An authoritative source for the tribal history, customs, legends, traditions, art, music, economy, and leisure activities of the Ojibwe people.

This book takes a critical glance at the ways in which we attend to the corpse, tracing a trajectory from encounter toward considering options for disposal: veneered mortuary internment, green burial and its attendant rot, cremation and alkaline hydrolysis, donation and display, and ecological burial. Through tracing the possible futures of the dead that haunt the living, through both the stories that we tell and physical manifestations following the end of life, we expose the workings of aesthetics that shape corpses, as well as the ways in which corpses spill over, resisting aestheticization. This book creates a space for ritualized practices surrounding death: corpse disposal; corpse aesthetics that shape both practices attendant upon and representations of the corpse; and literary, figural, and cultural representations that deploy these practices to tell a story about dead bodies-about their separation from the living, about their disposability, and ultimately about the living who survive the dead, if only for a while. There is an aesthetics of erasure persistently at work on the dead body. It must be quickly hidden from sight to shield us from the certain trauma of our own demise, or so the unspoken argument goes. Experts-scientists, forensic specialists, death-care professionals, and law enforcement-are the only ones qualified to view the dead for any extended period of time. The rest of us, with only brief doses, inoculate ourselves from the materiality of death in complex and highly ritualized ceremonies. Beyond participating in the project of restoring our sense of finitude, we try to make sense of the untouchable, unviewable, haunting, and taboo presence of the corpse itself.

A physician and historian of science and medicine at the National Institute of Health tells the hidden story of how plagues and pandemics shaped the history of the Jewish people. Plagues, pandemics, and infectious diseases have shaped the history of the Jewish people. Of course, there were the ten biblical plagues that famously smote the Egyptians-from the rain of frogs to the deaths of the firstborn-but that is just the start of the story. For the Talmudic Sages infectious diseases were part of the fundamental fabric of God's created world. In later times, however, disease was often thought to be caused by malign spells and incantations. A counter-magic developed to combat them. Amulets were deployed and miracle workers sought out. Surprisingly, Jeremy Brown shows, Jews sometimes even visited Christian shrines and beseeched the intervention of their saints. In 1348, when the Black Death swept through Europe, Jews fell victim both to the disease, for which they were blamed, and to the anti-Semitic violence that followed. At least 235 Jewish communities were persecuted even as Pope Clement IV ruled that anyone joining or authorizing the persecution would be excommunicated. In The Eleventh Plague, Brown investigates the relation between Judaism and infectious diseases throughout the ages, from premodern and early-modern plagues, to rabbinic responses to smallpox and cholera, to the special vulnerabilities Jewish immigrants faced in the US as result of prejudice, and to the curious practice of "Black Weddings" in which two orphans are married in a cemetery. Popularized during the 1918 influenza pandemic the practice was revived in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, showing that the intriguing relationship between Judaism and infectious disease remains relevant today.

In 1801, some five years after Robert Burns' death, nine of his friends sat down to dinner in what is now known as Burns Cottage in Alloway to celebrate his extraordinary life and to give thanks for his friendship. Over the years the informal theme from that evening has developed into the ritual known as Burns Night. This best-selling book is the essential guide for anyone intending to hold or attend a Burns Night of any size. In addition to setting out the order of events for the evening, the Burns Supper Companion also offers fascinating insights into the traditions surrounding Burns Night. Nancy Marshall has spent a large part of her life living and working in Edinburgh. She read English Literature and Medieval History at Edinburgh University, going on to write widely about Scottish song and the poems and songs of Robert Burns.

What is property, and why does our species have it? In The Property Species, Bart J. Wilson explores how humans acquire, perceive, and know the custom of property, and why this might be relevant to understanding how property works in the twenty-first century. Arguing that neither the sciences nor the humanities synthesizes a full account of property, the book offers a cross-disciplinary compromise that is sure to be controversial: Property is a universal and uniquely human custom. Integrating cognitive linguistics with philosophy of property and a fresh look at property disputes in the common law, the book makes the case that symbolic-thinking humans locate the meaning of property within a thing. That is, all human beings and only human beings have property in things, and at its core, property rests on custom, not rights. Such an alternative to conventional thinking contends that the origins of property lie not in food, mates, territory, or land, but in the very human act of creating, with symbolic thought, something new that did not previously exist. Written by an economist who marvels at the natural history of humankind, the book is essential reading for experts and any reader who has wondered why people claim things as "Mine!", and what that means for our humanity.

