Many of the elements ascribed to traditional Aboriginal beliefs and practices are the result of contact with external peoples - Melanesians and Indonesians, as well as Europeans. This controversial and provocative 1993 book is a detailed and continent-wide study of the impact of outsiders on Australian Aboriginal world-views. The author separates out a common core of religious beliefs which reflect the precontact spirituality of Australian Aborigines. This book investigates Aboriginal myth, ritual, cosmology and philosophy, and also examines social organisation, subsistence patterns and cultural change. It will be of great interest to readers in anthropology, religious studies, comparative philosophy and Aboriginal studies.

Since the early-modern encounter between African and European merchants on the Guinea Coast, European social critics have invoked African gods as metaphors for misplaced value and agency, using the term "fetishism" chiefly to assert the irrationality of their fellow Europeans. Yet, as J. Lorand Matory demonstrates in The Fetish Revisited, Afro-Atlantic gods have a materially embodied social logic of their own, which is no less rational than the social theories of Marx and Freud. Drawing on thirty-six years of fieldwork in Africa, Europe, and the Americas, Matory casts an Afro-Atlantic eye on European theory to show how Marx's and Freud's conceptions of the fetish both illuminate and misrepresent Africa's human-made gods. Through this analysis, the priests, practices, and spirited things of four major Afro-Atlantic religions simultaneously call attention to the culture-specific, materially conditioned, physically embodied, and indeed fetishistic nature of Marx's and Freud's theories themselves. Challenging long-held assumptions about the nature of gods and theories, Matory offers a novel perspective on the social roots of these tandem African and European understandings of collective action, while illuminating the relationship of European social theory to the racism suffered by Africans and assimilated Jews alike.

"The sacred texts of Ifa, repository of the accumulated wisdom of countless generations of Yoruba people, are an invaluable source not only for all students of African oral literature and Yoruba civilization, but also for future generations interested in the continuing vitality of Ifa divination and a Yoruba way of life and thought." Henry Drewal

This landmark study of Ifa, the most important and elaborate system of divination of the Yoruba people of Nigeria, remains a monumental contribution to scholarship in anthropology, folklore, religion, philosophy, linguistics, and African and African-American studies."

Quest for Harmony provides a basic understanding of the cultures and spiritual teachings of four Native American nations--Lenape (Delaware), Ani'-Yun'-wiya (Cherokee), Lakota (Sioux), and Dine (Navajo). The text is always sympathetic, respectful, and, when possible, presented in the voices of Native Americans. Each nation is described in terms of its name, traditional location(s), present population, language, and traditional social organization. At least one story of origin is provided for each nation, followed by a survey of its history from earliest documented times until recent times. At the heart of each chapter, the spiritual worldview and rituals of the nation being discussed are introduced, with sections on cosmology, gods and spirits, rituals, and other issues particular to that nation. Critical issues common to Native Americans such as the pannational spiritual movements and the environment are also covered. Quest for Harmony makes clear that not only are Native American spiritual traditions very much alive, they are also in the midst of a dramatic revival.

The Zuni have traditionally used small stone carvings of animal figures as power objects and mediators between themselves and the spirit world. Any object that has special meaning can be used as a fetish. In this fascinating, informative, and beautifully illustrated guide to the fetishes of the Zuni people of New Mexico, Hal Zina Bennett explores key principles of Native American spirituality and how early Zuni teachings can benefit us all today. He provides an excellent guide to Zuni traditions and an intriguing picture of their early life, along with detailed instructions for using fetishes for mediation, reflection, and insight in modern life. He describes key fetish figures, including the Guardian of the Six Regions, their legendary meanings, and the personal qualities each figure can support and help its owner develop.

In explaining the nature of fetishes and the psychological and spiritual benefits that we can gain from their use, Bennett provides illuminating cross-cultural comparisons, stimulating exercises, and journaling opportunities.

