Item Detail
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30828
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0
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0
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English
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Lost Tribes : Indigenous People and the Social Imaginary
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Anthropological Quarterly
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April 1997
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70
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2
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Washington, D.C.
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George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research
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58-67
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How should one make sense of contemporary sightings of "lost tribes" in the marginal spaces of the world system? The European myth model (Obeyesekere 1992) of the "lost tribe" is drawn from accounts of the ten lost tribes of ancient Israel. It was invoked by colonial powers and missionaries in their efforts to remake the histories of indigenous peoples, and is the basis for continuing efforts to locate descendants of the missing ten tribes. When applied to remote and relatively isolated indigenous populations, however, the European myth model of the lost tribe obscures differences in their histories and ignores their agency in current social interactions.