Tribe: Endangered Peoples of the World
Biodiversity. It’s this year’s big green word. Yet when we think of biodiversity we think mostly along the lines of plants, animals and insects. This beautifully illustrated book reminds us that human diversity is a vital, but often overlooked link in that chain.
These days when we talk about learning from other cultures we often mean heading out on package tours to countries in a shrinking world where the safety net of a Starbucks or a McDonalds around the corner is guaranteed.
Tribe helps make the world ‘big’ again, reminds us that there are whole worlds of civilised people out there who do not accept the Western ideal and for whom this ideal is both an invasion and an assault and as they disappear so do great chunks of our social, cultural and intellectual legacy.
The book is divided into chapters which examine a variety of unique views on birth and death, medicine, spirituality, dress, sex, money law and art amongst others. Few, if any, remaining tribes are able to maintain fully the culture of their ancestors which these views represent. Nevertheless it is a wonderful compendium of diversity and a useful platform for thought, providing an opportunity to pose questions to ourselves such as: What is beautiful? What is sacred? What is useful? What is profane? What is family? What is love? What is community?
But ultimately, for many the real joy of tribe may simply be is the way it revives a decades old pleasure of lingering over magazines such as Geographical or National Geographic and falling in love with the world all over again. It reminds us that there is so much we still don’t know, so much more to the world than we see in our homes and high streets; that the world is wondrous and precious and has an innate value which must be both defended and empowered to survive.
Tribe: Endangered Peoples of the World
Piers Gibbon
Cassell Illustrated
Hardback, £20
- This review was published in Geographical magazine circa December 2010
