Select three questions from the following five questions.  Each essay should be no longer than one typewritten page.  In your responses I will be looking for familiarity with the material, accurate content, sound analysis and careful selection of what you choose to emphasize in each response.  I recommend that you consult each other in preparing for the test; over the years I've found that such exchanges help fill in gaps of knowledge or analysis, and help affirm one's grasp of material as well.  Each question will have a ten point value, for a total of 30 points.  Your responses are due at 5:00 pm on Wednesday, Oct. 25.

1.  Indigenous peoples (or primitives, savages, tribal peoples... some of the terms used during the past two centuries to describe these peoples) have occupied the minds and curiosities of Western European societies since the enlightenment.  Two polarized views of native peoples have dominated the "primitivist imaginary" of Westerners... what have these two views been, and how have they reflected the concerns and visions of European society?  In general, why do you think Westerners had become so interested in primitive society?  What kinds of difficulties have these images created for native peoples who have come in contact with Europeans and Westerners through colonialism?  How did anthropology, as the discipline focusing on "primitives," address these images?

2.  Indigenous peoples in the world today number around 220 million people, according to Bodley, and yet our geopolitical categories do not include them in our conception of the world.  In a carefully worded essay, I would like you to reflect on why we (Americans, students of geography and history) don't know the names of indigenous groups around the world.  Who are indigenous peoples... what are their identifying characteristics?  Draw on both Bodley and Maybury-Lewis in responding to this question.  Finally, what does this suggest about the challenges indigenous peoples face in protecting their identities and interests in the modern world?

3.  The Tasaday have gained notoriety not only within anthropology, but within popular culture as well, as a case of "ethnic" fraud.  Briefly, outline the arguments for and against the Tasaday peoples being a hoax.  What do you think are the strongest pieces of evidence on either side, and what side would you tend to take?  What problems do the Tasaday face in asserting their claim to being a "real people?"  What larger issues regarding the relationship of indigenous peoples to the state does this case illustrate?  There is of course a subliminal critique of anthropology embedded in this case... in what way does the Tasaday case illustrate how anthropology may have contributed to this case?

4.  The encounter of indigenous peoples with colonial forces and states has produced serious consequences, often leading to hostilities and increased violence.  In a broad summary, what has driven Western society into regions that have led to encounters with native peoples living in those regions?  In class we talked specifically of two simultaneous processes, nation-building and a globalized economic system, which helped drive this push outward.   How have these two processes influenced the approaches colonizing countries have had toward native peoples?  What approaches have colonizing countries had toward native peoples?  Why does the encounter between colonizing powers and native peoples lead to increased hostilities, and what kinds of hostilities are produced in such encounters?  Finally, a number of anthropologists have argued that the encounter has produced what they call "tribalization."  What do they mean by this term?

5.  Nuer culture has gradually been transformed by civil war and incorporation into the Sudanese state.  Select one of the following processes:  the economic/ritual value of cattle (and the introduction of money), the changing nature of war and conflict (and the introduction of guns), the notion of scarification (and the impact of schooling), and the shifting notions of cattle sacrifice (and the introduction of Christianity), and discuss the changes that have occurred in that area of traditional Nuer culture over the course of British colonialism, the birth of the Sudanese nation, and the two civil wars.  What dilemmas are the Nuer faced with as a consequence of these changes?