Looked up some info for a RL friend. Figured some folks on the f-list might be interested as well.

Excerpt from Joseph Carrier and Stephen Murray's article "Woman-woman marriage in Africa" :

Woman-woman marriage - in which one woman pays brideprice to acquire a husband's rights to another woman - has been documented in more than thirty African populations, including at least 9 Bantu-speaking groups in present-day southern Africa and Botswana - Sotho, Koni, Tawana, Hurutshe, Pedi, Venda, Lovedu, Phalaborwa, Narene, and Zulu. In these groups, female political leaders are also common. These women chiefs rarely have male husbands... Indeed, among the Lovedu, the queen was prohibited from having a male husband and was required instead to have a wife...

In East Africa, female husbands have been mentioned among the Kuria, Iregi, Kenye, Suba, Simbiti, Ngoreme, Gusti, Kipsigis, Nandi, Kikuyu and Luo. In Sudan, they occured among the Nuer, Dinka, and Shilluk; in West Africa ... they existed among the Dahomean Fon, as well as the Yoruba, Ibo, Ekiti, Bunu, Akoko, Yagba, Nupe, Ijaw, the Nzema, and the Ganagan/Dibo...

Corporations all over the United States... have created corporate logos and trademarks with an "Indian" theme in mind. From the ridiculous photos on the door of the trucks of the "Navajo" trucking company depicting a Native woman in stereotypical "Indian princess" garb, and for some bizarre reason, with deep blue eyes, to the other "Indian princess" depicted on the "Land O Lakes" butter packages, stereotypical images of Native Americans are everywhere...

The portrayal of Indian mascots in sports takes many forms. Teachers should research the matter and discover that Native Americans would never have associated the sacred practices of becoming a warrior with the hoopla of a high school pep rally, half-time entertainment, being a sidekick to cheerleaders, or royalty in homecoming pageants. Most of these types of activities carry racial overtones of playing Indian in school events... Indian mascots exhibit either idealized or comical facial features ...

They also use mock-Indian behaviors, such as the tomahawk chop, dances, chants, drumbeating, war-whooping, and symbolic scalping. These negative images, symbols, and behaviors play a crucial role in distorting and warping Native American childrens' cultural perceptions of themselves as well as non-Indian childrens' attitudes toward Native Americans....

The harm here is not that all Native American nicknames are insults on the order of Washington's Redskins. It's that nearly all of them freeze Native Americans in an all-encompassing, one-dimensional pose: the raging, spear-wielding, bareback-riding, cowboy-killing, woo-woo-wooing warriors this country has caricatured, demonized, and tried mightily to exterminate...

"Native Americans have been trying for years to get rid of names like Neshaminy and Ridley [the Green Raiders] use. To me, it's 'Who cares?' They'll get around to changing the names... We were the first Holocaust, when you think about it. I've lived my whole life with demeaning [names]. So I pick my battles."

My 2 cts:

Some of us would probably like to dismiss concerns about the appropriation of native symbols, as well as complaints about romanticized stereotypes of indigenous people in North America (or people from anywhere else for that matter), as "PCness gone overboard."

I'm informally soliciting donations for World Vision's well-drilling projects in Africa.

If you make a donation in response to this request, you can send me a copy of your email receipt from the charitable cause of my choice (with your personal info removed, of course), and I'll draw you a picture of your choice. In other words, you're buying a picture from me, NOT by paying me, but by making a donation directly to the above cause. A $50 donation will get you a $50 drawing, a $75 donation will get you a $75 drawing, etc. Of course, you can donate without asking a commission from me, which is even better :-)

I've undertaken a similiar venture last year, and this is the commission work I created forgyen_gaoltosing , who kindly rose to the occasion.

I understand that times are tough (I'm quite broke too cos' of tuition, insurance and other non-discretionary costs going up. Having already given twice to WV this year, I can't give a 3rd time to them if I'm to continue supporting other charities that I've committed to), but I hope people can find it in their hearts to give, if not now, at a later time. But now is a good time to catch me for a commission if you want a quicker turnaround. School starts for me in a couple of weeks.

From whyhunger.org:

Because of traditional gender roles, in many places in rural Africa and Asia, the task of gathering water for the family is considered women's work. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), women and female children spend more than 10 million "person-years" carrying water from remote sources each year. With growing water scarcity, women and girls must travel longer distances to obtain water, a chore that often occupies several hours of the day. In some cases, women must leave at dawn traveling miles to the nearest well--returning under the weight of full water containers--in order to bring water home by as late as midnight. In other cases, a woman might have to spend an entire night waiting at distant water pumps among scores of other women for a turn to fill a water container.

Many implications stem from these long distances that women and girls must travel in order to gather water. Busy with this task, women are prevented from participating in more socially valued, income-generating areas of the local economy, such as selling products or gardening. Because women's contributions are considered to be informal--or in other words relating more to the home than to export agriculture or commerce--their labors often go unrecognized.

What's more, the cycle of excluding women from income-generating activities continues as school-age girls spend hours each day carrying water for their families instead of pursuing an education. According to UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, of the 120 million school-age children not in school, the majority are girls. "This lack of education early in life often consigns girls to poverty or dependence later in life," said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy.

Increased vulnerability to sexual assault and abduction is another serious consequence faced by women living without local access to a safe water point. Cases of attack and abduction often take place as women and girls travel long distances without the protection of their communities, especially in the context of armed conflict.