Although numerous studies of religious rituals have been conducted by religious studies scholars, anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists, it is rare to find a work that brings scholars from different disciplines together to discuss the similarities and differences in their research. This book represents contributions by leading scholars from several disciplines that show the diversity of approaches to religious rituals, while also providing cross-disciplinary perspectives on this topic. The goals of the chapters are to consider where the field currently stands in understanding religious rituals and what novel ideas can improve our knowledge about these practices; and furnish innovative applications of theory by discussing particular examples which are drawn from the authors' fieldwork. The chapters cover Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, and Islamic rituals, thus providing a view of how ritual practices vary across the globe, but also how they share some important characteristics.

Event Audiences and Expectations for the first time examines why people participate in festivals and events, the types of events which stimulate participation, and the fanatical antics of fans who become involved in these events. By doing so the book offers significant insight into how event managers can entice and manage participant expectations as well as manage audience involvement. The book is based on primary research using participant observation, as well as in-depth interviews with event participants, event managers and government officials involved in over 50 international events to gain new perspectives into audience behaviour and participatory events. Using numerous international case studies and examples, the book offers a comprehensive outline of the reasons why people participate in festivals and events, the social world that reinforces their behaviours, and strategies that can be used to ensure future successful participatory events. This thought-provoking and original volume will be valuable reading for students, researchers, events managers and tourism and community planners at all levels of government.

Courtship in Georgian England was a decisive moment in the life cycle, imagined as a tactical game, an invigorating sport, and a perilous journey across a turbulent sea. This volume brings to life the emotional experience of courtship using the words and objects selected by men and women to navigate this potentially fraught process. It provides new insights into the making and breaking of relationships, beginning with the formation of courtships using the language of love, the development of intimacy through the exchange of love letters, and sensory engagement with love tokens such as flowers, portrait miniatures, and locks of hair. It also charts the increasing modernization of romantic customs over the Georgian era - most notably with the arrival of the printed valentine's card - revealing how love developed into a commercial industry. The book concludes with the rituals of disintegration when engagements went awry, and pursuit of damages for breach of promise in the civil courts. The Game of Love in Georgian England brings together love letters, diaries, valentines, and proposals of marriage from sixty courtships sourced from thirty archives and museum collections, alongside an extensive range of sources including ballads, conduct literature, court cases, material objects, newspaper reports, novels, periodicals, philosophical discourses, plays, poems, and prints, to create a vivid social and cultural history of romantic emotions. The book demonstrates the importance of courtship to studies of marriage, relationships, and emotions in history, and how we write histories of emotions using objects. Love emerges as something that we do in practice, enacted by couples through particular socially and historically determined rituals.

DIVINATION / INDIGENOUS CULTURES
"In this new book ocha'ni Lele has brought together information never before published for the education of serious students of divination, and for use by initiated practitioners of African traditional religions, especially those who follow La Regla de Ocha. In doing so, he has more than justified his own claim that 'one cannot overstate the academic and scholastic value' of this work."
--Edward Batchelor, Jr., Fellow in Religion, Yale University
The diloggun, the cowrie-shell oracle of Cuban Santeria, is more than a tool of divination. It is the doorway to a powerful transformational process, and the forces that are set in motion when it is cast determine the future evolution of the adherent. "The Diloggun" explores this mysterious Afro-Cuban oracle from the perspective of diaspora orisha worship and includes a thorough exploration of the body of lore surrounding the oracle, which is the living Bible of one of the world's fastest growing faiths.
ocha'ni Lele provides a detailed description of each of the twelve families of "odu" that exist in the diloggun--from Okana through Ejila Shebora. Within these twelve families are 192 "omo odu," the children of the odu, and each of these patterns or letters has its own lore, proverbs, meanings, prohibitions, and sacrifices, which Lele details as well. He is the first to provide the hitherto secret, but essential, information that the adept diviner needs to have in order to ensure that every element affecting a client's spiritual development is taken into account during a reading. He includes all the major indications for sacrifice, "ebo," providing the diviner with numerous ways to placate and supplicate the Afro-Cuban deities known as "orishas." His book is also the first to detail how to properly end a session so that negative vibrations are absorbed by the orishas and fully removed from the diviner's home. For those seeking the wisdom of ancient Africa, "The Diloggun" is an indispensable guide to the mysteries of the orishas.
oCHA'NI LELE has been immersed in the underground culture of orisha worship since 1989. He made Ocha in 2000 and was crowned a priest of Oya. His other books include "The Secrets of Afro-Cuban Divination" and "Obi Oracle of Cuban Santeria." He lives in Florida.

