Dishonorable killings

So-called honor killings take the wind out of a form of cultural relativism that I refer to as absolute cultural relativism. According to absolute cultural relativism, anything that goes on in a particular culture, and is justified within that culture, cannot be questioned or changed by insiders or outsiders. For insiders, such questioning is cultural heresy; for outsiders it is ethnocentrism.

An antidote to absolute cultural relativism is critical cultural relativism, which promotes the posing of questions about practices and beliefs by insiders and outsiders in terms of who accepts them and why, and who they might be harming or helping. In other words: Who benefits, who loses? [Note: I present these terms in my cultural anthropology texts as a way to get students to think more analytically about the very important concept of cultural relativism.]

Image: Flickr creative commons licensed content. If only India, and indeed the whole world, was a domestic violence free zone.

When death, torture and structural violence are involved, it’s time to relegate absolute cultural relativism to the sidelines and bring to the fore critical analysis and discussion among insiders and outsiders. As far as I know, murder is not legal in any country in the world, including murder of one’s own kin for purposes of protecting family honor.

An article in The New York Times describes an alleged honor killing of a young unmarried Hindu woman in her family home in Jharkhand state, eastern India.

The article links the possible murder to Hindu caste values, which forbid marriage of woman to a man of a lower caste category — in this instance, the woman was of a Brahmin family and was engaged to a man of the Kayastha category, which is lower. Not only that, she had apparently engaged in premarital sex, another serious problem from the point of view of family honor.

What the article doesn’t say is that honor killings of daughters and wives by family members occur among people of other religions as well, including Christianity, that are not driven by caste purity. More deeply than particular religious values is the widespread existence of lethal patriarchy: male dominance in all domains of life — economic, political, social, sexual — that it justifies, even actively supports, murder of women and girls.

There can be no way, in this world, that anyone can get away with murder by saying that “it’s part of our culture” to kill a daughter or wife who breaks cultural rules. As if it’s their right and duty to kill.

Unfortunately, local police and the judicial system are often on the side of the killers.

Amnesty International now keeps track of so-called honor killings, but it’s likely that cases are severely under-counted. Nevertheless, any and all efforts to keep shining a very bright light on the problem of honor killings and related forms of patriarchy are essential.

See also this post on the blog Women Against Shariah.

To thee I sing: sweet land of oil spill

European colonists came to North America seeking religious freedom and economic opportunity. They destroyed the very same for those who had lived here for centuries.

One person’s liberty often means someone else’s shackles. One group’s success often means another group is in ruins.

The boom and crackle of Independence Day fireworks in the United States are echoed in the gunfire in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan as outside forces vie for control of these strategic lands. Let freedom ring.

Allow me one more bit of gut gashing irony. In the 18th century, the American patriots fought hard to gain independence from the British. They succeeded.

What would those freedom fighters say about British Petroleum’s oil spill in the Gulf?

Image: “An American Flag on top of a fake oil derrick in Sapulpa, Oklahoma.” The derrick may be fake, but the questions the image raises are surely very real. Creative commons licensed Flickr content.

Dead Birds now

I hope that some people reading this blog have seen the 1965 documentary, Dead Birds. If you haven’t, please try to do so. It’s a very long film, in black and white. I viewed it in a college class many years ago. For me, the big lesson was that the Dani people of highland New Guinea (their territory is now defined as lying within West Papua which belongs to Indonesia) had a relatively civilized way of doing war. The men would get all dressed up with feather and shell ornaments. Then they took up their bows and shields, lined up against their opponents and shot arrows at the opposing line of men until someone was wounded, or perhaps killed.

A modern day almost-dead bird in the Gulf of Mexico. “Dying Baby Egret,” creative commons licensed content from Flickr user MarilynWelch.

Then the war stopped. Right then.

That was my interpretation of a representation: both may be quite distorted. Nonetheless, you have to agree that so-called “tribal warfare,” before the arrival of guns, was not about massive killing, much less annihilation.

But I seem to be the odd duck out. Stuart Kirsch, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan, argues (in “Ethnographic Representation and the Politics of Violence in West Papua,” Critique of Anthropology 30:3-22, 2010) convincingly that the general perception of outsiders is that the Dani and other West Papuans are frighteningly violent — by nature and by culture. War is the central value in their culture. They are simply all about war.

This image justified the Dutch colonial presence: West Papuans needed pacification.

It fosters a thriving industry of extreme tourism “in which Euro-Americans pay thousands of dollars to participate in staged encounters with lost tribes.”

Now there is a new kind of war going on.

The story today is about international mining. Colonialists of our time, the multinationals have made and continue to make huge profits from exploiting the riches of West Papua. These companies, if called into question, can hire top lawyers to protect their interests. They can curry favor with politicians. They can win support from the military.

But the West Papuans, now, have more than bows and arrows, though their arsenal is still small by comparison with that of the big companies. They are organizing and enlisting international political support against the depredations of the mining companies. They are using an indigenous concept, merdeka (freedom) to express their wish for both regional autonomy and social justice.

Starting with the intrusion of the Dutch and continuing to today’s Indonesian control, many West Papuans have suffered from a politics of violence that makes the ritual warfare of Dead Birds look like child’s play.

If one were to film a documentary of conflict in West Papua today, the line-up would be very different from that depicted in Dead Birds. The mining companies would have a star role. Their employees are dressed up nicely. But they don’t stop shooting after wounding just one person.

One man’s Eden

One can hardly blame Kristof for admiring the beauty of Gabon, pictured here in a creative commons licensed Flickr image from carlosoliveirareis, but maybe he could have said more about the ugliness masked by the idyllic landscapes?

Nick Kristof‘s in love. It’s so great for him and for his readers, who grow weary with all the dreary news he reports. No fistula stories for a change. Instead a beautiful beach in Gabon where a few elephants gambol. Kristof is smitten with Gabon’s beauty and its hope to build a green Gabon.

Gabon could be the Costa Rica of Africa with huge swaths of rainforest protected from development. Perfect for tourists and for the preservation of lowland gorillas. Sounds great, for some people who can afford to enjoy these treasures.

But not so good for the former forest dwellers in Gabon such as the Babongo. They, like so many other indigenous peoples of Africa, can no longer pursue their traditional livelihood of foraging (hunting and gathering). Extruded from the forest because of conservation areas and other forms of development, they have been “resettled” and now perform wage labor for others.

No longer stewards of the forest, they are outcasts in modern Gabon. Lowland gorillas have it better than they do.

St. Nick is a champion of the rights of women and girls around the world. He also loves pristine beaches and elephants. How about a few words about the desperate plight of the many forcibly displaced indigenous peoples of Africa — and elsewhere worldwide — whose lives have been totally ruined by development?

Must read: The Cracked Bell by Tristram Riley-Smith

The Nacirema are a large and diverse group of people who live south of Canada and north of Mexico (spell the tribal name backward in case you haven’t figured out who they are). In the mid-20th century, Horace Miner wrote a clever parody about the culture of this tribe. The nickname continues to have some currency among anthropologists and their students. It’s a clever way to get Americans to think of their culture as a culture: contextualized, changing and not at all natural.

Because the Nacirema are such a large and diverse population, I ask students in my introductory cultural anthropology class to avoid referring to Americans as a whole. Because of the many and deep differences across regions, urban/rural, class, age groups, genders, ethnicity and more, I ask that any mention of Americans be preceded by several adjectives.

I have long held to a belief that the only thing all Americans share is knowing what crayons smell like. I have learned much, therefore, from reading Cracked Bell by Tristram Riley-Smith, and I may have to acknowledge that all Americans share an attraction to the concept of freedom.

Riley-Smith is English. He earned his doctorate in cultural anthropology at Cambridge University and did his fieldwork in Nepal. In 2002, he moved to Washington, D.C., working in the British Embassy. Over the next few years, he cast his anthropological gaze on America, taking the pervasive value of freedom as his focal point.

His book provides deep insights for those who wish to understand the United States. In seven chapters, he explores the theme of freedom in America from different angles, all wide angles that allow space for Riley-Smith to draw on his very deep well of knowledge about my country. He knows far, far more about my country than I do — a citizen steeped in its history from childhood and nurtured on its popular culture. I stand in awe of the range of Riley-Smith’s data: historic documents, movies, one-on-one interviews with Americans throughout the land and much, much more.

