Originally published in 1967, this book is a study of witchcraft and sorcery among the Shona, Ndebele and Kalanga peoples of Zimbabwe. It analyses in their social context verbatim evidence and confessions from a comprehensive series of judicial records. It provides the first systematic demonstration of the importance and the exstent to which such sources can be used to make a detailed analysis of the character and range of beliefs and motives. The main emphasis is on witchcraft and sorcery beliefs, the nature of accusations, confessions and divination, btoh traditional and as practised by members of the Pentecostal Church.

Originally published in 1959 this volume studies the ritual office of the Mugwe which was of great social significance among the Meru of the Central Province of Kenya and analyses the social changes and decline of the Mugwe which came about in the second half of the twentieth century. Until this book was published there was no published literature on the Mugwe - one of the most basic and firmly established elements of the old structure of Meru social life.

Religion, Culture and Spirituality in Africa and the African Diaspora explores the ways in which religious ideas and beliefs continue to play a crucial role in the lives of people of African descent. The chapters in this volume use historical and contemporary examples to show how people of African descent develop and engage with spiritual rituals, organizations and practices to make sense of their lives, challenge injustices and creatively express their spiritual imaginings. This book poses and answers the following critical questions: To what extent are ideas of spirituality emanating from Africa and the diaspora still influenced by an African aesthetic? What impact has globalisation had on spiritual and cultural identities of peoples on African descendant peoples? And what is the utility of the practices and social organizations that house African spiritual expression in tackling social, political cultural and economic inequities? The essays in this volume reveal how spirituality weaves and intersects with issues of gender, class, sexuality and race across Africa and the diaspora. It will appeal to researchers and postgraduate students interested in the study of African religions, race and religion, sociology of religion and anthropology.

Vodou is among the most misunderstood and maligned of the world's religions. Mama Lola shatters the stereotypes by offering an intimate portrait of Vodou in everyday life. Drawing on a 35 year long friendship with Mama Lola, a Vodou priestess, Karen McCarthy Brown tells tales spanning five generations of Vodou healers in Mama Lola's family, beginning with an African ancestor and ending with Claudine Michel's account of working with Mama Lola after the Haitian earthquake. Out of these stories, in which dream and vision flavor everyday experience and the Vodou spirits guide decision making, Vodou emerges as a religion focused on healing brought about by mending broken relationships between the living, the dead, and the Vodou spirits. Deeply exploring the role of women in religious practices and the related themes of family and of religion and social change, Brown provides a rich context in which to understand the authority that urban Haitian women exercise in the home and in the Vodou temple.

J.D. Lewis-Williams, a leading South African archaeologist and ethnographer, examines the complex myths of the San-Bushmen to create a larger theory of how myth is used in cultures worldwide. Exploring ethnographic, archival and archaeological lines of research, he extracts the `nuggets', the far-reaching but often unspoken words and concepts of language and understanding that are opaque to outsiders, to establish a more nuanced theory of the role of these myths in the thought-world and social circumstances of the San. The book draws from the author's own work, the unique 19th-century Bleek & Lloyd archive, more recent ethnographic work, and San rock art and includes well-known San stories such as The broken string, Mantis dreams, and Creation of the eland.

Breaking from previous scholarship on Korean shamanism, which focuses on mansin of mainland Korea, The Shaman's Wages offers the first in-depth study of simbang, hereditary shamans on Cheju Island off the peninsula's southwest coast. In this engaging ethnography enriched by extensive historical research, Kyoim Yun explores the prevalent and persistent ambivalence toward practitioners, whose services have long been sought out yet derided as wasteful by anti-shaman commentators and occasionally by their clients. Intrigued by discord between simbang and their clients over fee negotiations, Yun set out to learn the deep-rooted legacy of condemning or trivializing the practitioners' self-interests, from a neo-Confucian governor's purge of shrines during the Choson dynasty to the recent transformation of a community ritual into a practice recognized through UNESCO World Heritage status. Drawing on a wealth of firsthand observations, she shows how simbang distinguish ritual exchanges from more mundane instances of bartering, purchasing, bribing, and gift giving and explains why ritual affairs are nonetheless inevitably thorny. This original study illuminates the intertwining of religion and economy in shamanic practice on Cheju Island.

This revealing work introduces readers to the mythologies of Native Americans from the United States to the Arctic Circle-a rich, complex, and diverse body of lore, which remains less widely known than mythologies of other peoples and places.
In thematic chapters and encyclopedia-style entries, Handbook of Native American Mythology examines the characters and deities, rituals, sacred locations and objects, concepts, and stories that define mythological cultures of various indigenous peoples. By tracing the traditions as far back as possible and following their evolution from generation to generation, Handbook of Native American Mythology offers a unique perspective on Native American history, culture, and values. It also shows how central these traditions are to contemporary Native American life, including the continuing struggle for land rights, economic parity, and repatriation of cultural property.
With more than 40 photographs, illustrations, and maps, here is the most comprehensive and accessible introduction to the mythological heritage of Native North Americans available in one volume.

