SOAN 115: Culture and Conflict
A Guide for Library Research Assignments
September 2007

You have an assignment to find information on a tribe. This tribe may be living in any part of the world. Finding the information can be an easy and straight forward process or it can be difficult and require elaborate searching; it all depends. It depends on how much you know about the tribe before you start and how much has been published. This guide has been assembled to make the process as easy as possible. Please consult the sources below. Some of them are print sources and others are online. Don't be duped into thinking the best or the most information is online; a well organized encyclopedia, such as those below, can be much easier to access than a Google search on the Internet.

If you have any questions please contact me via telephone at x1360 or e-mail.-- Tom Kirk


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Reference Sources

    This list is in an order that gives weight first to ease of use, completeness, and currency.

  • World Mark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life. ed. by Timothy L. Gall. 1998. 4 volumes.
    Ref GN 333 .W67
      v. 1: Africa; v. 2: Americas; v. 3: Asia and Oceania; v. 4: Europe. These four volumes have separate sections for each country and/or ethnic group (i.e., tribe). For each group the information is systematically presented under such headings as location and homeland; language; folklore; religion; major holidays; rites of passage; interpersonal relations; living conditions; family life; clothing; food; cultural heritage; work; sports; entertainment and recreation; folk art, crafts and hobbies; and social problems. A brief bibliography concludes each entry. A skeletal index for the entire set can be found at the back of each volume.

  • Encyclopedia of World Culture. Ed. by Timothy J. O'Leary & David Levinson. 1991-1996.
    Ref GN 307 .E53 1991.
      v. 1: North America; v. 2: Oceania; v. 3: South Asia; v. 4: Europe; v. 5: East & Southeast Asia; v. 6: Russia and Eurasia; v. 7: South America. These volumes provide clear, concise descriptions of the cultures of the world, covering history, economy, kinship, marriage and family, social organization, socialization, religion, etc. Each entry concludes with a short bibliography. Each volume also includes maps of ethnic areas. Prepared under the auspices of the Human Relations Area Files. Each volume has an index.

  • Illustrated Encyclopedia of Mankind. Ed. by Richard Carlisle and Yvonne Deutch. 1984. 21 volumes.
    Ref GN 307 .I44 1984.
      Volumes 1 to 15 provide ethnographic and historical information for over 500 peoples and culture groups existing in the twentieth century. Volumes 16 to 21 cover a wide range of general topics, such as trade, music, and crafts. The last volume has an index, population charts, a geographic guide, and a bibliography.

  • Area Handbooks Series.
      This is a series of volumes that provide a survey of history, culture, politics, and government of individual countries. Volumes usually contain information on native peoples. To find the appropriate volume you need to know in which country the tribe is located. Go to the Library Catalog (PALNI) and use the "Keywords" search. In the search box type "area handbook" followed by the name of the country (e.g., area handbook tanzania).

      Many of the Area Handbook Series volumes are also available on the web. And can be consulted at pages of the Library of Congress' Web site.

  • Encyclopedia of Anthropology. edited by H. James Birx. 2006. 5 vols.
    Ref GN 11.E63 2006
      This set covers anthropology from a variety of perspectives. Articles exist on subfields of anthropology (e.g., biogeography, architectural anthropology), methodologies (e.g., blood groups) individual anthropologists, subjects of study --both human and non-human, and anthropology of countries and regions of the world. The index for the complete set is printed in the back of each volume.

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Library Catalog

The libraries catalog can be reached from here. To find information on your tribe you should start with the most specific name of the tribal group. If that produces no useful hits then try broader terms that encompass larger groupings of people. For example the Mansi of Tibet were originally named the Voguls and they are one of two groups, the other the Khanti, who are Ugrian or Ob-Ugrian peoples. Any of these names may provide a useful index term for accessing information on a group of people. This kind of information on naming can be found in the reference works above.

Web Resources

  • Cultural Survival
      An organization dedicated to the rights of indigenous peoples and oppressed ethnic minorities. This site contains information on the organization, its projects, membership, and publications. Not systematically useful for basic information about individual tribes nor is it well organized for that purpose. A good source for news on indigenous peoples.

  • NativeWeb
      One of the most comprehensive sites on indigenous people worldwide however the focus is on North American indigenous peoples. Browse by subject, nation, geographic region, etc. Links to organizations, news sources, job listings, and more. It lacks the consistency and thoroughness of the first two print sources above.

  • WWW Virtual Library: Indigenous Peoples.
      • This Webliography provides an access point to a wide variety of Web sites on specific indigenous peoples. Like most Webliography it is uneven. It leads to some very good authoritative resources as well as crass commercial sites more interested in selling something than providing information and advocacy sites that do not provide a balanced presentation of information. Also the links may be dead or to sites that are now kept up to date. Despite the limitations this is one of the best access points to Web resources on indigenous peoples.

  • Evaluating Internet Resources.
      It is essential that you evaluate Internet Resources as you use them. The diversity of sources and their quality make it essential that you apply some basic criteria to the resources. To help you with that assessment by providing specific suggestions about how to evaluate an electronic resource, I recommend you consult with a document available on the Web prepared by Elizabeth Kirk, a librarian at Johns Hopkins University. The page is available at: http://www.library.jhu.edu/researchhelp/general/evaluating/. This page is also available from the Library's home page From the home page, go to Finding More and select Web Searching.

  • How to cite electronic resources.