OCR Text |
Show Officially the purpose of III is to develop information useful to member governments in planning for the cultural, social, and economic betterment; to initiate, direct, and coordinate scientific investigations; and to serve in an advisory and consultative capacity for national Indian affairs agencies. The Institute also acts as secretariat for Inter-American Indian conferences and assists with the implementation of resolutions adopted by these conferences. The member nations as of 1972 were: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Eonduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the United States, and Venezuela. For 37 years (1977) the Inter-American Indian Institute has acted as a clearing house for information about, and a communication center for the Indians of the Americas. This information is made available through articles, reports, and special studies that appear in the publications mentioned above. Some are scholarly articles that deal with the period before 1492, with the colonial period, or with the national period. Other articles contain matters of contemporary interest that we have grouped into subject categories and national and/or geographical regions. Although most of the publications appear in Spanish we have included English summaries of most of the articles. The object is to allow students to do research on a given topic as it effects the Indians of a particular nation or region, then compare the resulting information with data on other tribes in |