The Quero Apache Snake Clan or Tlish Diyan centre their spiritual practices on a daily ceremony of Dowaa-gon'ch-aada entering the silence. A combination of meditation breath work and prayer Doowaa-gon'ch-aada offers an experiential connection to All That Is from the Earth-based spiritual traditions of indigenous America. When performed properly this ritual becomes a path to self-realization and transcendence. PRAYERS AND MEDITATIONS OF THE QUERO APACHE explains how to establish a personal practice of Dowaa-gon'ch-aada. In addition to 24 prayers easy-to-follow instructions for the ritual and accompanying pieces of inspirational artwork the book includes a rare overview of the spiritual philosophies of the Quero Apache. Author Maria Yraceburu incorporates her own stories and essays into the text in order to share the wisdom she has gained as daughter of the Tlish Diyan granddaughter and apprentice of Apache holy man Ten Bears and descendant of the prophet Nochaydelklinne. Maria Yraceburu is Quero Apache Tlish Diyan 'tsanti-a storyteller healer ceremonial facilitator teacher and guardian of ancient Snake Clan knowledge that has been passed down through countless generations.

According to the people of the Mueda plateau in northern Mozambique, sorcerers remake the world by asserting the authority of their own imaginative visions of it. While conducting research among these Muedans, anthropologist Harry G. West made a revealing discovery--for many of them, West's efforts to elaborate an ethnographic vision of their world was itself a form of sorcery. In "Ethnographic Sorcery," West explores the fascinating issues provoked by this equation.
A key theme of West's research into sorcery is that one sorcerer's claims can be challenged or reversed by other sorcerers. After West's attempt to construct a metaphorical interpretation of Muedan assertions that the lions prowling their villages are fabricated by sorcerers is disputed by his Muedan research collaborators, West realized that ethnography and sorcery indeed have much in common. Rather than abandoning ethnography, West draws inspiration from this connection, arguing that anthropologists, along with the people they study, can scarcely avoid interpreting the world they inhabit, and that we are all, inescapably, ethnographic sorcerers.

Dieser Essay-Band analysiert und kommentiert variierende Problemstellungen in der westlichen Zivilisation, die auf mythische, religioese und/oder ideologische Grundmuster im Denken und Handeln der Menschen zuruckzufuhren sind. Bei Anwendung einer psychohistorischen Methode der Analyse und Kritik lassen sich Konstellationen in Kultur, Gesellschaft und Politik aufdecken, deren tiefenstrukturelle Merkmale bereits vor Jahrhunderten, wenn nicht Jahrtausenden, angelegt wurden. Sie stellen schwer abzutragende Hypotheken dar und belasten das aufgeklarte Denken. Ressentiments, Rivalitaten, Konflikte und Kriege entwickeln sich selten spontan an der Oberflache der Gesellschaftsgeschichte, sondern sind in den meisten Fallen vorgepragt und zum Teil uralt. Sie zu erkennen und zu entlarven ist eine vorrangige Aufgabe der Kulturkritik.

A fascinating Castaneda-like spiritual journey into the wilderness of Manitoba, where Lynn Andrews meets Agnes Whistling Elk, the Native American "heyoehkah," or shaman, who will change her life.

Enter the fascinating world of the Condomble regions of Brazil, where interaction between spirits and human is considered an everyday occurrence. Jim Wafer uncovers the social life, rituals, folklore, and engaging personalities of the villagers of Jacari, among whom trances, sorcery, and spirit possession demonstrate the coexistence of different kinds of reality. This ethnography is intriguing not only because of the originality of its approach to the more enigmatic aspects of another culture but also because it uses insights gained from participation in that culture to reflect on the paradoxes inherent in the writer's own culture, and in the human condition in general.

A ceremonial journey to reconnect with the essence of indigenous spirituality and awaken to its beauty, power and potential in contemporary society. In this book, Apela Colorado, the inspirational authority on indigenous wisdom, shares her lifelong journey of connecting with the essence of indigenous spirituality and culture. From China to Alaska, Benin to France, Apela recounts her passionate work to communicate, conserve, and celebrate sacred indigenous ways, all while reawakening to the wisdom of her Native American and French Gaul ancestors and reclaiming her own truth, healing, and story. With gentle grace and generous insight, this book lovingly teaches us to honor the power, beauty, and potential of indigenous wisdom, and explores how it continues to resonate in modern life. Apela's experiences form a ceremony of remembrance and renewal, a spiritual guide to help you reconnect to the wisdom of your ancestors, apply sacred ways of knowing and being to your life, and reclaim your own Creation Story.

