The Maya people constitute a diverse range of the Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America. The overarching term "Maya" is a collective designation to include the peoples of the region who share some degree of cultural and linguistic heritage; however, the term embraces many distinct populations, societies, and ethnic groups, who each have their own particular traditions, cultures, and historical identity.

There are an estimated 7 million Maya living in this area at the start of the 21st century.^[1] Ethnic Maya of Guatemala, southern Mexico and the Yucatán Peninsula, Belize, El Salvador, and western Honduras have managed to maintain substantial remnants of their ancient cultural heritage. Some are quite integrated into the majority hispanicized Mestizo cultures of the nations in which they reside, while others continue a more traditional culturally distinct life, often speaking one of the Maya languages as a primary language.

The largest populations of contemporary Maya inhabit Guatemala, Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador, as well as large segments of population within the Mexican states of Yucatán, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, and Chiapas.

Yucatán Peninsula[link]

Maya civilization
People Languages Society Religion Mythology Sacrifice Cities Architecture Calendar Stelae Art Textiles Trade Music Writing
History
Preclassic Maya
Classic Maya collapse
Spanish conquest of Yucatán
Spanish conquest of Guatemala
v t e

The largest group of modern Maya can be found on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. They commonly identify themselves simply as "Maya" with no further ethnic subdivision (unlike in the Highlands of Western Guatemala). They speak the language which anthropologists term "Yucatec Maya", but is identified by speakers and Yucatecos simply as "Maya". Among Maya speakers Spanish is commonly spoken as a second or first language. There is a significant amount of confusion as to the correct terminology to use—Maya or Mayan—and the meaning of these words with reference to contemporary or precolumbian peoples, to Mayan peoples in different parts of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and to languages or peoples. Linguists refer to Maya (language) as Yucatec or Yucatec Maya to disambiguate any confusion with other Mayan languages. This norm has often been misinterpreted to mean that the people are also called Yucatec Maya, but that term only refers to the language and the correct name for the people is simply Maya (not Mayans). Maya is one language in the Mayan language family. Thus, to refer to Maya as Mayans would be similar to referring to Americans as Germanics because they speak a language belonging to the Germanic language family.^[2] Further, confusion of the term Maya/Mayan as ethnic label occurs because Maya women who use traditional dress autoidentify by the ethnic term mestiza and not Maya.^[3] As well, persons use a strategy of ethnic identitification that Juan Castillo Cocom refers to as "ethnoexodus" -- meaning that ethnic self identification as Maya is quite variable, situational, and articulated not to processes of producing group identity but of escaping from discriminatory processes of sociocultural marginalization.^[4][5]

The Yucatán's indigenous population was first exposed to Europeans after a party of Spanish shipwreck survivors came ashore in 1511. One of the sailors, Gonzalo Guerrero, is reported to have started a family and taken up a position of counsel among a local polity near present-day Chetumal. Later Spanish expeditions to the region were led by Córdoba in 1517, Grijalva in 1518 and Cortés in 1519. From 1528 to 1540, several attempts by Francisco Montejo to conquer the Yucatán failed. His son Francisco de Montejo the Younger fared almost as badly when he first took over: while desperately holding out at Chichen Itza, he lost 150 men in a single day.^[6] European diseases, massive recruitment of native warriors from Campeche and Champoton, and internal hatred between the Xiu Maya and the lords of Cocom eventually turned the tide for Montejo the Younger and consequently resulted in the fall of Chichen Itza by 1570.^[6] In 1542, the western Yucatán peninsula also surrendered to him.

Historically, the population in the eastern half of the peninsula was less affected by and less integrated with Hispanic culture than that of the western half. Today in the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexican States of Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo) between 750,000 and 1,200,000 people speak Mayan. However three times more than that do not speak their native language but are from Maya origins and hold ancient Maya last names, such as Ak, Can, Chan, Be, Cantun, Canche, Chi, Chuc, Coyoc, Dzib, Dzul, Ehuan, Hoil, Hau, May, Tamay, Ucan, Pool, Zapo, etc..

Matthew Restall, in his book The Maya Conquistador,^[7] mentions a series of letters sent to the King of Spain in the 16th and 17th Centuries. The noble Maya families at that time signed documents to the Spanish Royal Family; surnames mentioned in those letters are Pech, Camal, Xiu, Ucan, Canul, Cocom, and Tun, among others.

A large 19th century revolt by the native Maya people of Yucatán (Mexico), known as the Caste War of Yucatán, was one of the most successful modern Native American revolts;^[8] results included the temporary existence of the Maya state of Chan Santa Cruz, recognized as an independent nation by the British Empire.

Francisco Luna-Kan was elected governor of the state of Yucatán from 1976 to 1982. Luna-Kan was born in Mérida, Yucatán, and he was a Doctor of medicine, then a Professor of Medicine before his political offices, his first being overseer of the state's rural medical system. He was the first Governor of in the modern Yucatán Peninsula, from a full Maya background. Currently there are dozens of politicians including Deputies, Majors and Senators from a full or mixed Maya heritage from the Yucatán Peninsula.

According to the National Institute of Geography and Informatics (Mexico's INEGI) in Yucatán State there were 1.2 million of Mayan speakers in 2009, representing 59.5% of the inhabitants.^[9] Due to this, the cultural section of the government of Yucatán began to give on-line classes for grammar and proper pronunciation of Maya.^[10]

Maya People from Yucatán Peninsula living in the United States of America have been organizing Maya language lessons and Maya cooking classes since 2003 in California and other states: clubs of Yucatec Maya^[11] are registered in Dallas and Irving, Texas; Salt Lake City in Utah; Las Vegas, Nevada; and California, with groups in San Francisco, San Rafael, Chino, Pasadena, Santa Ana, Garden Grove, Inglewood, Los Angeles, Thousand Oaks, Oxnard, San Fernando Valley and Whittier.^[11]

Chiapas[link]

Chiapas was for many years one of the regions of Mexico that were least touched by the reforms of the Mexican Revolution. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation, which launched a rebellion against the Mexican state in Chiapas in January 1994, declared itself to be an indigenous movement and drew its strongest and earliest support from Chiapan Maya, a number of whom still support it today. (see also the EZLN and the Chiapas conflict)

Maya groups in Chiapas include the Tzotzil and Tzeltal, in the highlands of the state, the Tojolabalis concentrated in the lowlands around Las Margaritas, and the Ch'ol in the jungle. (see map)

The most traditional of Maya groups are the Lacandon, a small population avoiding contact with outsiders until the late 20th century by living in small groups in the Lacandon Jungle. These Lacandon Maya came from the Campeche/Petén area (north-east of Chiapas) and moved into the Lacandon rain-forest at the end of the 18th century, 1000 years after the ancient (Pre-Columbian) Maya civilization had disappeared (around 850 A.D).