Chapter one tackles the question of identity. Riley-Smith raises the question of how can and does a sense of identity as American exist out of so much difference? He discusses how the education system shapes a shared sense of identity, as well as “rituals” such as summer camp and mass devotion to sport teams. Yet freedom and opportunity cannot and do not successfully bridge the deep divisions of race and ethnicity and the dispossession of American Indians and the poor in general.

Riley-Smith goes on to tackle six more big issues, bringing to each of them startlingly original insights. Chapter two examines consumerism, with Riley-Smith taking us down the corridors of excess and into the aisles of Walmart where the freedom to consume in fact shackles us all. Other chapters address religion, innovation, the wilderness, war and peace and law.

Riley-Smith isn’t as naive as Mork, who came to America from another planet to learn about our customs, but his observations are just as crisp and memorable. This is not a book you can whiz through in a few hours. I had to stop frequently, put it down, and think. It’s worth the effort.

From ecological disaster to constitutional crisis

Guest post by Terence Turner

“Debating Belo Monte Hydroelectric Complex on the Xingu River,” creative commons licensed content by Flickr user International Rivers. March 14, 2007.

UPDATED: Once again, the indigenous peoples of the Xingú valley in the Brazilian Amazon are planning to make the long journey to the town of Altamira*, where the Trans-Amazonica highway crosses the Xingú. Their ultimate destination will be the island of Pimental a short distance downriver from the town, where the Brazilian government plans to build a huge hydroelectric dam they call Belo Monte after the nearest Brazilian village. The Indians’ bold plan, is to prevent the construction of the dam by building a new village directly on top of the proposed dam site and maintaining their occupation until the government abandons its plans for the dam. The planning for the encampment is being led by the Kayapo, the largest and most politically organized of the indigenous nations of the region, but other indigenous groups are also participating.

The Indians, in a bold attempt to prevent the construction of the project, are building a new village directly on top of the proposed dam site, They have vowed to maintain their occupation until the government abandons its plans for the dam. The construction of the encampment is being led by the Kayapo, the largest and most politically organized of the indigenous nations of the region, but other indigenous groups are also participating.

The Kayapo, however, are not waiting for the discussion of the plan for the encampment among the 23 indigenous groups of the Xingú Valley to reach consensus. They have already seized the ferry that carries Brazil Route 80, an important link in the Trans-Amazonica highway system, across the Xingú River at the Kayapo village of Piaraçú. The ferry and the river crossing are now under guard by armed Kayapo warriors, who have announced that they will continue their blockade until the government negotiates with them about their plans for the Belo Monte dam.

This will not be the first indigenous encampment organized by the Kayapo in their effort to stop the building of dams on the Xingú. In 1989, when the government first set out to implement its plan for a giant hydroelectric complex on the Xingú, with financial support from the World Bank, the Kayapo led a great rally of 40 indigenous nations at Altamira against the scheme, setting up an encampment of several hundred Indians at a Catholic retreat center just outside the town. The five-day rally was extensively covered by national and international media, and succeeded in persuading the World Bank to withdraw its planned loan for the construction of the dams.

* See the video, “The Kayapo: Out of the Forest” in the Disappearing World Series, Terence Turner, anthropological consultant, 52 minutes. This video covers the 1989 Altamira meeting and campaign against the Xingu dams. Available from the Royal Anthropological Institute(RAI)
here.

After the 1989 Altamira meeting, the Xingú dam scheme remained dormant, but not dead, for two decades. Two years ago it was revived as the centerpiece of the Lula government’s Project for Accelerated Development. As a Brazilian activist remarked at the time, “These big dams are like vampires: you pound a stake through their hearts but they rise again from the grave and you have to do it all over again.”

Continue reading “From ecological disaster to constitutional crisis” →

All we like sheep

Spring is a perilous time for sheep. Lambs are born in the spring, and often capricious weather can spell their doom. In the spring, many one year-old lambs are slaughtered to provide meat for a feast. It is the time of the sacrifice of the lambs.

Sheep are one of the earliest domesticated animals, and they still figure largely in the economies of pastoralist cultures from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe with China currently having the most sheep of any country in the world. Images of sheep appear in ancient rock art. Their wool provided one of the first textiles for humanity. Artisanal cheese from sheep’s milk is now a highly sought-after product. And don’t forget haggis.

