Sounding on Anthropology and Archaeology for February 8, 2010

• A film about Melville J Kerskovits (1865-1963), Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness, aired on PBS stations last week. Should be available online soon, I hope, if it’s not already.
• BoingBoing has been developing an interest in the work of Wade Davis on Haitian Vodou, which has taken on new resonance in the wake of the earthquake that has devastated the Western Half of the island and so profoundly affected the entire diaspora. Davis’ work has the potential to play a large role in ongoing discussions about trance and possession.
• Boa Sr, the last speaker of the Bo language, and the last member of the Bo group of the Andaman Islands of India, has passed. Her passing was noted by many news organizations, from New Mandala, Gáldu (Resource Center for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples), ,  and the Asian Sentinel, which reprinted this picture from the article published by Survival International.



• Somewhat happier, the Asia Society exhibit on the Arts of Ancient Vietnam: From River Plain to Open Sea, is open! Whoo hoo!
  [catalog available from Amazon]
• A strange place to find usage of anthropological reflection on the practice of gift-giving, I’m continually surprised by the reflections of John Robb, security analyst consultant for the DOD; this post poses a question previously asked in a sustained way by Georges Bataille, in his The Accursed Share, vol. I.
• 8,000 year old human remains discovered in Malaysia.