In the course of the 20th century, and increasingly in the 1950s and 1960s, other people (mainly the Maya and subsistence peasants from the highlands), also entered into the Lacandon region; initially encouraged by the government. This immigration led to land-related conflicts and an increasing pressure on the rainforest. To halt the migration the government decided in 1971 to declare a large part of the forest (614,000 hectares, or 6140 km²) a protected area: the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve. They appointed only one small population group (the 66 Lacandon families) as tenants (thus creating the Lacandon Community), thereby displacing 2000 Tzeltal and Ch'ol families from 26 communities, and leaving non-Lacandon communities dependent on the government for granting their rights to land. In the decades that followed the government carried out numerous programs to keep the problems in the region under control, using land distribution as a political tool; as a way of ensuring loyalty from different campesino groups. This strategy of divide and rule led to great disaffection and tensions among population groups in the region.
(see also the Chiapas conflict and the Lacandon Jungle).

Belize[link]

This section requires expansion.

The Maya population in Belize is concentrated in the Cayo, Toledo and Orange Walk districts, but they are scattered throughout the country. They are divided into the Yucatec, Kekchi, and Mopan.

Tabasco[link]

This section requires expansion.

The Mexican state of Tabasco is home to the Chontal Maya.

Guatemala[link]

Historical extent of where Mayan languages were predominantly spoken.

In Guatemala, the largest and most traditional Maya populations are in the western highlands. The departments of Baja Verapaz, Quiché, Totonicapán, Huehuetenango, Quetzaltenango, and San Marcos are mostly Maya.^[12]

In Guatemala, the Spanish colonial pattern of keeping the native population legally separate and subservient continued well into the 20th century. This resulted in many traditional customs being retained, as the only other option than traditional Maya life open to most Maya was entering the Hispanic culture at the very bottom rung.

Considerable identification with local and linguistic affinities, often corresponding to pre-Columbian nation states, continues, and many people wear traditional clothing that displays their specific local identity. Clothing of women tends to be more traditional than that of the men.

The Maya people of the Guatemala highlands include the Achi, Akatek, Chuj, Ixil, Jakaltek, Kaqchikel, K'iche', Mam, Poqomam, Poqomchi', Q'anjob'al, Q'eqchi', Tz'utujil and Uspantek.

The southeastern region of Guatemala (bordering with Honduras) includes groups such as the Ch'orti'. The northern lowland Petén region includes the Itza, whose language is near extinction but whose agro-forestry practices, including use of dietary and medicinal plants may still tell us much about pre-colonial management of the Maya lowlands.^[13]

Maya Heritage[link]

Guatemalan girls in their traditional clothing from the town of Santa Catarina Palopó on Lake Atitlán

The Maya people are known for their brightly colored yarn-based textiles, which are woven into capes, shirts, blouses, huipiles and dresses. Each village has its own distinctive pattern, making it possible to distinguish a person's home town on sight. Women's clothing consists of a shirt and a long skirt. Roman Catholicism combined with the indigenous Maya religion are the unique syncretic religion which prevailed throughout the country and still does in the rural regions. Beginning from negligible roots prior to 1960, however, Protestant Pentecostalism has grown to become the predominant religion of Guatemala City and other urban centers and down to mid-sized towns. The unique religion is reflected in the local saint, Maximón, who is associated with the subterranean force of masculine fertility and prostitution. Always depicted in black, he wears a black hat and sits on a chair, often with a cigar placed in his mouth and a gun in his hand, with offerings of tobacco, alcohol, and Coca-cola at his feet. The locals know him as San Simon of Guatemala.

The Popol Vuh is the most significant work of Guatemalan literature in the Quiché language, and one of the most important of Pre-Columbian American literature. It is a compendium of Mayan stories and legends, aimed to preserve Maya traditions. The first known version of this text dates from the 16th century and is written in Quiché transcribed in Latin characters. It was translated into Spanish by the Dominican priest Francisco Ximénez in the beginning of the 18th century. Due to its combination of historical, mythical, and religious elements, it has been called the Maya Bible. It is a vital document for understanding the culture of pre-Columbian America. The Rabinal Achí is a dramatic work consisting of dance and text that is preserved as it was originally represented. It is thought to date from the 15th century and narrates the mythical and dynastic origins of the Kek'chi' people, and their relationships with neighboring people. The Rabinal Achí is performed during the Rabinal festival of January 25, the day of Saint Paul. It was declared a masterpiece of oral tradition of humanity by UNESCO in 2005. The 16th century saw the first native-born Guatemalan writers that wrote in Spanish.

List of leaders and notable Maya people[link]

• Armando Manzanero Canché
• Jacinto Canek
• Rigoberta Menchú
• Felipe Carrillo Puerto
• Francisco Luna Kan
• Comandante Ramona
• Hilario Chi Canul
• Crescencio Poot
• Ah Ahaual
• Marcial Mes
• Gaspar Antonio Chi
• Juan Jose Pacho
• Alexandro Cirilo Perez Oxlaj

Quotes[link]

This section requires expansion.