J.D. Lewis-Williams, one of the leading South African archaeologists and ethnographers, excavates meaning from the complex mythological stories of the San-Bushmen to create a larger theory of how myth is used in culture. He extracts their "nuggets," the far-reaching but often unspoken words and concepts of language and understanding that are opaque to outsiders, to establish a more nuanced theory of the role of these myths in the thought-world and social circumstances of the San. The book -draws from the unique 19th century Bleek/Lloyd archives, more recent ethnographic work, and San rock art;-includes well-known San stories such as The Broken String, Mantis Dreams, and Creation of the Eland;-extrapolates from our understanding of San mythology into a larger model of how people create meaning from myth.

The Kebra Nagast is a sacred text originally written in 14th century Ethiopia. It tells the story of how the Queen of Sheba met the biblical King Solomon, and relates the birth of her son, Menilek, who became the legendary king of Ethiopia. A work of incredible cultural significance, The Kebra Nagast is far more than simply a piece of literature - it is a testament to richness of Ethiopian tradition and culture. In addition to its importance in Ethiopian traditions, the Kebra Nagast has become a key text for Rastafarians. The Kebra Nagast: The Lost Bible of Rastafarian Wisdom and Faith is the latest title in the Essential Wisdom Library series, which brings sacred texts from all traditions to modern readers. This new edition of the book includes a foreword by Ziggy Marley, which explores the importance of the Kebra Nagast as a powerful and sacred text both in Rastafarian tradition and in a broader sense. A clean, fresh design and inside cover printing give this ancient text modern appeal.

Black Elk of the Sioux has been recognized as one of the truly remarkable men of his time in the matter of religious belief and practice. Shortly before his death in August, 1950, when he was the "keeper of the sacred pipe," he said, "It is my prayer that, through our sacred pipe, and through this book in which I shall explain what our pipe really is, peace may come to those peoples who can understand, and understanding which must be of the heart and not of the head alone. Then they will realize that we Indians know the One true God, and that we pray to Him continually."

Black Elk was the only qualified priest of the older Oglala Sioux still living when "The Sacred Pipe "was written. This is his book: he gave it orally to Joseph Epes Brown during the latter's eight month's residence on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, where Black Elk lived. Beginning with the story of White Buffalo Cow Woman's first visit to the Sioux to give them the sacred pip, Black Elk describes and discusses the details and meanings of the seven rites, which were disclosed, one by one, to the Sioux through visions. He takes the reader through the sun dance, the purification rite, the "keeping of the soul," and other rites, showing how the Sioux have come to terms with God and nature and their fellow men through a rare spirit of sacrifice and determination.

The "wakan "Mysteries of the Siouan peoples have been a subject of interest and study by explorers and scholars from the period of earliest contact between whites and Indians in North America, but Black Elk's account is without doubt the most highly developed on this religion and cosmography. "The Sacred Pipe, "published as volume thirty-six in the Civilization of the American Indian Series, will be greeted enthusiastically by students of comparative religion, ethnologists, historians, philosophers, and everyone interested in American Indian life.

This is the first major study of the Nuer based on primary research since Evans-Pritchard's classic Nuer Religion. It is also the first full-length historical study of indigenous African prophets operating outside the context of the world's main religions, and as such builds on Evans-Pritchard's pioneering work in promoting collaboration and dialogue between the disciplines of anthropology and history. Prophets first emerged as significant figures among the Nuer in the nineteenth century. They fashioned the religious idiom of prophecy from a range of spiritual ideas, and enunciated the social principles which broadened and sustained a moral community across political and ethnic boundaries. Douglas Johnson argues that, contrary to the standard anthropological interpretation, the major prophets' lasting contribution was their vision of peace, not their role in war. This vision is particularly relevant today, and the book concludes with a detailed discussion of events in the Sudan since independence in 1956, describing how modern Nuer, and many other southern Sudanese, still find the message of the nineteenth-century prophets relevant to their experiences in the current civil war.

The millenarian cult known as the Pomio Kivung, in Papua New Guinea, looks forward to the establishment of a period of supernatural bliss, heralded by the return of their ancestors bearing `cargo'. The author of this book, Harvey Whitehouse, was taken for a reincarnated ancestor, and was able to observe the dynamics of the cult from within. Drawing on this uniquely detailed study, Dr Whitehouse develops an original theory of `modes of religiosity' linking styles of codification and cultural transmission to the political scale, structure, and ethos of religious communities.

