In his introduction to this striking portrait collection, anthropologist David Maybury-Lewis writes, "In the beginning we were all tribal," a simple yet resonant observation that helps explain the depth of our response to the glorious displays of body ornamentation so lovingly documented here. Not only were our ancestors tribal, but they were also intimately connected to nature, a bond still celebrated in select cultures in their use of feathers, bone, seeds, and leaves in various forms of adornment. In tropical climes, where skin can be exposed to the elements, body painting, tattoos, scarification, and piercings are still used to create elaborate designs signifying religious and social identities. It is a tragedy that so few, yet a miracle that any, tribal cultures survive, a harsh reality that imparts a sense of respect and concern to this elegant volume, in the photographs themselves, in the thoughtful foreword by former model Iman, and in the capsule histories of the tribes portrayed from Africa, Thailand, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and North and South America. Donna Seaman
From Kirkus Reviews
From the Maasai of Kenya to the Kayapo of Brazil and the Dani of Indonesia, photographer Wolfe has traveled around the world to capture the remaining indigenous peoples in all the startling beauty of their native garb: startling in the bright red and yellow body paint of the Huli warrior, in a Yanomamo woman's face pierced with narrow bones, the scarification of a male Bumi's torso, the geometrical paintings on the buttocks of a Surma couple, and the full-body tatoos of Polynesia. Wolfe offers an extraordinary panorama of the body as the original artist's canvas, as living ritual object, as field for self-expression. In a fitting foreword supermodel Iman (a native of Somalia) notes, ``We all share in common a basic human desire to present ourselves as something beyond what we are.'' Wolfe's photos offer a striking illustration of that desire. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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