• "We are not myths of the past, ruins in the jungle or zoos. We are people and we want to be respected, not to be victims of intolerance and racism." — Rigoberta Menchú, 1992.^[14]

See also[link]

• The Forgotten District, a documentary on Maya ecotourism in southern Belize, Central America
• 2012 The Mayan Word, a documentary on contemporary Maya perspectives on 2012

Notes[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Maya peoples

• Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya at the National Gallery of Art
• Learn more about Maya hieroglyphs and Maya numbering from the National Gallery of Art
• News, Articles, Videos, and Information on the Indigenous Maya
• Yax Te' Books homepage, publishing house in Philadelphia for Mayan literature.
• Cholsamaj Foundation homepage publishing house in Guatemala City for Mayan literature (note: many pages on the site not yet translated into English).
• Mystery of the Maya - Canadian Museum of Civilization
• A traditional Mayan horse race for the Todos Santos Holiday

Brian Eno
Eno at The Long Now Foundation, 26 June 2006
Background information
Birth name	Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno
Born	(1948-05-15) 15 May 1948 (age 64) Woodbridge, Suffolk, England
Genres	Experimental rock, ambient, minimalism, electronic, art rock, glam rock
Occupations	Producer, musician, songwriter, artist
Instruments	Synthesiser, piano, keyboards, vocals, organ, saxophone, guitar, bass
Years active	1970–present
Labels	Island, Polydor, EG, Obscure, Opal, Virgin, Astralwerks, All Saints Records, Rykodisc
Associated acts	Roxy Music, David Bowie, Coldplay, Talking Heads, Robert Fripp, Cluster, Devo, U2, David Byrne, Robert Wyatt, 801
Website	brian-eno.net
Music sample
Dune Prophecy Theme noicon

Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno^[1] (born 15 May 1948), commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno ( /ˈiːnoʊ/^{[citation needed]}), is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer, and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.^[2]

Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex, England, taking inspiration from minimalist painting. During his time on the art course at the Institute, he also gained experience in playing and making music through teaching sessions held in the adjacent music school.

He joined the band Roxy Music as keyboard and synthesiser player in the early 1970s. Roxy Music's success in the glam rock scene came quickly, but Eno soon tired of touring and of conflicts with lead singer Bryan Ferry.

Eno's solo music has explored more experimental musical styles and ambient music. It has also been extremely influential, pioneering ambient and generative music, innovating production techniques, and emphasising "theory over practice".^[3] He also introduced the concept of chance music to popular audiences, partially through collaborations with other musicians.^[4]

Eno has also worked as an influential music and album producer. By the end of the 1970s, Eno had worked with David Bowie on the seminal "Berlin Trilogy" and helped popularise the American band Devo and the punk-influenced "No Wave" genre. He produced and performed on three albums by Talking Heads, including Remain in Light (1980), and produced seven albums for U2, including The Joshua Tree (1987). Eno has also worked on records by James, Laurie Anderson, Coldplay, Depeche Mode, Paul Simon, Grace Jones and Slowdive, among others.

Eno pursues multimedia ventures in parallel to his music career, including art installations, a newspaper column in The Observer, a regular column on society and innovation in Prospect magazine, and "Oblique Strategies" (written with Peter Schmidt), a deck of cards in with cryptic remarks or random insights meant to resolve dilemmas. He continues to collaborate with other musicians, produce records, release his own music, and write.

Education and early musical career[link]

Brian Eno was born in 1948 at Phyllis Memorial Hospital, Woodbridge, Suffolk, and was educated at St Joseph's College, Birkfield, Ipswich, which was founded by the St John le Baptiste de la Salle order of Catholic brothers (from whom he took part of his name), at Ipswich Art School in Roy Ascott's Groundcourse and the Winchester School of Art, graduating in 1969. In school, he used a tape recorder as a musical instrument and experimented with his first, sometimes improvisational, bands. St. Joseph's College teacher and painter Tom Phillips encouraged him, recalling "Piano Tennis" with Eno, in which, after collecting pianos, they stripped and aligned them in a hall, striking them with tennis balls. From that collaboration, he became involved in Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orchestra. The first released recording in which Eno played is the Deutsche Grammophon edition of Cardew's The Great Learning (rec. Feb. 1971), as one of the voices in the recital of The Great Learning Paragraph 7. Another early recording was the Berlin Horse soundtrack, by Malcom Le Grice, a nine-minute, 2 × 16 mm-double-projection, released in 1970 and presented in 1971.^[5]

Roxy Music[link]

Brian Eno's professional music career began in London, as a member (1971–1973) of the glam/art rock band Roxy Music, initially not appearing on stage with them at live shows, but operating the mixing desk, processing the band's sound with a VCS3 synthesiser and tape recorders, and singing backing vocals. He then progressed to appearing on stage as a performing member of the group, usually flamboyantly costumed. He quit the band on completing the promotion tour for the band's second album, For Your Pleasure because of disagreements with lead singer Bryan Ferry and boredom with the rock star life.^[6]

In 1992, he described his Roxy Music tenure as important to his career: "As a result of going into a subway station and meeting Andy [saxophonist Andy Mackay], I joined Roxy Music, and, as a result of that, I have a career in music. If I'd walked ten yards further on the platform, or missed that train, or been in the next carriage, I probably would have been an art teacher now".^[7] During his period with Roxy Music, and for his first three solo albums, he was credited on these records only as 'Eno'.

Solo work[link]

Eno embarked on a solo career almost immediately. Between 1973 and 1977 he created four albums of largely electronically inflected pop songs – Here Come the Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Another Green World and Before and after Science, though the latter two also contained a number of minimal instrumental pieces in the so-called ambient style. Tiger Mountain contains the galloping "Third Uncle", one of Eno's best-known songs, owing in part to its later being covered by Bauhaus. Critic Dave Thompson writes that the song is "a near punk attack of riffing guitars and clattering percussion, 'Third Uncle' could, in other hands, be a heavy metal anthem, albeit one whose lyrical content would tongue-tie the most slavish air guitarist."^[8]

These four albums were remastered and reissued in 2004 by Virgin's Astralwerks label. Due to Eno's decision not to add any extra tracks of the original material, a handful of tracks originally issued as singles have not been reissued ("Seven Deadly Finns" and "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" were included on the deleted Eno Vocal Box set and the single mix of "King's Lead Hat" [which is an anagram of "Talking Heads"] has never been reissued).

During this period, Eno also played three dates with Phil Manzanera in the band 801, a "supergroup" that performed more or less mutated selections from albums by Eno, Manzanera, and Quiet Sun, as well as covers of songs by The Beatles and The Kinks.

In 1972, Eno developed a tape-delay system first utilised by Eno and Robert Fripp (from King Crimson), described as 'Frippertronics', and the pair released an album in 1973 called (No Pussyfooting). It is said the technique was borrowed from minimalist composer Terry Riley, whose tape delay feedback system with a pair of Revox tape recorders (a setup Riley used to call the "Time Lag Accumulator") was first used on Riley's album Music for The Gift in 1963.^[9] In 1975, Fripp and Eno released a second album, Evening Star, and played several live shows in Europe.

