Zulu medicine stall selling tribal medicines, Moty market, Johannesburg, South Africa, Africa

The idea of the interconnectedness of all things is central to the tribal way of looking at the world. practical knowledge of the environment, of crops and medicines, of hunting and fishing, is a byproduct of it. the makuna believe that human beings, animals, and all of nature are parts of the same one. animals and fish live in their own communities, which are just like human communities, with their chiefs, their shamans, their dance houses, their songs, and their material possessions. when human peoples dance in this world, the shaman invites the animal people to dance in theirs. if humans do not dance and shamans do not offer spirit food to the animal people, the animals will die out and there will be no more game left in the world. for the makuna the radical disjunction so characteristic of western thought between nature and culture, men and animals, dissolves. eastern colombia amazon, vaupes region, population: 600

Colombian shaman picking herbs, colombi

These reindeer peoples' entire existence is based around their herds of reindeer, which provide milk, skins for clothes, horn for carving and medicine, transport and occasionally, meat. the tsaatan are part of the tuvan ethnic group, which inhabits the tuvan republic of russia. there are only about 200 tsaatan in total, spread over 100,000 sq km of northern mongolia. they are nomadic, often moving their small encampments every three to four weeks, searching for special types of grass and moss loved by the reindeer. the tsaatan are strong practitioners of shamanism. west taiga, northern mongolia