Jedrzej Kitowicz was a parish priest in central Poland with a military and worldly past. In his later years, after putting the affairs of his parish in order, he composed a colorful chronicle of all aspects and walks of life under King August III. He seems to have written mostly from memory, creating in the process the most complete record that exists of society in eighteenth-century Poland. A man with omnivorous tastes, a keen sense of observation, and a wry-at times bawdy-sense of humor, Kitowicz's realistic and robust literary technique has been compared in its earthiness and evocativeness to Flemish genre painting. A noteworthy example of eighteenth-century writing and narrative talent, his Opis reveals an astounding visual memory and a modern ethnographer's eye for material culture. The present book consists of fifty-one chapters, including all of the most celebrated ones, from Father Kitowicz's Opis, complete with a comprehensive introduction. Topics include religious beliefs, customs and institutions, child-rearing, education, the judiciary and the military. Particularly vivid are the descriptions of the lives of the nobility, ranging from cooking through men's and women's wear to household entertainments and drinking habits. A commentary by the editor introduces each chapter.

How parents approach the task of passing on religious faith and practice to their children How do American parents pass their religion on to their children? At a time of overall decline of traditional religion and an increased interest in personal "spirituality," Religious Parenting investigates the ways that parents transmit religious beliefs, values, and practices to their kids. We know that parents are the most important influence on their children's religious lives, yet parents have been virtually ignored in previous work on religious socialization. Renowned religion scholar Christian Smith and his collaborators Bridget Ritz and Michael Rotolo explore American parents' strategies, experiences, beliefs, and anxieties regarding religious transmission through hundreds of in-depth interviews that span religious traditions, social classes, and family types all around the country. Throughout we hear the voices of evangelical, Catholic, Mormon, mainline and black Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist parents and discover that, despite massive diversity, American parents share a nearly identical approach to socializing their children religiously. For almost all, religion is important for the foundation it provides for becoming one's best self on life's difficult journey. Religion is primarily a resource for navigating the challenges of this life, not preparing for an afterlife. Parents view it as their job, not religious professionals', to ground their children in life-enhancing religious values that provide resilience, morality, and a sense of purpose. Challenging longstanding sociological and anthropological assumptions about culture, the authors demonstrate that parents of highly dissimilar backgrounds share the same "cultural models" when passing on religion to their children. Taking an extensive look into questions of religious practice and childrearing, Religious Parenting uncovers parents' real-life challenges while breaking innovative theoretical ground.

The simple fabric face mask is a key agent in the fight against the global spread of COVID-19. However, beyond its role as a protective covering against coronavirus infection, the face mask is the bearer of powerful symbolic and political power and arouses intense emotions. Adopting an international perspective informed by social theory, The Face Mask in COVID Times: A Sociomaterial Analysis offers an intriguing and original investigation of the social, cultural and historical dimensions of face-masking as a practice in the age of COVID. Rather than Beck's 'risk society', we are now living in a 'COVID society', the long-term effects of which have yet to be experienced or imagined. Everything has changed. The COVID crisis has generated novel forms of sociality and new ways of living and moving through space and time. In this new world, the face mask has become a significant object, positioned as one of the key ways people can protect themselves and others from infection with the coronavirus. The face mask is rich with symbolic meaning as well as practical value. In the words of theorist Jane Bennett, the face mask has acquired a new 'thing-power' as it is coming together with human bodies in these times of uncertainty, illness and death. The role of the face mask in COVID times has been the subject of debate and dissension, arousing strong feelings. The historical and cultural contexts in which face masks against COVID contagion are worn (or not worn) are important to consider. In some countries, such as Japan and other East Asian nations, face mask wearing has a long tradition. Full or partial facial coverings, such as veiling, is common practice in regions such as the Middle East. In many other countries, including most countries in the Global North, most people, beyond health care workers, have little or no experience of face masks. They have had to learn how to make sense of face masking as a protective practice and how to incorporate face masks into their everyday practices and routines. Face masking practices have become highly political. The USA has witnessed protests against face mask wearing that rest on 'sovereign individualism', a notion which is highly specific to the contemporary political climate in that country. Face masks have also been worn to make political statements: bearing anti-racist statements, for example, but also Trump campaign support. Meanwhile, celebrities and influencers have sought to advocate for face mask wearing as part of their branding, while art makers, museums, designers and novelty fashion manufacturers have identified the opportunity to profit from this sudden new market. Face masks have become a fashion item as well as a medical device: both a way of signifying the wearer's individuality and beliefs and their ethical stance in relation to the need to protect their own and others' health. The Face Mask in COVID Times: A Sociomaterial Analysis provides a short and accessible analysis of the sociomaterial dimensions of the face mask in the age of COVID-19. The book presents seven short chapters and an epilogue. We bring together sociomaterial theoretical perspectives with compelling examples from public health advice and campaigns, anti-mask activism as well as popular culture (news reports, blog posts, videos, online shopping sites, art works) to illustrate our theoretical points, and use Images to support our analysis.

