Telegu also belong. Here it may present. The problem arises when they become dis-

persed over large areas within, and sometimes across,be pointed out that some of these tribes have kinshipterminologies that have the same structure as the ter- national frontiers. If some members of the Ibo or Bemba

tribe settle in India, it will hardly appear reasonable tominology of Tamil or Telegu kinship, which differs onsignificant points from that of, say, Bengali or Punjabi describe their descendants in that country as indige-

nous people. On the other hand, if some Oriyas or Tam-kinship. There is no easy way to establish that Kurukh,the traditional speech of the Oraons, is older—or more ilians are known to have lived in their present homes

in Orissa or Tamil Nadu since time immemorial, theyindigenous to India—than Tamil.We fare little better when we try to use religion in may certainly claim to be indigenous in the villages or

towns they inhabit. How widely can people move andplace of language as a marker of tribal identity. Theadministrator-ethnographers of colonial times com- still retain the entitlement of being indigenous for

themselves and their descendants? In many of themonly took the view that animism was the religion ofthe tribal communities just as Hinduism was that of the multicaste agricultural villages of West Bengal, people

of tribal origin have come from elsewhere and settledlarger caste-based society. This distinction is mis-leading, for one can hardly argue that animism and Hin- down to work as sharecroppers and agricultural labour-

ers. Their economic and social conditions are for theduism exclude each other or have done so at any stageof Indian history. The thousands of castes and tribes on most part abject and miserable, and they are subjected

to discrimination and exploitation of the most oppres-the Indian subcontinent have influenced each other intheir religious beliefs and practices since the beginning sive kind. But that still does not justify their being de-

scribed as ‘‘indigenous people’’ in the context of theirof history and before. That the tribal religions have beeninfluenced by Hinduism is widely accepted, but it is present existence.

Particularly in the United States, the idea of indige-equally true that Hinduism, not only in its formativephase but throughout its evolution, has been influenced nous people has acquired a certain moral charge, partly

because of the awakening of old memories of usurpa-by tribal religions.

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Page 6: The Idea of Indigenous People

beteille The Idea of Indigenous People 191

tion, spoliation, and exploitation but also because many provide ideological ammunition to those who would re-order the world according to the claims of blood andcontemporary anthropologists seem to enjoy being in a

state of moral excitation. It is doubtful how much soil.moral excitation can contribute to the solution of prac-tical problems. To the extent that it undermines intel-lectual clarity, it vitiates the understanding of the real

References Citedroots of those problems.Intellectual disciplines are so organized today that

colson, el izabeth. 1953. The Makah Indians. Manchester:concepts and terms that emerge in response to a partic-University of Manchester Press.ular experience in a particular part of the world travel

ghurye, g. s. 1959 (1943). The Scheduled Tribes. Bombay:to other parts of it where they lodge themselves and ac- Popular Prakashan.quire a life of their own. There they not only breed redf ield, robert. 1956. Peasant society and culture. Chi-

cago: University of Chicago Press.intellectual confusion but, as in the present case, also

Calendar

1998cisco, Calif., U.S.A. Themes: Multidisciplinary Con-ceptions and Principles of Consciousness. KeynoteApril 16–18. Delta Studies Symposium IV: Creativeaddress, by Karl H. Pribram: Conscious and Uncon-Expressions Beyond the Blues, Jonesboro, Ark.,scious Processes: Relation to the Deep and SurfaceU.S.A. Write: Delta Symposium Committee, Depart-Structure of Memory. Plenary panel: Metaphors ofment of English and Philosophy, P.O. Box 1890, Ar-Consciousness. Write: Maxim I. Stamenov, Institutekansas State University (Jonesboro), State Univer-of the Bulgarian Language, Shipchenski Prokhod St.sity, Ark. 72467, U.S.A. ([email protected], bl. 17, Sophia, Bulgaria ([email protected]; http://csm.astate.edu/,dean/blues.html).acad.bg), or R. MacCormac, Duke University Medi-April 20–25. Societe Internationale d’Ethnologie et decal School, Department of Radiology and NuclearFolklore, 6th Conference, Amsterdam, The Nether-Medicine, Box 3949, Durham, N.C. 27710, U.S.A.lands. Theme: Roots and Rituals: Managing Eth-([email protected]).nicity. Write: Ton Dekker, P. J. Meertens-Institute,

August 23–29. International Council for Archaeozool-P.O. Box 19888, 1000 GW Amsterdam, The Nether-ogy, 8th International Congress, Victoria, B.C., Can-lands ([email protected]).ada. Write: Conference Management, ContinuingMay 21–23. Third International Congress of ArcticStudies, University of Victoria, Box 3030, Victoria,Social Sciences, Copenhagen, Denmark. Theme:B.C., Canada V8W 3N6 ([email protected]).Changes in the Circumpolar North: Culture, Ethics,

September 3–6. Alta Conference on Rock Art 2, Alta,and Self-Determination. Write: Frank Sejersen, Coor-North Norway. Themes: theory of interpretation ofdinator, IASSA Secretariat, c/o Department of Eski-rock art, curation. Write: Knut Helskog, Tromsø Mu-mology, Strandgade 100H, DK-1401 Copenhagen K,seum ([email protected]) or Bjørnar Olsen, InstituteDenmark ([email protected]).of Social Science ([email protected]), University ofJune 11–14. International Society for the ComparativeTromsø, Tromsø, Norway.Study of Civilizations, 27th Annual Meeting, Ka-

September 18–20. Plains Indian Seminar, Cody, Wyo.,shiwa City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. Theme: TheU.S.A. Theme: Plains Indian Art: The Pictorial Tra-Emergence of Pacific Rim Civilizations? Write: Mi-dition. Write: Lillian Turner, Public Programs Coor-dori Yamanouchi Rynn, ISCSC 1998 Program Chair,dinator, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, 720 SheridanDepartment of Sociology, University of Scranton,Ave., Cody, Wyo. 82414, U.S.A. (programs@Scranton, Pa. 18510-4605, U.S.A.wavecom.net).July 26–August 2. International Union of Anthropolog-

ical and Ethnological Sciences, 14th Congress, Wil-liamsburg, Va., U.S.A. Theme: The 21st Century:The Century of Anthropology. Write: Tomoko Ha- 1999mada, Executive Secretary, 14th Congress IUAES,Department of Anthropology, College of William January 10–14. Fourth World Archaeology Congress,

Cape Town, South Africa. Theme: Global Archaeol-and Mary, Williamsburg, Va. 23187-8795, U.S.A.([email protected]). ogy at the Turn of the Millennium. Write: Carolyn

Ackermann, WAC4 Secretariat, P.O. Box 44503,August 17–18. Society for the Multidisciplinary Studyof Consciousness, Inaugural Conference, San Fran- Claremont 7735, South Africa.

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Page 7: The Idea of Indigenous People

192 current anthropology Volume 39, Number 2, April 1998

Erratum

In Alex Weingrod’s review of T. M. S. Evens’s Two iting error introduced the title of the review instead ofthat of the book in the first sentence (p. 470).Kinds of Rationality in the June 1997 issue, a copyed-

Serials

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Czech Academy of Sciences: Paleolithic in the Middle (472 pp., with contributions in English and German;US$50 including postage). Write: Institute of Archaeol-Danube Region: Anniversary Volume to Bohuslav

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