Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Introductory Essay: The State's Options -- PART I. GENERAL RELATIONS BETWEEN INDIGENOUS LAW AND THE STATE: POLICY ARGUMENTS -- Aboriginal customary laws: proposals for recognition -- Aboriginal law and its importance for Aboriginal people: observations on the task of the Australian Law Reform Commission -- The indigenization of social control in Canada -- Indigenous law and state legal systems: conflict and compatibility -- Searching for Indian common law -- PART II. GENERAL RELATIONS BETWEEN INDIGENOUS LAW AND THE STATE: ANALYSES -- Persistence of folk law in India with particular reference to the tribal communities -- Comprehensive claims, culture and customary law: the case of the Labrador Inuit -- How state courts create customary law in Ghana and Nigeria -- PART III. CONSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS -- Entering Canadian confederation the Dene experiment -- The Inuit and customary law: constitutional perspectives -- Recognition of traditional laws in state courts and the formulation of state legislation -- Inside Brazilian Indian law: a comparative perspective -- PART IV. QUESTIONS OF STATUS: WOMEN; CHILD PLACEMENT -- Aboriginal women and the recognition of customary law in Australia -- Towards an aboriginal child placement principle: a view from New South Wales -- Aboriginal child placement in the urban context -- PART V. ISSUES IN STATE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEMS -- Exercising discretion: sentencing and customary law in the Northern Territory -- One community, two laws: aspects of conflict and convergence in a Western Australian Aboriginal settlement -- Legal anthropology in the formulation of correctional policy in the Northwest Territories, Canada -- Institutionalizing criminality in Greenland -- Alcohol control in Alaska Eskimo communities: communal vs. 'official' law -- The Contributors