The Asian Reporter
Pacific Northwest News q Volume 25 Number 21 q November 2, 2015 q www.asianreporter.com
Cultural sharing trumps sports
at World Indigenous Games
Koreans hold reunions
across the DMZ
Page 2
Wastage costs city the
Guinness fried rice title
Page 5
INDIGENOUS OLYMPICS. A Matis indigenous man from Brazil watches a soccer game at the World Indigenous Games in Palmas, Brazil, last month. Billed as the
indigenous Olympics, supersized Maori from New Zealand, diminutive Aeta from the Philippines, and native peoples of all shapes and sizes in between tested their mettle
at the first event, a chaotic, kaleidoscopic celebration of first peoples from around the globe. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
agricultural outpost in Brazil’s scorched Siberian furs in defiance of the sweltering
By Jenny Barchfield
heartland, the sports themselves took a tropical heat — the commonalities that
The Associated Press
back seat to what they said really mattered unite indigenous people from around the
ALMAS, Brazil — Supersized — cross-cultural sharing and learning.
globe were palpable, Oksasikewiyin said.
Maori from New Zealand, diminu-
“This restores your faith in humanity,” From Ethiopia to Ecuador, first peoples
tive Aeta from the Philippines, and said Lamarr Oksasikewiyin, a 46-year-old worldwide are still reeling from the linger-
native peoples of all shapes and sizes in schoolteacher from the Nehiyaw people of ing effects of colonialism and fighting to
between tested their mettle at the first Canada’s Saskatchewan province, as he preserve their cultures and lands, he said.
World Indigenous Games, a chaotic, followed round one of the spear-throwing
“We see we’re all in the same boat,” he
kaleidoscopic celebration of first peoples competition. “An elder once told me that shouted over the roar of spectators, who
from around the globe.
our culture will save us. I think this is what cheered a particularly impressive spear
Organizers billed the nine-day event as a he meant.”
toss. “Being here, all together, it becomes
sort of indigenous Olympics.
Despite the obvious differences between so clear.”
But for many of the nearly 2,000 participants — Brazil’s Tapirape wore only
The event arrived one year after Brazil
participants from some 20 countries who body paint and tiny loincloths while the played host to soccer’s World Cup and
converged on host city Palmas, a remote sole Russian delegate was covered in
Continued on page 16
P
Lasers may ease
pain for ‘napalm girl’
Page 8
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