Wampum

Inside the blogo-bubble, where all things are (momentarily) "Abramoff" or "Abramoff and his clients"), but nothing is really indigenous, you are missing the big picture. Yesterday a person walked barefoot up the Akapana pyramid, in the archaic pre-Inka, and modern iconic Tiwanaku, placed himself under the red mantle of the sun, accepted the gold-and-silver staff, and stood in the cracked Gateway of the Sun. That person is the elected president of an American State. He states "Today begins a new era for the native peoples of the world". In Spanish and Aymara.

"Federal Recognition" means the same thing today it ment yesterday, but treasured wampum belt treaties held here or in Rome and Paris and London have always been more valued.

The "Department of Indians" will be closed. Indians will be in the Government. The "Department of Women" will be closed. Women will be in the Government. A "Department of Europeans" will not be created, though the joke does have legs.

Anna Shea's piece, Wealth of the land produces poverty in Bolivia in Rabble.Ca, a home for the NDP-inclined Canadian Progressives, and Annie Murphy's Felipe Quispe: The Other in the New Socialist, are interesting reading.

La Paz and Sucre are now the peers of Rome, Lisbon, Madrid, London and Paris.