Eno's new methods of making sound into music called for new ways of notating his compositions. Like some 20th-century composers of "classical" music, he used graphic notation to represent what could not possibly be conveyed by conventional notes on a staff.^{[citation needed]}

Eno was a prominent member of the performance art-classical orchestra the Portsmouth Sinfonia – having started playing with them in 1972. In 1973 he produced the orchestra's first album The Portsmouth Sinfonia Plays the Popular Classics (released in March 1974) and in 1974 he produced the live album Hallellujah! The Portsmouth Sinfonia Live At The Royal Albert Hall of their infamous May 1974 concert (released in October 1974.) In addition to producing both albums, Eno performed in the orchestra on both recordings – playing the clarinet. Eno also deployed the orchestra's famously dissonant string section on his second solo album Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy). The orchestra at this time included other musicians whose solo work he would subsequently release on his Obscure label including Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman. That year he also composed music for the album Lady June's Linguistic Leprosy, with Kevin Ayers, to accompany the poet June Campbell Cramer.

Eno continued his career by producing a larger number of highly eclectic and increasingly ambient electronic and acoustic albums. He is widely credited with coining the term "ambient music",^[10] low-volume music designed to modify one's perception of a surrounding environment.

His first such work, 1975's Discreet Music (again created via an elaborate tape-delay methodology, which Eno diagrammed on the back cover of the LP ), is considered the landmark album of the genre. This was followed by his Ambient series (Music for Airports (Ambient 1), The Plateaux of Mirror (Ambient 2), Day of Radiance (Ambient 3) and On Land (Ambient 4)). Eno was the primary musician on these releases with the exception of Ambient 2 which featured Harold Budd on keyboard, and Ambient 3 where the American composer Laraaji was the sole musician playing the zither and hammered dulcimer with Eno producing.

In 1980 Eno provided a film score for Herbert Vesely's Egon Schiele Exzess und Bestrafung, also known as Egon Schiele Excess and Punishment. The ambient-style score was an unusual choice for a historical piece, but it worked effectively with the film's themes of sexual obsession and death.

In 1981, having returned from Ghana and before On Land, he discovered Miles Davis' 1974 track "He Loved Him Madly", a melancholy tribute to Duke Ellington influenced by both African music and Karlheinz Stockhausen: as Eno stated in the liner notes for On Land, "Teo Macero's revolutionary production on that piece seemed to me to have the "spacious" quality I was after, and like Federico Fellini's 1973 film Amarcord, it too became a touchstone to which I returned frequently."^[11]

Eno describes himself as a "non-musician" and coined the term "treatments" to describe his modification of the sound of musical instruments, and to separate his role from that of the traditional instrumentalist. His skill at using "The Studio as a Compositional Tool"^[12] (the title of an essay by Eno) led in part to his career as a producer. His methods were recognised at the time (mid-1970s) as unique, so much so that on Genesis's The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, he is credited with 'Enossification'; on Robert Wyatt's Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard with a Direct inject anti-jazz raygun and on John Cale's Island albums as simply being "Eno".

Obscure Records (label)[link]

Eno started the Obscure Records label in Britain in 1975 to release works by lesser-known composers. The first group of three releases included his own composition, Discreet Music, and the now-famous The Sinking of the Titanic (1969) and Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet (1971) by Gavin Bryars. The second side of Discreet Music consisted of several versions of Pachelbel's Canon, the composition which Eno had previously chosen to precede Roxy Music's appearances on stage, to which various algorithmic transformations have been applied, rendering it almost unrecognisable. Side 1 consisted of a tape loop system for generating music from relatively sparse input. These tapes had previously been used as backgrounds in some of his collaborations with Fripp, most notably on Evening Star. Only 10 albums were released on Obscure, including works by John Adams, Michael Nyman, and John Cage. At this time he was also affiliating with artists in the Fluxus movement.

Collaborations[link]

In 1975 Eno performed as the Wolf in a rock version of Sergei Prokofiev's classic Peter and The Wolf. Produced by Robin Lumley and Jack Lancaster, the album featured Gary Moore, Manfred Mann, Phil Collins, Stephane Grapelli, Chris Spedding, Cozy Powell, Jon Hiseman, Bill Bruford and Alvin Lee. Also in 1975, Eno provided synthesisers and treatments on Quiet Sun's Mainstream album alongside Phil Manzanera, Charles Hayward, Dave Jarrett, and Bill MacCormick, and he performed on and contributed songs and vocals to Phil Manzanera's Diamond Head album.

In 1980–1981, Eno collaborated with David Byrne of Talking Heads (which he had already anagrammatised as 'King's Lead Hat') on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which was built around radio broadcasts Eno collected while living in the United States, along with sampling recordings from around the world transposed over music predominately inspired by African and Middle Eastern rhythms.

He worked with David Bowie as a writer and musician on Bowie's influential 1977–79 'Berlin Trilogy' of albums, Low, "Heroes" and Lodger, on Bowie's later album Outside, and on the song "I'm Afraid of Americans". In 1980 Eno developed an interest in altered guitar tunings, which led to Guitarchitecture discussions with Chuck Hammer, former Lou Reed guitarist. Following on from his No-Wave involvement which brought him in contact with the "renegade" artist Greg Belcastro, who introduced him to the guitar techniques of a fledgling Sonic Youth, Eno has also collaborated with John Cale, former member of Velvet Underground, on his trilogy Fear, Slow Dazzle and Helen of Troy, Robert Wyatt on his Shleep CD, with Jon Hassell, with the German duo Cluster, with composers Harold Budd, Philip Glass and Roberto Carnevale. A new collaboration between David Byrne and Brian Eno titled Everything That Happens Will Happen Today was released digitally on 18 August 2008, with the enhanced CD released in October.

1990s[link]

In 1992, Eno released an album featuring heavily syncopated rhythms entitled Nerve Net, with contributions from several former collaborators including Robert Fripp, Benmont Tench, Robert Quine and John Paul Jones. This album was a last-minute substitution for My Squelchy Life, which featured more pop oriented material, with Eno on vocals. (Several tracks from My Squelchy Life later appeared on 1993's retrospective box set Eno Box II: Vocals.) Eno also released in 1992 a work entitled The Shutov Assembly, recorded between 1985 and 1990. This album embraces atonality and abandons most conventional concepts of modes, scales and pitch. Much of the music shifts gradually and without discernible focus, and is one of Eno's most varied ambient collections. Conventional instrumentation is eschewed, save for treated keyboards.

