Organizer: Cornell University Olin Library

Description:

Forever navigating the political ambitions of their powerful neighbors, the Wa people have a rich civilization of their own, and an unusual history. Their mythology suggests that their land, a mountainous region in the borderlands between China and Myanmar, is the first place inhabited by humans and that the Wa themselves are bound to care for it on the world’s behalf.

Join Magnus Fiskesjö in a live, Chats in the Stacks as he discusses his new book, Stories from an Ancient Land Perspectives On Wa History And Culture, in which he introduces aspects of Wa culture, including their approach to the world’s troubles and the lessons others might learn from their methods. Fiskesjö’s research, which engages ethnohistory, fieldwork, archival research, and social theories, also presents a new interpretation of Wa headhunting, questioning explanations that see it as a primitive custom, and instead placing it within the fraught history of the last few centuries.

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