Native Americans maintain a vast knowledge about curing diseases with plants and substances from their natural environment. What’s most interesting about this practice is that it understands and treats diseases not as disorders that are exclusive to the body or the soul, but in an amalgam of the two.

Rock paintings near the Rio Grande contain hidden 
messages about a mysterious 4,000-year-old religion. Now one archaeologist has learned to read them.

In a land straddling the Arctic Circle, where shifting lifestyles are coming to grips with the realities of Western culture, the arts of the Inuit still show evidence of a deep-rooted past.

The mood was one of celebration. The Yawalapiti, one of the 14 tribes living inside the Xingu National Park, were preparing a new “quarup,” a ritual held over several days to honor in death a person of great importance to them. In its original form, the quarup was a funeral ritual intended to bring the dead back to life. Today, it is a celebration of life, death and rebirth. From the very oldest to the very youngest, all the members of the Yawalapiti tribe participate in the preparations.

Seven years old and lounging in a tree listening to the radio, Baje Whitethorne Sr. wasn't aware of the lesson he was about to learn.
His grandfather called him down from the tree, saying it was time to go inside their home on the Navajo reservation and wait while the sun died and was reborn. There was going to be a solar eclipse.