During the 1990s, Eno became increasingly interested in self-generating musical systems, the results of which he called generative music. The basic premise of generative music is the blending of several independent musical tracks, of varying sounds, length, and in some cases, silence. When each individual track concludes, it starts again mixing with the other tracks allowing the listener to hear an almost infinite combination. In one instance of generative music, Eno calculated that it would take almost 10,000 years to hear the entire possibilities of one individual piece. Eno has presented this music in his own, and other artists', art and sound installations, most notably "I Dormienti (The Sleepers)", Lightness: Music for the Marble Palace, Music for Civic Recovery Centre, The Quiet Room and "Music for Prague".

2000s[link]

In 2004, Fripp and Eno recorded another ambient collaboration album, The Equatorial Stars.

Eno returned in June 2005 with Another Day on Earth, his first major album since Wrong Way Up (with John Cale) to prominently feature vocals (a trend continued with Everything That Happens Will Happen Today). The album differs from his 1970s solo work as musical production has changed since then, evident in its semi-electronic production.

In early 2006, Eno collaborated with David Byrne, again, for the reissue of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts in celebration of the influential album's 25th anniversary. Eight previously unreleased tracks, recorded during the initial sessions in 1980/81, were added to the album, while one track, "Qu'ran", was removed in accordance with requests from Muslims.^[13] An unusual interactive marketing strategy coincided with its re-release, the album’s promotional website features the ability for anyone to officially and legally download the multi-tracks of two songs from the album, "A Secret Life" and "Help Me Somebody". Individuals can then remix and upload new mixes of these tracks to the website so others can listen to and rate them.

In late 2006, Eno released 77 Million Paintings, a program of generative video and music specifically for the PC. As its title suggests, there is a possible combination of 77 million paintings where the viewer will see different combinations of video slides prepared by Eno each time the program is launched. Likewise, the accompanying music is generated by the program so that it's almost certain the listener will never quite hear the same arrangement twice. The second edition of "77 Million Paintings" featuring improved morphing and a further two layers of sound was released on 14 January 2008. In June 2007, when commissioned in the Yerba Buena Center of the Arts in San Francisco, California, Annabeth Robinson (AngryBeth Shortbread) recreated 77 Million Paintings in Second Life.^[14]

In 2007, Eno's music was featured in a movie adaption of Irvine Welsh's best-selling collection Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance. He also appeared playing keyboards in Voila, Belinda Carlisle's solo album sung entirely in French.

Also in 2007, Eno contributed a composition titled "Grafton Street" to Dido's third album, Safe Trip Home, released in November 2008.^[15]

In 2008, he released Everything That Happens Will Happen Today with David Byrne, designed the sound for the video game Spore and wrote a chapter to Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture, edited by Paul D. Miller (a.k.a. DJ Spooky).

Eno revealed on radio in May 2009 that a skin graft he received as treatment for a severe burn on his arm was part human skin, part carbon fibre. He explained that as human skin is based on carbon, the experimental treatment was likely going to work out well for him, in spite of the fact that he feels a lightness in the affected arm.^[16]

In June 2009, Eno curated the Luminous Festival at Sydney Opera House, culminating in his first live appearance in many years. "Pure Scenius" consisted of three live improvised performances on the same day, featuring Eno, Australian improv trio The Necks, Karl Hyde from Underworld, electronic artist Jon Hopkins and guitarist Leo Abrahams.

Eno scored the music for Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Lovely Bones, released in December 2009.^[17]

2010s[link]

Brian Eno, 2011.

In May 2010, the same Pure Scenius line-up as in 2009 performed 'This is Pure Scenius!', in the same format of three live improvised performances on the same day, at the Brighton Festival in England. Also at the 2010 Brighton Festival, after a performance of Woojun Lee's live arrangement of 'Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks' by Icebreaker and BJ Cole, Eno and the band performed four of his songs.

Eno released a new solo album on Warp Records in late 2010. Small Craft on a Milk Sea, made in association with long-time collaborator Leo Abrahams and Jon Hopkins, was released on 2 November in the United States and 15 November in the UK.^[18] Eno also sang backing vocals on Anna Calvi's debut album on two songs "Desire" and "Suzanne & I".^[19]

He later released Drums Between The Bells,^[20] a collaboration with poet Rick Holland, on 4 July 2011, and the EP Panic Of Looking from the same recordings.

Record producer and other projects[link]

Record production[link]

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From the beginning of his solo career in 1973, Eno was in demand as a producer – though his management now describe him as a "sonic landscaper" rather than a producer. The first album with Eno credited as producer was Lucky Leif and the Longships by Robert Calvert. Eno's lengthy string of producer credits includes albums for Talking Heads, U2, Devo, Ultravox and James. He also produced part of the 1993 album When I Was a Boy by Jane Siberry. He won the best producer award at the 1994 and 1996 BRIT Awards.

Despite being a self-professed "non-musician", Eno has contributed to recordings by artists as varied as Nico, Robert Calvert, Genesis, David Bowie, and Zvuki Mu, in various capacities such as use of his studio/synthesiser/electronic treatments, vocals, guitar, bass guitar, and as just being 'Eno'. In 1984, he (along with several other authors) composed and performed the "Prophecy Theme" for the David Lynch film Dune; the rest of the soundtrack was composed and performed by the group Toto. Eno produced performance artist Laurie Anderson's Bright Red album, and also composed for it. The work is avant-garde spoken word with haunting and magnifying sounds. Eno played on David Byrne's musical score for The Catherine Wheel, a project commissioned by Twyla Tharp to accompany her Broadway dance project of the same name.

Eno co-produced The Unforgettable Fire (1984), The Joshua Tree (1987), Achtung Baby (1991), and All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000) for U2 with his frequent collaborator Daniel Lanois, and produced 1993's Zooropa with Mark "Flood" Ellis. In 1995, U2 and Eno joined forces to create the album Original Soundtracks 1 under the group name Passengers; songs from OST1 included "Your Blue Room" and "Miss Sarajevo". He also produced Laid (1993), Wah Wah (1994) and Pleased to Meet You (2001) for James.