What do cultural anthropologists have to say about this important animal? Compared to the amount of published sources by archaeologists: not much. In my search of AnthropologyPlus and AnthroSource, using the search words “sheep” or ‘lamb,” I found fewer than 30 articles published since 1995. I then looked in Google Scholar, using the search terms “culture sheep” and “culture lamb” and found a few more sources scattered among the many non-anthropological studies.

Several sources in the following list have to do with herding practices. Another prominent theme is the importance of sheep as items of exchange and sacrifice. Others look at sheep in mythology, symbolism, and healing. The most famous individual sheep in the world, Dolly, attracted some recent attention in terms of bioscience and ethics.

Cultural anthropologists have not written much about the animals in our lives, period. So sheep are not any more neglected than are dogs, horses, pigs, and other animals wild or domesticated. Cultural anthropologists have probably written more books with the word “car” than “sheep” in the title. Perhaps these gentle, low-demand, high-yield animals deserve more of us.

The following sources are the result of a few hours’ research and, with apologies again, they are not open-source:

Abu-Rabia, Aref. 1999. Some Notes on Livestock Production among Negev Bedouin Tribes. Nomadic Peoples 3(1):22-30.

Ayantunde, Augustine A., Timothy O. Williams, Henk M. J. Udo, Salvador Fernández-Rivera, and Pierre Hiernaux. 2000. Herders’ Perceptions, Practice, and Problems of Night Grazing in the Sahel: Case Studies from Niger. Human Ecology 28(1):109-140.

Bolin, Inge. 1998. Rituals of Respect: The Secret of Survival in the High Peruvian Andes. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Maggie. 2005. Quartering Sheep at Carnival in Sud Lípez, Bolivia. In Wendy James and David Mills, eds., The Qualities of Time: Anthropological Approaches. Pp. 187-202. New York: Berg Publishers.

Brower, Barbara. 2000. Sheep Grazing in National Forest Wilderness: A New Look at an Old Fight. Mountain Research and Development 20(2):126-129.

Dám, Laszlo. 2001. Buildings of Animal Husbandry on Peasants’ Farms in Hungary. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 46(3/4):177-227.

Continue reading “All we like sheep” →

Anthro in the news 3/15/10

• Yo-Yo Ma’s anthropological soul

Classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma is, according to an article in the Washington Post, “one of the most recognizable classical musicians on the planet.” Besides being a star of the musical world, he is also a social activist, in his own way. “I realized late in life,” Ma says, that my twin passions are music and people. Maybe that is why I am an odd person in this profession.” The article goes on to point out that Ma’s wonderful oddness may be in part due to his liberal arts education at Harvard where he expanded his view beyond music: “I have been passionate about music … but people in my dorm were equally passionate about other things. So suddenly, it was like, oh my gosh, what a huge world.” He is still an avid fan of anthropology. Blogger’s note: Thank you, Yo-Yo Ma.

• Knowledge about domestic violence for prevention

What safety nets are in place to protect women from domestic violence/partner abuse? The recent murder of two women in Miyagi Prefecture has raised concern about how to provide protection for potential victims. The Daily Yomiuri (3/14, page seven) of Tokyo quotes Ichiro Numasaki, professor of social anthropology at Tohoku University: “Many victims of domestic violence are scared to end the relationship because they are kept under the control of the abuser … Police need to learn more about domestic violence itself.”

•”I’m done with Indian stuff”

According to an article in The New York Times, a likely American Indian site has been, or soon will be, destroyed due to pressure from local business interests to “develop” the area. Harry Holstein, a professor of archaeology, has been lobbying for protection of what was a mound. Leon Smith, the mayor of Oxford, wasn’t eager to discuss the issue with the NYT: “You’re not going to hear from me … I’m done with Indian stuff.” He plans to top off the mound, level it and build a restaurant, hotel or clinic: “It’s going to be pretty,” he said. Blogger’s note: Yet another chapter in the shameful treatment of American Indians and their heritage in the United States.

• Career skill: anthropology students love the odd

A story on NPR applauds a new documentary, The Parking Lot Movie. It’s about a parking lot in Charlottesville, Va., and the characters who populate it. Most of the workers, all male, are students from the University of Virginia. The manager, who is also the filmmaker, says: “The anthropologists are always the best. They have a perspective that allows them to look at oddness and be interested in it, and not be bored.”