In 2011, Trinidad declared a state of emergency. This massive state intervention lasted for 108 days and led to the rounding up of over 7,000 people in areas the state deemed "crime hot spots." The government justified this action and subsequent police violence on the grounds that these measures were restoring "the rule of law." In this milieu of expanded policing powers, protests occasioned by police violence against lower-class black people have often garnered little sympathy. But in an improbable turn of events, six officers involved in the shooting of three young people were charged with murder at the height of the state of emergency. To explain this, the host of Crime Watch, the nation's most popular television show, alleged that there must be a special power at work: obeah. From eighteenth-century slave rebellions to contemporary responses to police brutality, Caribbean methods of problem-solving "spiritual work" have been criminalized under the label of "obeah." Connected to a justice-making force, obeah remains a crime in many parts of the anglophone Caribbean. In Experiments with Power, J. Brent Crosson addresses the complex question of what obeah is. Redescribing obeah as "science" and "experiments," Caribbean spiritual workers unsettle the moral and racial foundations of Western categories of religion. Based on more than a decade of conversations with spiritual workers during and after the state of emergency, this book shows how the reframing of religious practice as an experiment with power transforms conceptions of religion and law in modern nation-states.

Das Buch bietet eine systematische Darstellung des Patroziniums, naherhin des Kirchenpatroziniums sowie des titulus ecclesiae gemass c. 1218 CIC/83. Das Patrozinium stellt im Leben und in der Froemmigkeit der katholischen Kirche eine Realitat dar, die nur selten hinterfragt wird. Kirchenwidmungen und Kirchendedikationen gehoeren jedoch zu den wichtigsten Feiern fur das Leben einer Ortskirche und viele kirchenrechtliche Detailfragen schliessen sich an Bau, Widmung und Weihe einer Kirche an. Der Autor analysiert speziell die rechtshistorische Evolution sowie die geltende universalkirchenrechtliche Normierung aus theologischer sowie kanonistischer Perspektive.

Coming Full Circle is an interdisciplinary exploration of the relationships between spirituality and health among Coast Salish and Chinook communities in western Washington from 1805 to 2005. Suzanne Crawford O'Brien examines how these communities define what it means to be healthy and how recent tribal community-based health programs have applied this understanding to their missions and activities. She also explores how contemporary definitions, goals, and activities relating to health and healing are informed by Coast Salish history and also by indigenous spiritual views of the body. These views, she argues, are based on an understanding of the relationship between self, ecology, and community. Coming Full Circle draws on a historical framework in reflecting on contemporary tribal health-care efforts and the ways in which they engage indigenous healing traditions alongside twenty-first-century biomedicine. The book makes a strong case for the current shift toward tribally controlled care, arguing that local, culturally distinct ways of healing and understanding illness must be a part of Native health care. Combining in-depth archival research, extensive ethnographic participant-based field work, and skillful scholarship on theories of religion and embodiment, Crawford O'Brien offers an original and masterful analysis of Coast Salish and Chinook traditions and worldviews, and the intersection of religion and healing.

Joel Martin draws his narrative from folk stories, rituals, and even landscapes to trace the development of Native American religion from ancient burial mounds, through interactions with European conquerors and missionaries, and on to the modern-day rebirth of ancient rites and beliefs.

Long cloaked in protective secrecy, demonized by Western society, and distorted by Hollywood, Santería is at last emerging from the shadows with an estimated 75 million orisha followers worldwide. In The Altar of My Soul, Marta Moreno Vega recounts the compelling true story of her journey from ignorance and skepticism to initiation as a Yoruba priestess in the Santería religion. This unforgettable spiritual memoir reveals the long-hidden roots and traditions of a centuries-old faith that originated on the shores of West Africa.

