Tag Archives: people

“Music is the universal language of mankind.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow  (Track: Narasirato – Roromera Dub Manasseh Remix) It doesn’t matter how remote from our experience people’s lives are: when they start to make music, we have an understanding of how they are feeling, and clues as to what they want to express. It is […]

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(Double click for: Elkesh Herself by Kugyershin Family’s Songs) It is said that if you want to see traditional Kazakh culture, you should go to Bayan-Ölgii province in Mongolia, rather than to Kazakhstan. In the 1800s, the expanding Russian Empire pushed the semi-nomadic Kazakh tribes into neighboring countries, including Mongolia – where members of the Middle Jüz Kazakhs […]

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She’s not the first, and she’s not the only one, but she is still a rarity these days: a female Kazakh eagle hunter. Hunting with golden eagles is a long-standing custom among the Turkic peoples (particularly the Kazakh and Kyrgyz) across the Eurasian steppe. During the 1930s, large numbers of Kazakhs fled from communist-controlled Kazakhstan through the Altai Mountains to Bayan-Ölgii Province in […]

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When I think of northern India, it is the incredible Rajput (Hindu) and Mughal (Islamic) architecture of Rajasthan that I remember: fortified walls and sandstone edifices climbing across hillsides; exquisite turrets floating in the hot, dusty air; delicate lattice work shielding windows and casting intricate shadow patterns in the cloistered rooms behind them. But, I also think […]

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How can one talk about “the people” or “the culture” of Papua New Guinea?  Papua New Guinea is one of the most culturally diverse nations in the world. Comprising the eastern half of the world’s second-largest island, it is home to hundreds of different ethnic groups and 852 known languages. And, who knows how many pockets […]

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