Slideshow | The astonishing skills of the world’s tribal peoples – Tribal Olympians by Survival International

Picture © James Morgan – courtesy Survival International

To celebrate the 2012 Olympics, Survival reveals some of the astonishing skills of the world’s tribal peoples, from the Awá archers of the Amazon to the Bajau divers of Borneo and the Tarahumara long-distance runners of northwestern Mexico.

The astonishing skills of tribal peoples are not only a measure of just how swift, high and strong we can be as humans – where our physical and mental limits lie – but an indicator of the extraordinary diversity of mankind. […]

As the western world becomes increasingly homogenised, sedentary and divorced from nature, we can all learn from tribal peoples. They have thrived for thousands of generations relying solely on their own resources, and their ways of life are still largely sculpted by their natural environments. […]

Source: “Tribal Olympians” by Joanna Eede, Survival International
Address: https://www.survivalinternational.org/galleries/olympians
Date Visited: 12 February 2023

“What we are telling to the outer world is that no conservation would be possible without cooperation of the local community [and] integrating their traditional wisdom with modern-day scientific approach.” – WWF’s Kerala consultant KH Amitha Bachan | Learn more: Biodiversity | Climate change | Ethnobotany & ethnomedicine | Nature and wildlife | Sacred grove | United Nations on climate change >> >>

“We shall first have to give up this hubris of considering tribes backward. Every tribe has a rich and living cultural tradition and we must respect them.” – Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu on the constitutional obligation to respect the cultural traditions of India’s tribal communities

Gandhiji at Prayer Time, Parnakuti, Poona (1944) by Chittaprosad, the great advocate of the rights of workers and revolutionary artists. | Learn more in “Gandhi, Secularism, and Cultural Democracy” by Vinay Lal >>
Gandhian social movement | Constitution | Adverse inclusion >>

“Air is free to all but if it is polluted it harms our health… Next comes water… From now on we must take up the effort to secure water. Councillors are servants of the people and we have a right to question them.” – Mohandas K. Gandhi, Ahmedabad address on 1 January 1918; quoted by his grandson, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, in “On another New Year’s Day: Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘khorak’ a 100 years ago” (The Hindu, 1 January 2018)

“The world has enough for everyone’s need but not for anyone’s greed.” – Mahatma Gandhi quoted by Medha Patkar and Baba Amte (Narmada Bachao Andolan)

Up-to-date reports by Indian experts and journalists

Search tips

Combine the name of any particular state, language or region with that of any tribal (Adivasi) community.

Add keywords of special interest (music, poetry, dance just as health, sacred grove and biodiversity); learn about the rights of Scheduled Tribes such as the “Forest Rights Act” (FRA); and the United Nations “Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, “women’s rights”, or “children’s right to education”.

Specify any other issue or news item you want to learn more about (biodiversity, bonded labour and human trafficking, climate change, ecology, economic development, ethnobotany, ethnomedicine, global warming, hunter-gatherers in a particular region or state, prevention of rural poverty, water access).

For official figures include “scheduled tribe ST” along with a union state or region: e.g. “Chhattisgarh ST community”, “Himalayan tribe”, “Scheduled tribe Tamil Nadu census”, “ST Kerala census”, “Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group Jharkhand”, “PVTG Rajasthan”, “Adivasi ST Kerala”, “Adibasi ST West Bengal” etc.

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Note: hyperlinks and quotes are meant for fact-checking and information purposes only | Disclaimer >>

List of websites covered by this Google custom search engine

Academia.edu (platform for academics to share research papers) – www.academia.edu

Archive.org – https://archive.org

Centre for Science and Environment – https://www.cseindia.org

Current Conservation – https://www.currentconservation.org 

Development and Cooperation (D+C) https://www.dandc.eu

Down To Earth (India) – www.downtoearth.org.in

India Environment Portal – www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in

Harnessing Nature Magazine – https://harnessingnature.online

Mongabay-India – https://india.mongabay.com

M S Swaminathan Research Foundation – www.mssrf.org

Navdanya (protecting India’s biodiversity based food heritage) – https://navdanya.org

Third World Network (Penang, Malaysia) – https://twn.my

The Shola Trust (nature conservation in the Nilgiri region) – www.thesholatrust.org

Research the above issues with the help of Shodhganga: A reservoir of theses from universities all over India, made available under Open Access >>

Note: hyperlinks and quotes are meant for fact-checking and information purposes only | Disclaimer >>

See also

CBC Unreserved (Canada) radio space for indigenous community, culture, and conversation

Eco tourism | Tourism

eJournals, eBooks & reports

eLearning: Center for World Indigenous Studies

Gandhian social movement

Indigenous people are at the forefront of the struggle to save the planet

Internet Archive | Archive.org

Journalism | Media portrayal

NGO | Organizations

People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI) | RuralIndiaOnline.org

Storytelling | Success stories

Tribal/indigenous culture worldwide

Video resources – external

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