These all followed the European model, and even in South America art collections tended to be predominately of European origin, to the neglect of indigenous works of art.
But more than 20 mills survived in the town, staffed largely by migrants from India and Pakistan whose willingness to work inconvenient shifts had prolonged the industry's life and, in Seabrook's words, relieved the indigenous working class of some of the least-desirable employment.
Of a dozen festivals devoted to native filmmaking in the United States and Canada, she says, the festival here is known for its international indigenous work and breadth of programming.
Jean Nouvel's Musée du Quai Branly, opened in 2006 as a repository of indigenous work from around the world, is an eclectic, nervy composition of bright colors and jutting fragments.
There are also fascinating Japanese and Indian materials (two elaborate portable Shinto shrines, for example), world-class holdings in China Trade porcelain, and acres of indigenous work from the Pacific (with the requisite, scary "headhunting" relics).
"And indeed that is also true of urban Indigenous work too although the artists don't work through arts centres, the galleries all maintain the highest standards in dealing with artists and with clients as well".
Yet cockney offers the only authentic piece of vocabulary we have to describe the indigenous working class culture of east London and, as such, its usage is commonly a measure of their standing.
Related: Celebrating Australia's Indigenous Women Artists Native Art Biennial Spotlights the Work of Indigenous Americans It's Time to Rethink How We See Indigenous Australian Art.
Many non-Indigenous visual and performing arts critics will pigeon-hole Indigenous works as educational, part of the reconciliation process, never realising that they centre themselves as the non-Aboriginal audience, the raison d'être.
The anthropologist Margaret Mead in the 1930's and the choreographer and dancer Katherine Dunham in the 1940's and 50's began the visual preservation of indigenous works in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.