Ms. Donna Haskins is an African American woman who wrestles with structural inequity in the streets of Boston by inhabiting an alternate dimension she refers to as the "spirit realm." In this other place, she is prepared by the Holy Spirit to challenge the restrictions placed upon Black female bodies in the United States. Growing into her spiritual gifts of astral flight and time travel, Donna meets the spirits of enslaved Africans, conducts spiritual warfare against sexual predators, and tends to the souls of murdered Black children whose ghosts haunt the inner city. Take Back What the Devil Stole centers Donna's encounters with the supernatural to offer a powerful narrative of how one woman seeks to reclaim her power from a lifetime of social violence. Both ethnographic and personal, Onaje X. O. Woodbine's portrait of her spiritual life sheds new light on the complexities of Black women's religious participation and the lived religion of the dispossessed. Woodbine explores Donna's religious creativity and her sense of multireligious belonging as she blends together Catholic, Afro-Caribbean, and Black Baptist traditions. Through the gripping story of one local prophet, this book offers a deeply original account of the religious experiences of Black women in contemporary America: their bodies, their haunted landscapes, and their spiritual worlds.

More than a quarter of the world's religions are to be found in the regions of Australia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, together called Oceania. The Religions of Oceania is the first book to bring together up-to-date information on the great and changing variety of traditional religions in the Pacific zone. The book also deals with indigenous Christianity and its wide influence across the region, and includes new religious movements generated by the responses of indigenous peoples to colonists and missionaries, the best known of these being the Cargo Cults' of Melanesia.
The authors present a thorough and accessible examination of the fascinating diversity of religious practices in the area, analysing new religious developments, and provideing clear interpretative tools and a mine of information to help the student better understand the world's most complex ethnologic tapestry.

ANCIENT MYSTERIES / AFRICAN STUDIES"The Dogon creation myth reflects the nuances of cutting-edge scientific cosmology, and finally this is being recognized. A quintessential read for anyone wishing to learn the truth about this fascinating subject."--Andrew Collins, author of From the Ashes of AngelsThe Dogon people of Mali, West Africa, are famous for their unique art and advanced cosmology. The Dogon's creation story describes how the one true god, Amma, created all the matter of the universe. Interestingly, the myths that depict his creative efforts bear a striking resemblance to the modern scientific definitions of matter, beginning with the atom and continuing all the way to the vibrating threads of string theory. Furthermore, many of the Dogon words, symbols, and rituals used to describe the structure of matter are quite similar to those found in the myths of ancient Egypt and in the daily rituals of Judaism. For example, the modern scientific depiction of the unformed universe as a black hole is identical to Amma's Egg of the Dogon and the Egyptian Benben Stone.The Science of the Dogon offers a case-by-case comparison of Dogon descriptions and drawings to corresponding scientific definitions and diagrams from authors like Stephen Hawking and Brian Greene, then extends this analysis to the counterparts of these symbols in both the ancient Egyptian and Hebrew religions. What is ultimately revealed is the scientific basis for the language of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, which was deliberately encoded to prevent the knowledge of these concepts from falling into the hands of all but the highest members of the Egyptian priesthood. The Science of the Dogon also offers compelling newinterpretations for many of the most familiar Egyptian symbols, such as the pyramid and the scarab, and presents new explanations for the origins of religiously charged words such as Jehovah and Satan.LAIRD SCRANTON is an independent software designer who became interested in Dogon mythology and symbolism in the early 1990s. He has studied ancient myth, language, and cosmology for nearly ten years and has been a lecturer at Colgate University. He also appears in John Anthony West's Magical Egypt DVD series. He lives in Albany, New York.

China has a large number of indigenous ethnic minorities, some of which have large populations. Many of these minorities have animist, local religions, which are closely bound up with their ethnic culture. The revival of religion generally in China in recent years has been paralleled by a revival of religion amongst the ethnic minorities. This has caused a renewal of long-standing tensions between majority Han and non-Han minorities, the latter often having endured for a long time policies designed to suppress their separate ethnic identities and make them conform to majority Han norms. This book, based on extensive original research among the Bai people, a people with a population of around five million, explores these important issues. It considers how majority-minority ethnic relations have evolved over time, discusses amongst many other issues how local religions emphasise ancestor cults which reinforce minorities sense of their separate ethnicity, and concludes by assessing how these important issues are likely to develop."

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.

Die Vorstellungen von den Osmanen schwanken in ihren Nachbarlandern und uberhaupt im Abendland. Eingebettet in eine romanhafte Rahmenhandlung werden Geschichte, Soziologie und Psychologie der Osmanen des 18. Jahrhunderts vor ihrer zunehmenden Verwestlichung im 19. Jahrhundert dargestellt und zeigen ein Selbstverstandnis, das in abgewandelter Form vor allem auch heute noch nachschwingt. Insgesamt vermitteln sie einen verstandnisvolleren Blick in die Entwicklung des Islam.

