indigenistas de norte y sur america

lovely kj from the nyrb gave me an old lonely planet peru book this weekend. yesterday, in the humid heat i walked to the park and read a bit. i was especially interested in the parts about indigenous peoples, and found many parallels with the dine'. the most interesting, i thought was the fact that it seems a lot of indigenous groups prefer a very light delicate handshake to the more hardy western version. there were also some interesting parallels between cocoa and mountain tobacco. And it seems that in every language the semantics of how one refers to indigenous people is important. indigenistas, not indios. native americans, not indians. or redskins for that matter. but my favorite part, was the mention of pouring a bit of alcohol out for mother earth. "Echamos una para la Pachamama." Just like pouring one out for my homies. ...I wonder what Lance is up to these days...