In eastern Germany lives the smallest Slavic nation: the Sorbs of Lusatia. An honest portrait of a people who kept their language and customs through a thousand years of foreign rule.

A people of the North Caucasus bound by clans and a fierce code of honor, who endured a genocidal deportation and two devastating wars yet refused to surrender their identity. The story of the Chechens, their language, their faith, and their long struggle.

Heirs of the Phoenicians who gave the world the alphabet, a mosaic of religious communities, and a vast global diaspora. The story of the Lebanese, their cosmopolitan brilliance, their devastating civil war, and the resilience of the land of the cedars.

Along the Volga lives a Finno-Ugric people who kept an ancient nature religion alive into the present. An honest portrait of the Mari and their holy groves.

Heirs to the kingdom of Sheba, builders of desert skyscrapers and the people who gave the world coffee, the Yemenis endure an ancient glory and a present tragedy.

From the birthplace of the Buddha to the summit of Everest, Nepal gathers a hundred peoples and two great faiths into one never-colonized Himalayan nation of Sherpas, Newars, and Gurkhas.

One of the largest Tibeto-Burman peoples of Nepal, the Tamang have long lived in the hills ringing Kathmandu, blending Tibetan Buddhism, a tonal language, and the rhythm of the damphu drum.

One of Nepal’s most ancient peoples, the Kirat – the Rai and Limbu of the eastern hills – keep an indigenous nature religion, the Mundhum scripture, the Sirijunga script, and the Sakela dance.

The Assamese of the Brahmaputra valley, their easternmost Indo-Aryan language, the Ahom kingdom that stopped the Mughals, Sankardeva and the satras, the tea industry, Kaziranga, Bihu, and the questions of identity in India’s northeast.

A series exploring ten of the world’s most fascinating and overlooked peoples, from the Arctic Sami to the Mari keepers of the sacred groves.