Eno played on the 1986 album Measure for Measure by Australian band Icehouse. He remixed two tracks for Depeche Mode, "I Feel You" and "In Your Room", both single releases from the album Songs of Faith and Devotion in 1993. In 1995, Eno provided one of several remixes of "Protection" by Massive Attack (originally from their Protection album) for release as a single. The single also included more remixes by DJs J-Swift, Tom D, and Underdog.

In 2007, he produced the fourth studio album by Coldplay entitled Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends, which was released in 2008. Also in 2008, he worked with Grace Jones on her album Hurricane, credited for "production consultation" and as a member of the band, playing keyboards, treatments and background vocals. With frequent collaborator Daniel Lanois, he worked on the twelfth studio album by U2, titled No Line on the Horizon. It was recorded in Morocco, South France and Dublin and released in Europe on 27 February 2009.

In 2011, Eno and Coldplay reunited and produced Coldplay's fifth studio album Mylo Xyloto, released on 24 October of that year.

The Microsoft Sound[link]

In 1994, Microsoft corporation designers Mark Malamud and Erik Gavriluk approached Brian Eno to compose music for the Windows 95 project. The result was the six-second start-up music-sound of the Windows 95 operating system, The Microsoft Sound. In an interview with Joel Selvin in the San Francisco Chronicle he said:

The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I'd been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, "Here's a specific problem — solve it."

The thing from the agency said, "We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional," this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said "and it must be 3¹/₄ seconds long."^{[† 1]}

I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It's like making a tiny little jewel.

In fact, I made 84 pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when I'd finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time.^[21]

Eno shed further light on the composition of the sound on the BBC Radio 4 show The Museum of Curiosity, explaining that he created it using an Apple Mac computer, and stating "I wrote it on a Mac. I’ve never used a PC in my life; I don’t like them".^[22]

Generative music[link]

In 1996, he collaborated in developing the SSEYO Koan generative music system (by Pete Cole and Tim Cole of intermorphic) that he used in composing the hybrid music in the album Generative Music 1:

Some very basic forms of generative music have existed for a long time, but as marginal curiosities. Wind chimes are an example, but the only compositional control you have over the music they produce is in the original choice of notes that the chimes will sound. Recently, however, out of the union of synthesisers and computers, some much finer tools have evolved. Koan Software is probably the best of these systems, allowing a composer to control not one, but one-hundred and fifty musical and sonic parameters, within which the computer then improvises (as wind improvises the wind chimes).

The works I have made with this system symbolise, to me, the beginning of a new era of music. Until a hundred years ago, every musical event was unique: music was ephemeral and unrepeatable, and even classical scoring couldn't guarantee precise duplication. Then came the gramophone record, which captured particular performances, and made it possible to hear them identically, over and over again.

But now, there are three alternatives: live music, recorded music, and generative music. Generative music enjoys some of the benefits of both its ancestors. Like live music, it is always different. Like recorded music, it is free of time-and-place limitations — you can hear it when and where you want.

I really think it is possible that our grandchildren will look at us in wonder and say: "You mean you used to listen to exactly the same thing over and over again?"

As C.S.J. Bofop, in 1996, he said:

Each of the twelve pieces on Generative Music 1 has a distinctive character. There are, of course, the ambient works ranging from the dark, almost mournful "Densities III" (complete with distant bells), to [the] translucent "Lysis (Tungsten)". These are contrasted with pieces in dramatically different styles, such as "Komarek", with its hard-edged, angular melodies, reminiscent of Schoenberg's early serial experiments, and "Klee 42" whose simple polyphony is similar to that of the early Renaissance, but, of course, the great beauty of Generative Music is that those pieces will never sound quite that way again.

Other work[link]

Eno has also been active in other artistic fields, producing videos for gallery display and collaborating with visual artists in other endeavours. One is the set of "Oblique Strategies" cards that he and artist Peter Schmidt, produced in the mid-1970s, described as "100 Worthwhile Dilemmas" and intended as guides to shaking up the mind in the process of producing works of art. Another was his collaboration with artist Russell Mills on the book More Dark Than Shark. He was also the provider of music for Robert Sheckley's In the Land of Clear Colours, a narrated story with music originally published by a small art gallery in Spain.

Eno appeared as Father Brian Eno at the "It's Great Being a Priest!" convention, in "Going to America", the final episode of the television sitcom Father Ted, which originally aired on 1 May 1998 on Channel 4.

In March 2008 Eno collaborated with the Italian artist Mimmo Paladino on a show of the latter's works with Eno's soundscapes at Ara Pacis in Rome.

In 2008, Eno designed the procedurally-generated music for the video game Spore.^[23]

In October 2008, Eno collaborated with Peter Chilvers to create an application titled Bloom, Trope, and Air for the iOS platform.^[24]

Eno was the guest curator of the 2009 Sydney Festival and the 2010 Brighton Festival.^[25]

Lizard Point from On Land is featured in the 2010 film Shutter Island. The Song "An Ending" was also featured secretly in the 2011 feature film Drive during an elevator scene involving Ryan Gosling.

Influence[link]

Eno is frequently referred to as one of popular music's most influential artists.^[26] Critic Jason Ankeny at Allmusic argues that Eno "forever altered the ways in which music is approached, composed, performed, and perceived, and everything from punk to techno to new age bears his unmistakable influence."^[3] He has spread his techniques and theories primarily through his production; his distinctive style affected a number of projects he's been involved in, including Bowie's Berlin Trilogy (helping to popularise minimalism) and the albums he produced for Talking Heads (incorporating African music and polyrhythms on Eno's advice), Devo, and other groups.^[27] Eno's first collaboration with David Byrne, 1981's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, pioneered sampling techniques and broke ground by incorporating world music.^[28] Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies have been utilised by many bands, and Eno's production style has proven influential in several general respects: "his recording techniques have helped change the way that modern musicians – particularly electronic musicians – view the studio. No longer is it just a passive medium through which they communicate their ideas but itself a new instrument with seemingly endless possibilities."^[29]

While not the only inventor of ambient music, Eno is seen as a major contributor to the genre. The Ambient Music Guide argues that he has brought from "relative obscurity into the popular consciousness" fundamental ideas about ambient music, including "the idea of modern music as subtle atmosphere, as chill-out, as impressionistic, as something that creates space for quiet reflection or relaxation."^[29] His groundbreaking work in electronic music has been said to have brought widespread attention to and innovations in the role of electronic technology in recording.^[30]

In 2001 Half Man Half Biscuit released an EP entitled "Eno Collaboration", which contains a track of the same name.