As an Afro-Puerto Rican child in the New York barrio, Marta paid little heed to the storefront botanicas full of spiritual paraphernalia or to the Catholic saints with foreign names: Yemayá, Ellegua, Shangó. As an adult, in search of a religion that would reflect her racial and cultural heritage, Marta was led to the Way of the Saints. She came to know Santería intimately through its prayers and rituals, drumming and dancing, trances and divination that spark sacred healing energy for family, spiritual growth, and service to others. Written by one who is a professor and a santera priestess, The Altar of My Soul lays before us an electrifying and inspiring faith–one passed down from generation to generation that vitalizes the sacred energy necessary to build a family, a community, and a strong, loving society.

A compilation from years of teachings on angels. It treats "walking with angels" as something we can make an aspect of our path, like meditation or healing. Topics include the qualities needed to see and make contact with the angels; the parallel life-streams of humanity and the angels; the chakras and the angels associated with them; feeling the angelic presence in nature; how to work with the angels for healing; the great angels of the sun and the planets; angelic guidance; ritual and ceremony; and the archangel Michael.

Die vorliegende Arbeit moechte zeigen, wie Karl Barth in seiner Auseinandersetzung mit dem Religionsbegriff zu den Thesen 'Religion als Unglaube' und 'die christliche Religion als die einzig wirkliche und wahre Religion' in der Kirchlichen Dogmatik (KD) 17 - Gottes Offenbarung als Aufhebung der Religion -gelangt. Sie beschaftigt sich mit Barths AEusserungen zum Verhaltnis von Religion und Wahrheit im Zeitraum von 1909 bis 1938 und richtet sich auf die konstruktive Rolle von 'Religion' und damit auf die Frage, welche argumentative Rolle und Funktion Barth dem Religionsbegriff zuweist. Daruber hinaus koennte die konstruktive Rolle von 'Religion' in Barths Theologie der zeitgenoessischen Religionswissenschaft eine neue Perspektive eroeffnen.

"Nelson spent a year among the Koyukon people of western Alaska, studying
their intimate relationship with animals and the land. His chronicle of
that visit represents a thorough and elegant account of the mystical
connection between Native Americans and the natural world."--"Outside"
"This admirable reflection on the natural history of the Koyukon River
drainage in Alaska is founded on knowledge the author gained as a student
of the Koyukon culture, indigenous to that region. He presents these
Athapascan views of the land--principally of its animals and Koyukon
relationships with those creatures--together with a measured account of his
own experiences and doubts. . . . For someone in search of a native
American expression of 'ecology' and natural history, I can think of no
better place to begin than with this work."--Barry Lopez, "Orion Nature "
"Quarterly"
"Far from being a romantic attempt to pass on the spiritual lore of Native
Americans for a quick fix by others, this is a very serious ethnographic
study of some Alaskan Indians in the Northern Forest area. . . . He has
painstakingly regarded their views of earth, sky, water, mammals and every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. He does admire their love of
nature and spirit. Those who see the world through his eyes using their
eyes will likely come away with new respect for the boreal forest and those
who live with it and in it, not against it."--"The Christian Century"
"In "Make Prayers to the Raven" Nelson reveals to us the Koyukon
beliefs and attitudes toward the fauna that surround them in their forested
habitat close to thelower Yukon. . . . Nelson's presentation also gives
rich insights into the Koyukon subsistence cycle through the year and into
the hardships of life in this northern region. The book is written with
both brain and heart. . . . This book represents a landmark: never before
has the integration of American Indians with their environment been so well
spelled out."--Ake Hultkrantz, "Journal of Forest History"

In this in-depth exploration of the symbols found in Navaho legend and ritual, Gladys Reichard discusses the attitude of the tribe members toward their place in the universe, their obligation toward humankind and their gods, and their conception of the supernatural, as well as how the Navaho achieve a harmony within their world through symbolic ceremonial practice. Originally published in 1963. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.