Society: Tribal Peoples

Cameron says the book version of “Avatar” will follow the film version “quite closely” in terms of the plot. But the novel will also include “interior monologues” and provide details about the characters and Pandora.

I was blown away by James Cameron's new movie Avatar. It immersed me in a thoroughly compelling world, imagined and crafted with a depth of detail that utterly amazed me. It conveyed multiple profound, challenging messages via an archetypal story designed for mass appeal. I am not at all surprised it is suddenly the highest grossing movie of all time, beating Cameron's previous allegorical blockbuster, Titanic.

If there were ever a place that came close to the magical world of Pandora in James Cameron’s new film Avatar, it would probably be the Amazon. There may not be butterflies that look like flying squid, but in the Amazon can you eat giant worms and lemon flavored ants for dinner in a forest that is home to both the jaguar and the pink dolphin. Reporter Melaina Spitzer joined a group of indigenous leaders from the Amazon in Ecuador’s capital Quito, to see Avatar on the big screen in 3D.

Avatar is the movie James Cameron has been dreaming about for over 20 years. It took that long for the technology to catch up with his vision. Worth it? Yeah, worth it. I usually only see movies in the theater if something is guaranteed to blow up. Avatar met this requirement, and if you wear the 3D glasses, exceeded it. Beyond the explosions and mind-numbing CG goodness, Avatar is a film I recommend for dreamers everywhere.

The last speaker of an ancient tribal language has died in the Andaman Islands, breaking a 65,000-year link to one of the world's oldest cultures.

Avatar, James Cameron's blockbusting 3D film, is both profoundly silly and profound. It's profound because, like most films about aliens, it is a metaphor for contact between different human cultures. But in this case the metaphor is conscious and precise: this is the story of European engagement with the native peoples of the Americas. It's profoundly silly because engineering a happy ending demands a plot so stupid and predictable that it rips the heart out of the film. The fate of the native Americans is much closer to the story told in another new film, The Road, in which a remnant population flees in terror as it is hunted to extinction.

Four hundred years after their spiritual ancestors took part in the decimation and dislocation of Native Americans in New York, one of the nation's first Protestant churches held a "healing ceremony" to apologize.

In the aftermath of the tragedy at Angel Valley Retreat Center, where an incompetently conducted “sweat lodge” held by Californian self-help guru James Arthur Ray killed three participants, political steps are being taken by several native people across the United States. While local Indians from Arizona are forming a Council for Indigenous Traditional Healing to reclaim native ceremonies, the Lakota tribe of North and South Dakota has filed a lawsuit against the United States, the state of Arizona, James Arthur Ray and the Angel Valley Retreat Center.

I've been photographing ruins and rock art around Sedona for many years, itching to turn some of these photos into calendars, greeting cards, and prints. But every time I tried to move ahead with this idea, the cost of self-publishing was prohibitive. So I put this idea on the back burner -- until now.

Convening a conference with 386 federally recognized tribal nations, President Obama today assured the Native American community that "you will not be forgotten as long as I'm in this White House."