• Culture and AIDS in Lesotho

The Chronicle of Higher Education carried an article on the efforts of David Turkon to push policy makers to rely more on anthropological research in combating AIDS. Turkon is associate professor of cultural anthropology at Ithaca College and chair of the AIDS and Anthropology Research Group within the American Anthropological Association.

• Freedom of speech in China

Scott Simon, associate professor of cultural anthropology at Ottawa University says that freedom of speech in China is a global issue. He hosted a discussion forum profiling three Chinese human rights activists.

• Homage to American Jewish cultural anthropologist who redefined “blackness”

A review of the 2009 film, Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness, praises it as a “dense and fascinating documentary. ” Herskovits, a Jewish American cultural anthropologist, pioneered African American studies in the United States.

• Welcome to England and off with your head

Excavations for a road near the London 2012 Olympic sailing site unearthed a mass grave of 51 young Viking males. All were decapitated, and some showed multiple body wounds. The remains are dated between 890-1030 CE.

• Prehistoric climate change responders

Ezra Zubrow, professor of archaeology at the University of Buffalo, has been conducting research with other scientists in the Arctic regions of Quebec, Finland and Russia to understand how humans living 4,000-6,000 years ago coped with climate change. Zubrow is quoted in Science Daily: “…analysis of data from all phases of the study eventually will enable more effective collaboration between today’s social, natural and medical sciences as they begin to devise adequate responses to the global warming the world faces today.”

• Sick or just small? Hobbit debate still newsworthy

The Canberra Times quoted several biological anthropologists commenting on a recent publication in the Journal of Human Evolution in which Peter Brown and Tomoko Maeda argue for the position that the Hobbits (aka Homo floresiensis) were small but healthy. Dean Falk, Florida State University, supports their view. Daniel Lieberman, Harvard University, now agrees that the Hobbits represent a new species. Ralph Holloway, Columbia University, has not ruled out the disease hypothesis.

• Those bonobos are sharing again

BBC News picked up on research by Brian Hare, assistant professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University, showing that bonobos share food. He conducted research on orphaned bonobos living in a study center in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In experimental settings, the bonobos willingly share food with other bonobos. He now wants to understand why they share. His findings are published in Current Biology.

• American biological anthropologist wins Max Planck Research Award 2010

Tim Bromage has been awarded one of the two annual Max Planck Research Awards for his achievements in establishing the field in human evolution of growth, development and life history. Bromage is professor of basic science and craniofacial biology and of biomaterials and biometrics in New York University’s College of Dentistry. The award carries a stipend of $1.2 million.

A heresy is occurring in Australia

Guest post by Helen Caldicott

Ever since white men appeared 200 years ago on the shores of Sydney Harbour in their uniforms, with their guns and flags, the aboriginal people have been hunted, shot at and herded off cliffs and escarpments, and have had to drink from poisoned water holes.

Until very recently, aboriginal children were stolen from their parents by policemen under the direction of government and transported to “Christian” mission stations where they were taught English history, language and morality. Many were treated as slaves and sexually and physically abused. This horrifying history leads me to the current abuse and desecration of several aboriginal tribes inhabiting their land in the Northern Territory.

This land called Muckaty Station is conveniently located adjacent to the railway line, constructed recently by Dick Cheney’s former company Halliburton, which bisects Australia connecting Darwin, a port in the north, to Adelaide a port in the south.

In its wisdom, the previous conservative Howard government allocated this site along with three others for a possible radioactive dump. At the time the opposition labor party strongly criticized the nomination of Muckaty, labeling the Howard government’s National Radioactive Waste Management Bill as sordid and draconian. At the same time, the Howard government offered $12 million to just two of the tribal elders, excluding all other members. However the new labor government under the act can still impose a nuclear waste dump on the Northern Territory against the wishes of the indigenous owners and the government of the NT.

Muckaty Station sits above an ancient aquifer which is used by both the aborigines for drinking water and white station owners to water their cattle. It also experiences large intermittent rainfalls during the year.

Not only does the government intend to bury Australia’s low and high level waste at this site, but there is a distinct possibility that waste from overseas – namely the United States – will be transported by ship and on the Halliburton line to Muckaty Station, thus making Australia one of the main radioactive waste dumps in the world.

