Remembering the Beja Nomads

in a Time of Turmoil

With a revealing memoir and striking photographs, Peter J. Marchand reflects on the Beja nomads of the Red Sea Hills and contemplates the fate of nomadic peoples the world over, as population growth and economic forces chip away at the edges of indigenous cultures everywhere. "Little by little," he writes, these encroachments exact their toll on the voiceless and invisible, sapping the life of their culture like an ancient tree silently dying one root at a time." It is a regretable loss, Marchand suggests, as indigenous cultures preserve a rich store of ideas and values that might one day come to our rescue.