The Tribal, Folk, and Textile Arts Show, held at Fort Mason Center, Festival Pavilion is your chance to see thousands of the world's finest works of indigenous art without every having to fire up your dugout. Over 90 top international dealers from all corners of the earth including Turkey, Australia, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, Japan, Canada, and America bring their best textile and ethnic arts to show and sell. The event, which runs through February 13, opened with a Preview Gala on Thursday February 10 to benefit the new de Young Museum.

This is far more than an art and artifacts show. It's an amazing time-warp adventure to unimaginably extraordinary cultures, and an intimate look into their daily lives and customs. For example, I'm walking down an aisle and stop at a booth showing a group of beautiful artified human skulls. A dealer tells me that the skulls were slept on by descendents of the original owners (aka the people whose heads the skulls were formerly ensconced in). By sleeping on them, the sleepers commune in various ways with their ancestors. Forget the Psychic Hotline; this is direct connection.

Then I see a shrunken head on the bottom shelf of a glass case. There's a sold sticker over the price, so I ask a dealer what it sold for. He says he's not at liberty to say because it's not proper etiquette to sell and tell. I mean you'd like to know what a shrunken head is going for these days, wouldn't you? Not to be denied, I then ask what a generic shrunken head, not the one that sold, but a nice one-- one with all the bells and whistles-- might sell for, and that inquiry he answers. "About $22,000," he says. So there you go; now you know you're probably overpaying if someone offers you a shrunken head for $30,000.

Later on, still ambling about, I overhear one gentleman say to another, "I've always wanted a salt bag." Then he triumphantly holds up this colorful smallish textile bag, which I assume to be the salt bag that he's always wanted. I'm thinking, this fellow must have one curious panoply of priorities in life. Nevertheless, I now know that not only are there salt bags, but also people who want them.

Let's see what else is going on: