Indigenous peoples all over the world are facing the loss of their cultural identifies, but at the same time are demonstrating a growing resistance to the global civilization that threatens to engulf them. However, war, disease, famine, environmental degradation, & ethnic chaos place civilization on the brink of becoming a victim of its own excess. Should civilization falter those tribal peoples may be the only ones capable of salvaging it. Destroying their culture may cause us to lose the knowledge that helped us survive the millions of years before civilization. Those connections to the past must be preserved. Bibliography.