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Ganges

(Encyclopedia)Ganges gŭngˈgä [key], river, c.1,560 mi (2,510 km) long, rising in the Gangotri glacier in the Himalayas in Uttarakhand state, India, and flowing generally southeast through NE India across a vast ...

Desai, Anita

(Encyclopedia)Desai, Anita dĕsīˈ [key], 1937–, Indian fiction writer, b. Mussoorie as Anita Mazumdar, grad. Delhi Univ. (B.A., 1957). A prolific novelist, she often paints a subtly intelligent and darkly evoca...

Marshall, Kerry James

(Encyclopedia)Marshall, Kerry James, 1955–, American painter, b. Birmingham, Ala., B.F.A. Otis Art Institute (now Otis College of Art and Design), Los Angeles, 1978. A figurative and narrative artist whose subjec...

Bel and the Dragon

(Encyclopedia)Bel and the Dragon, customary name for chapter 14 of the Book of Daniel, a passage included in the Septuagint and the Apocrypha. It was written possibly in the 1st cent. b.c. as a response to Gentile ...

Tupinambá

(Encyclopedia)Tupinambá, a people living in the eastern lowland area of South America, related to the Tupí of the Rio São Francisco and the Guaraní of Paraguay and adjacent portions of Brazil and Argentina. Alt...

Modoc

(Encyclopedia)Modoc mōˈdŏk [key], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Sahaptin-Chinook branch of the Penutian linguistic stock (see Native American languages). They formerly lived in SW Oregon a...

Djenné

(Encyclopedia)Djenné or Jenné both: jĕnāˈ [key], town, S central Mali, on the Bani River. It is an agricultural market center. The nearby, pre-Islamic ruins of Jenné-Jeno, which at its height may have been a ...

Maidu

(Encyclopedia)Maidu mīˈdo͞o [key], Native North Americans belonging to the Penutian linguistic stock (see Native American languages). In the early 19th cent. they were located on the eastern tributaries of the S...

caste

(Encyclopedia)caste [Port., casta=basket], ranked groups based on heredity within rigid systems of social stratification, especially those that constitute Hindu India. Some scholars, in fact, deny that true caste s...

Middle East

(Encyclopedia)Middle East, term traditionally applied by western Europeans to the countries of SW Asia and NE Africa lying W of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. Thus defined it includes Cyprus, the Asian part of T...