In the lowland rainforest of the northwestern Amazon, where the great river and its countless tributaries thread through some of the most biologically rich country on earth, live the Yagua,

Deep in the Amazon rainforest along the Brazil-Venezuela border, the Yanomami have preserved a remarkably intact way of life, while facing an urgent modern fight against illegal mining.

Scattered across the mountains of southern China, from Guangxi and Hunan to Yunnan, live the Yao, one of the larger of the country’s ethnic minorities and one of the most

In the western Carolines lies the island that taught economics what money is: limestone discs quarried four hundred kilometers away in Palau, sailed home on rafts, and banked forever along

In the desert country of northwestern Mexico, where a great river cuts a green line through the thornscrub and cactus, live a people who have spent four centuries refusing to

In the far north of Australia, on the tropical coasts and floodplains of northeast Arnhem Land, live the Yolngu, one of the most culturally intact Aboriginal peoples of the continent.

In the forests and cities of southwestern Nigeria arose one of Africa’s most brilliant civilizations, a nation of crowned cities that produced sculpture to rival the world’s finest, a religious

On the grasslands and in the mountains of the Qilian range, in the far west of Gansu where the province narrows into the old Silk Road corridor, live the Yugur,

Across the tundra, river deltas, and Bering Sea coasts of western Alaska live the Yup’ik, whose name in their own language means the real people, and who count among the

Deep in the rainforest where eastern Ecuador meets northern Peru live the Zaparo, also known as the Sapara, a people whose story stretches back thousands of years and whose survival