MGMT wrote a song about Eno, called "Brian Eno", in their 2010 album Congratulations.

In 2011, Belgian academics from the Royal Museum for Central Africa named a species of Afrotropical spider Pseudocorinna brianeno in his honour.^[31]

Politics[link]

Brian Eno has been active politically throughout his life, frequently writing letters to government ministers, appearing on political debates, and writing newspaper columns to express his political views. He was sharply critical of the Thatcher government's decision to reduce funding to the BBC World Service, arguing that the £5 million cut to its £25 million budget was damaging, and was the equivalent cost of "just one wing of one F-16 fighter jet"- a reference to a large order of military hardware the government had just made.^{[citation needed]}

In 1996, Eno and others started the Long Now Foundation to educate the public about the very long term future of society.^[32] He is also a columnist for the British newspaper The Observer.

In 2003, he appeared on a UK Channel 4 discussion about the Iraq war with a top military spokesman; Eno was highly critical of the war. In 2005, he spoke at an anti-war demonstration in Hyde Park, London. In March 2006, he spoke at an anti-war demonstration at Trafalgar Square; he noted that 2 billion people on this planet do not have clean drinking water, and that water could have been supplied to them for about one-fifth of the cost of the Iraq war.^{[citation needed]}

The Nokia 8800 Sirocco Edition mobile phone features exclusive music composed by Eno.^[33] Between 8 January 2007 and 12 February 2007, ten units of Nokia 8800 Sirocco Brian Eno Signature Edition mobile phones, individually numbered and engraved with Eno's signature were auctioned off. All proceeds went to two charities chosen by Eno: the Keiskamma Aids Treatment program and The World Land Trust.^[34]

In 2006, Eno was one of more than 100 artists and writers who signed an open letter calling for an international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions.^[35]

In December 2007, the newly-elected Leader of Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, appointed Eno as his youth affairs adviser.^[36]

In January 2009, Eno spoke out against Israel's military action on the Gaza Strip by writing an opinion for CounterPunch and participating in a large-scale protest in London.^[37][38]

Discography[link]

Studio albums

Solo albums

• Here Come the Warm Jets (1973), Island
• Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) (1974), Island
• Another Green World (1975), Island
• Discreet Music (1975), Obscure
• Before and After Science (1977), Polydor
• Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1978), Polydor
• Music for Films (1978), Polydor
• Ambient 4: On Land (1982), E.G.
• Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks (1983), E.G.
• More Music for Films (1983), E.G.
• Thursday Afternoon (1985), E.G.
• Nerve Net (1992), Opal
• The Shutov Assembly (1992), Warner Bros.
• Neroli (1993), All Saints
• The Drop (1997), Thirsty Ear
• Another Day on Earth (2005), Hannibal

Ambient installation albums

• Extracts From Music for White Cube (1997), Opal
• I Dormienti (1998), Opal
• Lightness: Music for the Marble Palace (1998), Opal
• Kite Stories (1999), Opal
• Music for Civic Recovery Centre (2000), Opal
• Compact Forest Proposal (2001), Opal
• January 07003: Bell Studies for the Clock of the Long Now (2003), Opal
• Making Space (2010), Opal

Bibliography[link]

• Bracewell, Michael Roxy Music: Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Art, Ideas, and Fashion (Da Capo Press, 2005) ISBN 0-306-81400-5
• Eno, Brian, Russell Mills and Rick Poynor More Dark Than Shark (Faber & Faber, 1986, out of print)
• Espartaco Carlos Eduardo Sanguinetti: The Experience of Limits, p. 9 (Ediciones de Arte Gaglianone, first published 1989) ISBN 950-9004-98-7
• Eno, Brian A Year with Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno's Diary (Faber & Faber, 1996) ISBN 0-571-17995-9
• I Dormienti with Mimmo Paladino (2000). Limited edition of 2000.
• Sheppard, David On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno (Orion Books, 2008) ISBN 978-0-7528-7570-5
• Tamm, Eric Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound (Da Capo Press, 1995, first published 1989) ISBN 0-306-80649-5
• Dayal, Geeta 33 1/3: Brian Eno's Another Green World (Continuum 2007) ISBN 978-0-8264-2786-1

Footnotes[link]

1. ^ The eventual length of The Microsoft Sound as supplied and used was roughly 6 seconds, not 3¹/₄.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Brian Eno

• Brian Eno discography at Discogs
• Paul Morley interviews Eno in The Guardian, 17 Jan 2010
• Interview with Brian Eno from The Guardian, 19 May 2006
• Brian Eno: The Philosophy of Surrender interview November 2008

Raoni Metuktire, Kaye, Kadjor and Panara, leaders of the Indigenous Kayapo tribe, Mato Grosso, Brazil.

Sven-Roald Nystø, Aili Keskitalo and Ole Henrik Magga, the three first presidents of the Norwegian Sami Parliament.

The New Zealand delegation endorses the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in April 2010.

Baka dancers in the East Province of Cameroon

Inuit people on a traditional qamutik (dog sled), Cape Dorset, Canada

Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as "indigenous" according to one of the various definitions of the term, though there is no universally accepted definition.^[1]

In the late twentieth century, the term began to be used primarily to refer to ethnic groups that have historical ties to groups that existed in a territory prior to colonization or formation of a nation state, and which normally preserve a degree of cultural and political separation from the mainstream culture and political system of the nation state within the border of which the indigenous group is located.^[2] The political sense of the term defines these groups as particularly vulnerable to exploitation and oppression by nation states. As a result, a special set of political rights in accordance with international law have been set forth by international organizations such as the United Nations, the International Labour Organization and the World Bank.^[3] The United Nations have issued a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to protect the collective rights of indigenous peoples to their culture, identity, language, employment, health, education and natural resources. Depending on which precise definition of "indigenous people" used, and on the census, estimates of a world total population of Indigenous people range from 220 million Indigenous peoples in 1997^[4] to 350 million in 2004.^[2]

Definitions[link]

Ati woman, the Philippines, 2007.^[5] The Negritos were the earliest inhabitants of Southeast Asia.^[6]

The adjective indigenous has the common meaning of "from" or "of the original origin". Therefore, according to its meaning in common usage in English, any given people, ethnic group or community may be described as being indigenous in reference to some particular region or location. However during the late twentieth century the term Indigenous peoples evolved into a legal category that refers to culturally distinct groups that had been affected by the processes of colonization. These are usually collectives that have preserved some degree of cultural and political separation from the mainstream culture and political system that has grown to surround or dominate them economically, politically, culturally, or geographically.