The reason for this eventuality is that Howard signed a treaty with the American government called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership GNEP which stipulates that after Australia exports its large quantities of uranium to nuclear powered countries, the high-level radioactive waste would be re-imported to prevent lateral proliferation of nuclear weapons. Despite its previous promises, Labor has not vetoed the GNEP and there is a suspicion that a secret deal was negotiated under the aegis of the GNEP to relieve America of some of its deadly radioactive waste.

Long-lived carcinogenic isotopes will inevitably leak into underground water systems, bio-concentrate in food chains and over generations induce cancer, genetic disease and congenital deformities in humans, animals and plants. A dismal prospect indeed for Australia’s future.

Helen Caldicott is an advocate of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crises. She has devoted the last 38 years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age and the necessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental destruction. Dr. Caldicott holds a medical degree from the University of Adelaide Medical School and was on the staff of Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Boston, when she resigned to work full time on the prevention of nuclear war. While living in the United States, she co-founded the Physicians for Social Responsibility and the umbrella group, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. She also founded the Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament. The recipient of many awards and the subject of several films, she currently divides her time between Australia and the United States.

Image: “Northern Territory.” Creative commons licensed content from Flickr user dinaiz.

Ethnography briefing: the Andaman Islanders

The Andaman Islands are a string of islands in the Bay of Bengal that belong to India. For unknown numbers of centuries, many of the islands were inhabited by people who fished, gathered and hunted for their livelihood. During the 18th century, when European countries were expanding trade routes to east Asia, the Andaman Islands were of major strategic importance as a stopping place.

At the time of the first, small settlements of the British in the late 18th century, the total indigenous population was estimated at between 6,000 and 8,000 (Miller 1997). Today, more than 400,000 people live on the islands, and they are mostly migrants from the Indian mainland. The total number of indigenous people is about 400. British colonialism brought contagious diseases against which the indigenous people had no resistance. The colonial presence also resulted in death by direct violence (hanging of islanders who fought back, skirmishes in which the British had guns and the islanders had bows and arrows) and indirect violence (from displacement, despair and culture shock).

Only four surviving clusters of indigenous Andamanese now exist:

The smallest group, just a few dozen people, consists of the remnants of the so-called Great Andamanese people. Several groups of Great Andamanese people formerly lived throughout North and Middle Andaman Islands, but no indigenous people inhabit these islands now. Their surviving descendants live on a reservation on a small island near Port Blair, the capital city.
The so-called Jarawa, numbering perhaps 200, live in a reserved area on the southwest portion of South Andaman island, and very little is known of their language. Jarawa is a term that the Great Andamanese people use for them.
The Onge, around 100 in number, live in one corner of Little Andaman Island.
Another 100 people or so live on North Sentinel Island. Outsiders call them the “Sentinelese.” No one has established communication with them, and almost no one from the outside has gotten closer than arrow-range of their shore.

The December 2004 tsunami disrupted much of the Andaman Island landscape, particularly areas that had been cleared of mangroves and other trees. As far as anyone knows, none of the indigenous people died as a direct result of the tsunami, though many of the immigrant settlers did (Mukerjee 2005).

The future of the indigenous people is more endangered by external culture, in the form of immigration and development, than from nature. Immigrants from the mainland continue to arrive, and international organizations such as the World Bank and businesses continue to provide incentives for the settlers.

In February 2010, one of the few remaining survivors of the Great Andamanese people, a woman named Boa Sr, passed away. She was the last speaker of the Boa language.

Sources:

“Culturama” by Barbara Miller, <a href="Cultural Anthropology, 5th edition, Pearson 2009, pg 94
Barbara Miller, “Andaman Update: From Colonialism to “Development,” paper presented at the Annual South Asia Conference, Madison, Wisconsin, 1997
Further information on the Jarawa and their cultural survival

Images: One of the many uninhabited islands in the Andamans with intact mangroves protecting the coastline from erosion. The roots of mangrove trees provide a habitat for shrimp, a prominent food item of the indigenous peoples and also now sought after by the tourist industry for hotel fare. Source: Barbara Miller.

Archival photograph from the early twentieth century of a girl wearing the skull of her deceased sister. Source: A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, The Andaman Islanders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922.