Selling off sacred Hopi artifacts (audio)

Xochitl, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; A Martinez, Leo Duran (Take Two/KPCC/SCPR.org)

Sacred Hopi Kachina figurines, Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, USA (heard.org)

  

Don't look! Kachinam or "friends" (Laurel Morales)

The Hopis say Katsina masks, which are embodiments of devas, cannot be sold. These fantastic artifacts invested with life are usually given to a young girl at a public ceremony as a blessing and part of her education.

 

But in France, a judge will decide today whether 32 Hopi artifacts can go up for sale at an "art" auction. However the Hopi tribe, indigenous Native Americans or First Nations people, say those objects contain the spirits of ancestors, and selling them as commercial art is illegal.

 

The question "What is Art?" can have an open-ended answer. But what if that art is a really important part of one's own culture? A French judge will decide whether they can go up for sale at an art auction.
 
Laurel Morales is a reporter for Fronteras (frontiers, borders) based in Flagstaff, Arizona. She explains the details and whether this case may end different than a similar suit earlier this year. LISTEN

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Burma tilts towards civil war

Brian McCartan (Asia Times Online); image by Danno91

Myanmar (Burma) moved closer to civil war in recent weeks after fighting broke out in Kachin State, a former ceasefire area in the remote northern region.

Myanmar's newly elected government now faces ethnic insurgencies on three separate fronts, threatening internal and border security.

There is also the potential for more insurgent groups to take up arms and push their claims against the government. The escalating conflict is not going all the military's way and risks further stunting Myanmar's development and international confidence in its supposed democratic transition.

In the southeast, a revolt by formerly allied troops of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) on November 7, 2010, election day, resulted in the temporary seizure of two important border towns and the some 20,000 refugees fleeing into Thailand.

Although the government was able to retake the towns, fighting continued in the area and the group allied itself with the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the Karen National Union (KNU). More

Burma's diversity: Buddhists to Baptists

Shwedagon Pagoda, public access to the sacred shrine in the heart of Rangoon was the spark that ignited the military crackdown (Time.com).

(TIME photoessays) Living under the thumb of a brutal junta, the average Burmese hardly leads an easy life. But the plight of the country's ethnic minorities, many of whom once waged long and bloody insurgencies against the military regime, is even worse. As a new human-rights report released on Jan. 28, as well as the recent stories of destitute refugees who fled Burma attest to, members of Burma's ethnic groups face persistent discrimination by the military regime.

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• Burma: 19 years of Protest
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They are the targets of unpaid forced labor campaigns, scorched-earth policies that destroy farmland, and relocation programs that require entire villages to move at a moment's notice.

Rohingya
Perhaps the most exploited minority in Burma, the Rohingya are a Muslim group. (Visiting the Rohingya, Burma’s hidden population)
1. Shan
   Clustered in the northeastern hills of Burma, the Buddhist Shan were accorded a measure of self-rule by British colonialists, thought in total to number at least 5 million.
2. Chin
   Overwhelmingly Christian (Baptist converts), the Chin live in the impoverished mountains near the India-Burma border and have an armed wing, the Chin National Front. (Pictures: Junta blocking Burma from receiving aid after a cyclone)
3. Karen
   The second-largest ethnic group after the Burmans, comprised of both Christians and Buddhists, the Karen have also waged a long rebellion against the Burmese junta.
4. Kachin
   Mostly Christian, the Kachin live in northern Burma and were famous during colonial times for their battle skills.

Called "Myanmar" [which is simply a more correct pronunciation of Bamar] by its military leaders, Burma derives its name from the Buddhist Burman (or Bamar) people. The country's largest ethnic group, the Burman historically lived in Burma's central and upper plains. But this patchwork country of 55 million is made up of more than 100 unique ethnicities.

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The isolation enforced by Burma's numerous mountains and hills helped nurture these culturally discrete groups, making it one of the most diverse countries in Southeast Asia, despite its relatively small geographic size. Here are five ethnicities, some of who have unsuccessfully waged long insurgencies against the central government and others who have made news recently because of the abuses they have suffered at the hands of the Burman-dominated regime. See full story.

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