The status of the indigenous group in this relationship can be characterized in most instances as an effectively marginalized, isolated or minoritised one, in comparison to other groups or the nation-state as a whole. Their ability to influence and participate in the external policies that may exercise jurisdiction over their traditional lands and practices is very frequently limited. This situation can persist even in the case where the indigenous population outnumbers that of the other inhabitants of the region or state; the defining notion here is one of separation from decision and regulatory processes that have some, at least titular, influence over aspects of their community and lands.

The presence of external laws, claims and cultural mores either potentially or actually act to variously constrain the practices and observances of an indigenous society. These constraints can be observed even when the indigenous society is regulated largely by its own tradition and custom. They may be purposefully imposed, or arise as unintended consequence of trans-cultural interaction; and have a measurable effect even where countered by other external influences and actions deemed to be beneficial or which serve to promote indigenous rights and interests within the wider community.

A definition of "indigenous people" has criteria which includes cultural groups (and their continuity or association with a given region, or parts of a region, and who formerly or currently inhabit the region) either:

• before or its subsequent colonization or annexation, or
• alongside other cultural groups during the formation or reign of a colony or nation-state, or
• independently or largely isolated from the influence of the claimed governance by a nation-state,

and who:

• have maintained at least in part their distinct cultural, social/organizational, or linguistic characteristics, and in doing so remain differentiated in some degree from the surrounding populations and dominant culture of the nation-state, and
• are self-identified as indigenous, or those recognized as such by other groups.

Another defining characteristic for an indigenous group is that it has preserved traditional ways of living, such as present or historical reliance upon subsistence-based production (based on pastoral, horticultural and/or hunting and gathering techniques), and a predominantly non-urbanized society. Not all indigenous groups share these characteristics. Indigenous societies may be either settled in a given locale/region or exhibit a nomadic lifestyle across a large territory, but are generally historically associated with a specific territory on which they are dependent. Indigenous societies are found in every inhabited climate zone and continent of the world.^[3][7]

There are various formulations of these defining characteristics in existence. Most are commonly drawn from a few widely-acknowledged authorities, in particular the Martínez Cobo – WGIP statement. These several definitions are recognised and employed by international and rights-based non-governmental organizations, as well as among national/sub-national governments themselves. The degree to which indigenous peoples' rights and issues are accepted and recognised in practical instruments such as treaties and other binding and non-binding agreements varies, sometimes considerably.

Many organizations advocating for indigenous rights, and the indigenous communities themselves, seek to particularly and explicitly identify peoples in this position as indigenous. This identification may also be made or acknowledged by the surrounding communities and nation-state, although there are some instances where the identity claim is the subject of some dispute, particularly with regard to recognizing assertions made over territorial rights. Even if all the above criteria are fulfilled, some people may either not consider themselves as indigenous or may not be considered as indigenous by governments, organizations or scholars.

United Nations[link]

Veddha chief Uruwarige Wannila Aththo, leader of the indigenous people Sri Lanka.

Orang Asli near Cameron Highlands , Malaysia playing a nose flute.

In 1972 the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations (WGIP) accepted as a preliminary definition a formulation put forward by Mr. José Martínez Cobo, Special Rapporteur on Discrimination against Indigenous Populations:

Indigenous populations are composed of the existing descendants of the peoples who inhabited the present territory of a country wholly or partially at the time when persons of a different culture or ethnic origin arrived there from other parts of the world, overcame them, by conquest, settlement or other means, reduced them to a non-dominant or colonial condition; who today live more in conformity with their particular social, economic and cultural customs and traditions than with the institutions of the country of which they now form part, under a state structure which incorporates mainly national, social and cultural characteristics of other segments of the population which are predominant.

This definition has some limitations which were subsequently noted by the organization. The definition applies mainly to pre-colonial populations, and would likely exclude other isolated or marginal societies. In 1983 the WGIP enlarged this definition (FICN. 41Sub.211983121 Adds. para. 3 79) to include the following criteria:

• (a) they are the descendants of groups, which were in the territory at the time when other groups of different cultures or ethnic origin arrived there;
• (b) precisely because of their isolation from other segments of the country's population they have almost preserved intact the customs and traditions of their ancestors which are similar to those characterised as indigenous;
• (c) they are, even if only formally, placed under a state structure which incorporates national, social and cultural characteristics alien to their own.

In 1986 it was further added that any individual who identified himself or herself as indigenous and was accepted by the group or the community as one of its members was to be regarded as an indigenous person (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1986/7/Add.4. para.381).

The draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples prepared by the DWIG does not provide a specific definition of indigenous peoples or populations. According to the Chairperson, Ms. Erica Irene Daes, Rapporteur of the Working Group, this was because "historically, indigenous peoples have suffered, from definitions imposed by others" (E/CN.4/Sub.2/AC.4/1995/3, page 3).

International Labour Organisation[link]

A definition as used by the International Labour Organisation (Convention No. 169, concerning the working rights of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, 1989) applies to:

both tribal peoples whose social, cultural and economic conditions distinguish them from other sections of the national community and whose status is regulated wholly or partially by their own customs or traditions or by special laws or regulations, and to peoples who are regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from the populations which inhabit the country at the time of conquest or colonisation.

World Bank[link]

A description of Indigenous Peoples given by the World Bank (operational directive 4.20, 1991) reads as follows:

Indigenous Peoples can be identified in particular geographical areas by the presence in varying degrees of the following characteristics:

a) close attachment to ancestral territories and to the natural resources in these areas;

b) self-identification and identification by others as members of a distinct cultural group;

c) an indigenous language, often different from the national language;

d) presence of customary social and political institutions;

and e) primarily subsistence-oriented production.