The Russian Itelmen look a lot like the natives in the Americas and they may just be relatives. The short article states that it's somewhat unknown if their dress and rituals have survived since before the great migration or if they're simply taking current Native tradition and making it their own. Either way, it's an interesting photoessay that the article links to.

Some people like to say that ancient tribal peoples migrated to the US from Asia thousands of years ago, but I think it was the other way around. We were created here in America, with the creation stories to back it up, and migrated and filled the other lands. I think the Mormons even say that the Garden of Eden was around Michigan somewhere. Now add to that the fact that Adam and Eve were Indian and I think we're getting somewhere :)

Fascinating color film shot in London during the late 1920's. It's amazing to see history in these everyday shots in a time that I know nearly nothing about. I'm a fan of The Great Gatsby, so that's as much as I know about the 20's.

Chile's president has apologised to the descendants of a group of indigenous people who were shipped to Europe in the late 19th Century and exhibited.

A very long and very interesting article concerning the Pirahã Amazonian tribe and their language. The article follows a lapsed American missionary as he continues to work with this tribe's linguistics, hoping to fully understand everything that makes up such a hard to understand language. The problem lies in the tribe's resistance to anything outside of their experience, or anything outside of what they know. As such, they don't follow traditional linguistic patterns that most languages follow. Yet the most interesting parts, to me, were the talk of the tribe's resistance to Christianity as there were several missionaries dispatched to evangelize the tribe.

Everett, the American linguist/ex-missionary, explains that the tribe lives completely in the "now." They don't have any concept of abstract ideas, and it's not that they can't think about abstracts, it's because they don't want to. They stick with what they know and experience instead of philosophy. So when a person walks out of sight of the tribe, that person is deemed "out of experience" instead of gone. Any sort of talk of Christianity and its ideas fall on deaf ears as it's hard to get the Pirahã to understand it as an "experience."

Everett's ex-wife still works with the tribe as a missionary trying to figure out the language enough to translate the gospel. She's found that the key to understanding the language may be in their songs.

The last known speaker of a 65,000 year old language,Boa Sr, died a week ago. In the video above we get to hear a small sample of a language that was somewhat melodic, or maybe she was just singing in her language.

Boa was from the tribe Bo, from around Bangladesh/India area, which is thought to be one of 10 tribes that can be traced back to the "pre-Neolithic period" when people started migrating.

My dad posted this on facebook.

What I want you to do,” Pretty On Top told them, “is help people put up their tepees or tents. Don’t mention the church. Don’t preach. Go out there and help them. You have to build relationships first.

I've been thinking a lot about the most effective ways to minister to people, to tell people about Jesus in a genuine manner that affects their heart. Is the most effective way to start every conversation with Jesus loves you and proceed from there, or is the most effective way to spend time with people and gain an actual friendship which then would lead to discussions about Jesus etc.

Both ways work, it's just how effective are they. How effective is bombarding someone you don't know with Jesus? I see door to door salesman as annoying, no matter what their product is, but they do make sales otherwise they wouldn't do it. The same goes for evangelizing in the same manner.

On the other hand, it seems nice to say that we should build relationships first then start talking about Jesus. That one seems the most genuine externally, that someone would take time out of their life to help another person. It builds loyalty and respect for both parties, and God knows we need more discipleship to accompany our evangelizing. My only problem for this approach is a "What if." What if someone your helping dies suddenly before you get to the point of telling them about Jesus?

Anyway, this article about Rev. Pretty On Top getting a new church building opens up later into his philosophy for the Church and loving God.