Food: The Key Concepts presents an exciting, coherent and interdisciplinary introduction to food studies for the beginning reader. Food Studies is an increasingly complex field, drawing on disciplines as diverse as Sociology, Anthropology and Cultural Studies at one end and Economics, Politics and Agricultural Science at the other. In order to clarify the issues, Food: The Key Concepts distills food choices down to three competing considerations: consumer identity; matters of convenience and price; and an awareness of the consequences of what is consumed. The book concludes with an examination of two very different future scenarios for feeding the world's population: the technological fix, which looks to science to provide the solution to our future food needs; and the anthropological fix, which hopes to change our expectations and behaviors. Throughout, the analysis is illustrated with lively case studies. Bulleted chapter summaries, questions and guides to further reading are also provided.

Do Funerals Matter? is a creative interweaving of historical, sociocultural, and research-based perspectives on death rituals, drawing from myriad sources to create a picture of what death rituals have been; and where, especially in the Western world, they are going. Death educators, researchers, counselors, clergy, funeral-service professionals, and others will appreciate the book's theory- and research-based approach to the ways in which different cultural groups memorialize their dead. They will also find clear clinical and practical applications in the author's exploration of the five ritual anchors of death-related ceremonial practice and help for professionals counseling the bereaved surrounding funerals. Based on nearly three decades of research and teaching on funeral rites, this volume promises to fill an important gap in the cross-cultural literature on bereavement, while answering an important question for our generation: Do funerals matter?

This wide-ranging and accessible book offers a stimulating introduction to the field of media anthropology and the study of religious ritual. Johanna Sumiala explores the interweaving of rituals, communication and community. She uses the tools of anthropological enquiry to examine a variety of media events, including the death of Michael Jackson, a royal wedding and the transgressive actions which took place in Abu Ghraib, and to understand the inner significance of the media coverage of such events. The book deals with theories of ritual, media as ritual including reception, production and representation, and rituals of death in the media. It will be invaluable to students and scholars alike across media, religion and anthropology.

How do Egyptian Muslims celebrate Ramadan? How do Copts - Egyptian Christians - celebrate Easter? What should you expect to find on the table when invited to eat in an Egyptian home? What do you say when an Egyptian colleague sneezes? Exactly what do Egyptians do with a mortar and pestle, a sieve, and a bag of nuts seven days after the birth of a baby? Samia Abdennour, once an outsider from Palestine, now thoroughly at home in Egypt, is here to tell you all about these matters - and many more. In a book that aims to introduce the unfamiliar newcomer or interested foreign reader to the hows, whats, and whys of Egyptians life, the author covers such diverse topics as birth, marriage, and death; religious festivals and fasting; food in the home and on the street; business etiquette and terms of politeness. She describes how some traditions differ between the two religious communities, the Muslims and the Copts, and how some customs are shared by all Egyptians - like the spring festival of Shamm al-Nisim ('smelling the breezes') that goes back to pharaonic times. With "Egyptian Customs and Festivals", you need never be at a loss in a social situation in Egypt - or fail to understand what your neighbors are up to. Illustrated throughout with color photographs of daily life and special occasions, this fascinating and informative book is a must-have for anyone new to Egyptian culture.

Japanese Legends and Folklore invites English speakers into the intriguing world of Japanese folktales, ghost stories and historical eyewitness accounts. With a fascinating selection of stories about Japanese culture and history, A.B. Mitford--who lived and worked in Japan as a British diplomat--presents a broad cross section of tales from many Japanese sources. Discover more about practically every aspect of Japanese life--from myths and legends to society and religion. This book features 30 fascinating Japanese stories, including: The Forty-Seven Ronin--the famous, epic tale of a loyal band of Samurai warriors who pay the ultimate price for avenging the honor of their fallen master. The Tongue-Cut Sparrow--a good-hearted old man is richly rewarded when he begs forgiveness from a sparrow who is injured by his spiteful, greedy wife. The Adventures of Little Peach Boy--a tale familiar to generations of Japanese children, a small boy born from a peach is adopted by a kindly childless couple. Japanese Sermons--a selection of sermons written by a priest belonging to the Shingaku sect, which combines Buddhist, Shinto and Confucian teachings. An Account of Hara-Kiri--Mitford's dramatic first person account of a ritual Samurai suicide, the first time it had been reported in English. Thirty-one reproductions of woodblock prints bring the classic tales and essays to life. These influential stories helped shape the West's understanding of Japanese culture. A new foreword by Professor Michael Dylan Foster sheds light on the book's importance as a groundbreaking work of Japanese folklore, literature and history.

