It took Europeans several centuries to recognize that the natives of the New World had souls. The hallucinatory frescoes that decorated preColombian palaces, the feathered finery of the Amazonian Indians, the Taino zemis, which were used for communicating with the afterworld, and the Eskimos' shamanic masks illustrate these cultures' artistic virtuosity and their high degree of spirituality.

The second volume of Primal Arts combines aesthetics and ethnology and is as equally dynamic, both visually and textually, as the first volume, which explored the arts of Africa and Oceania.

It is an indispensable initiation to the new Musée du Quai Branly in Paris and a sumptuous art book, in which masks, sculptures, objects, and finery, contextualized by rare archival material-photographs by Paul-Emile Victor and Claude Levi-Strauss, and Karel Kupka's collection of aboriginal bark paintings recover their original meaning without losing any of their entrancing beauty.

Trained as an archeologist and art historian, Berenice Geoffroy-Schneiter is a journalist and art qitic. she has publiched numerous books and artides on the ethnic arts in specialized reviews, including Archeologia, Beaux-Arts Magazine, and Kaos. Assouline published Ethnic style: History and Fashion and volume one of Primal Arts, which was acclaimed by the press and has been reprinted several times.