In Cultures, Citizenship and Human Rights the combined analytical efforts of the fields of human rights law, conflict studies, anthropology, history, media studies, gender studies, and critical race and postcolonial studies raise a comprehensive understanding of the discursive and visual mediation of migration and manifestations of belonging and citizenship. More insight into the convergence - but also the tensions - between the cultural and the legal foundations of citizenship, has proven to be vital to the understanding of societies past and present, especially to assess processes of inclusion and exclusion. Citizenship is more than a collection of rights and privileges held by the individual members of a state but involves cultural and historical interpretations, legal contestation and regulation, as well as an active engagement with national, regional, and local state and other institutions about the boundaries of those (implicitly gendered and raced) rights and privileges. Highlighting and assessing the transformations of what citizenship entails today is crucially important to the future of Europe, which both as an idea and as a practical project faces challenges that range from the crisis of legitimacy to the problems posed by mass migration. Many of the issues addressed in this book, however, also play out in other parts of the world, as several of the chapters reflect. This book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. They have been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Most of us know a bit about what passes for good manners - holding doors open, sending thank-you notes, no elbows on the table. We certainly know bad manners when we see them. But where has this patchwork of beliefs and behaviours come from? How did manners develop? How do they change? And why do they matter so much to us? In examining our manners, Henry Hitchings delves into the English character and investigates our notions of Englishness. Sorry! presents an amusing, illuminating and quirky audit of English manners. From basic table manners to appropriate sexual conduct, via hospitality, chivalry, faux pas and online etiquette, Hitchings traces the history of our country's customs and courtesies. Putting under the microscope some of our most astute observers of humanity, including Jane Austen and Samuel Pepys, he uses their lives and writings to pry open the often downright peculiar secrets of the English character. Hitchings' blend of history, anthropology and personal journey helps us understand our bizarre and contested cultural baggage - and ourselves.

Sexual Sports Rhetoric: Historical and Media Contexts of Violence deals with controversies surrounding the notion of sport violence added to the equation of gender and language. Topics discussed range from hooliganism, spousal abuse, and racial and/or gender orientation issues to literary, televised, filmic and photographic (pornographic?) images of sports violence. The sports represented include ice hockey, stock car racing, football, body building, baseball, boxing, rugby, wrestling, and pool.

Most historians rely principally on written sources. Yet there are other traces of the past available to historians: the material things that people have chosen, made, and used. This book examines how material culture can enhance historians' understanding of the past, both worldwide and across time. The successful use of material culture in history depends on treating material things of many kinds not as illustrations, but as primary evidence. Each kind of material thing-and there are many-requires the application of interpretive skills appropriate to it. These skills overlap with those acquired by scholars in disciplines that may abut history but are often relatively unfamiliar to historians, including anthropology, archaeology, and art history. Creative historians can adapt and apply the same skills they honed while studying more traditional text-based documents even as they borrow methods from these fields. They can think through familiar historical problems in new ways. They can also deploy material culture to discover the pasts of constituencies who have left few or no traces in written records. The authors of this volume contribute case studies arranged thematically in six sections that respectively address the relationship of history and material culture to cognition, technology, the symbolic, social distinction, and memory. They range across time and space, from Paleolithic to Punk.

After his remarkable eight-second ride at the 1996 Indian National Finals Rodeo, an elated American Indian world champion bullrider from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, threw his cowboy hat in the air. Everyone in the almost exclusively Indian audience erupted in applause. Over the course of the twentieth century, rodeos have joined tribal fairs and powwows as events where American Indians gather to celebrate community and equestrian competition. In Riding Buffaloes and Broncos, Allison Fuss Mellis reveals how northern Plains Indians have used rodeo to strengthen tribal and intertribal ties and Native solidarity.

In the late nineteenth century, Indian agents outlawed most traditional Native gatherings but allowed rodeo, which they viewed as a means to assimilate Indians into white culture. Mistakenly, they treated rodeo as nothing more than a demonstration of ranching skills. Yet through selective adaptation, northern Plains horsemen and audiences used rodeo to sidestep federally sanctioned acculturation. Rodeo now enabled Indians to reinforce their commitment to the very Native values--a reverence for horses, family, community, generosity, and competition--that federal agencies sought to destroy.

Mellis has mined archival sources and interviewed American Indian rodeo participants and spectators throughout the northern Great Plains, Southwest, and Canada, including Crow, Northern Cheyenne, and Lakota reservations. The book features numerous photographs of Indian rodeos from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and maps illustrating the all-Indian rodeo circuit in the United States and Canada.