Ms. Donna Haskins is an African American woman who wrestles with structural inequity in the streets of Boston by inhabiting an alternate dimension she refers to as the "spirit realm." In this other place, she is prepared by the Holy Spirit to challenge the restrictions placed upon Black female bodies in the United States. Growing into her spiritual gifts of astral flight and time travel, Donna meets the spirits of enslaved Africans, conducts spiritual warfare against sexual predators, and tends to the souls of murdered Black children whose ghosts haunt the inner city. Take Back What the Devil Stole centers Donna's encounters with the supernatural to offer a powerful narrative of how one woman seeks to reclaim her power from a lifetime of social violence. Both ethnographic and personal, Onaje X. O. Woodbine's portrait of her spiritual life sheds new light on the complexities of Black women's religious participation and the lived religion of the dispossessed. Woodbine explores Donna's religious creativity and her sense of multireligious belonging as she blends together Catholic, Afro-Caribbean, and Black Baptist traditions. Through the gripping story of one local prophet, this book offers a deeply original account of the religious experiences of Black women in contemporary America: their bodies, their haunted landscapes, and their spiritual worlds.

In Afrolatinx religious practices such as Cuban Espiritismo, Puerto Rican Santeria, and Brazilian Candomble, the dead tell stories. Communicating with and through mediums' bodies, they give advice, make requests, and propose future rituals, creating a living archive that is coproduced by the dead. In this book, Solimar Otero explores how Afrolatinx spirits guide collaborative spiritual-scholarly activist work through rituals and the creation of material culture. By examining spirit mediumship through a Caribbean cross-cultural poetics, she shows how divinities and ancestors serve as active agents in shaping the experiences of gender, sexuality, and race. Otero argues that what she calls archives of conjure are produced through residual transcriptions or reverberations of the stories of the dead whose archives are stitched, beaded, smoked, and washed into official and unofficial repositories. She investigates how sites like the ocean, rivers, and institutional archives create connected contexts for unlocking the spatial activation of residual transcriptions. Drawing on over ten years of archival research and fieldwork in Cuba, Otero centers the storytelling practices of Afrolatinx women and LGBTQ spiritual practitioners alongside Caribbean literature and performance. Archives of Conjure offers vital new perspectives on ephemerality, temporality, and material culture, unraveling undertheorized questions about how spirits shape communities of practice, ethnography, literature, and history and revealing the deeply connected nature of art, scholarship, and worship.

Am 15. September 1680 fand die feierliche Translation der Reliquien der Katakombenheiligen Sergius, Bacchus, Hyacinthus und Erasmus im Kloster St. Gallen statt. Als Director musicae bekam der Stiftsorganist Pater Valentin Muller (Molitor) die Aufgabe, die Musik fur die Feier zu verfassen. 1681 wurde ein Teil des dafur komponierten Repertoires unter dem Titel Missa una cum tribus Mottetis in Solemni Translatione SS. MM. Sergii, Bacchi, Hyacinthi et Erasmi ab octo vocibus concertantibus, et 7. Instrumentis, sed tantium quatuor necessariis in Monasterio S. Galli decantata herausgegeben. Der im Kloster St. Gallen produzierte Musikdruck enthalt ein vollstandiges Ordinarium missae (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus und Agnus Dei) sowie drei Motetten. Grandios ist die aufwendige Besetzung mit zwei vierstimmigen Choeren sowie einem reichen, dem Festcharakter angemessenen Instrumentarium. Die Musik stellt damit ein wertvolles Zeugnis des benediktinischen Musikrepertoires dar, wie es im Kloster St. Gallen in der zweiten Halfte des 17. Jahrhunderts gepflegt wurde. Der vorliegende Band enthalt die vollstandige kritische Ausgabe der 1681 erschienenen Werke von Pater Valentin Muller (Molitor) sowie eine historische Einleitung.

Shu'ayb al-'Arna'ut war ein zeitgenoessischer Hadith-Gelehrter, der einen grossen Teil des Hadith-Kanons und daruber hinaus klassifiziert hat. In diesem Band wird zum ersten Mal seine Methodologie vorgestellt. Anhand einer komparativen Analyse wird ein exemplarischer Korpus von Hadithen untersucht, um die Charakteristika der Methodologie von al-'Arna'ut feststellen zu koennen. Zudem werden seine Beurteilungen von Hadithen mit denen von al-Tahanawi und al-'Albani verglichen. Die Autorin zeigt in diesem Buch auf, wie zeitgenoessische Hadith-Gelehrte mit den Erkenntnissen fruherer Gelehrter umgehen, welche Herausforderungen und neuen Entwicklungen dabei entstanden sind.

Die Studie erschliesst einen neuen Zugang zur "Liebe". Der Autor untersucht Liebe nicht lediglich als sinnlichen Affekt, sondern als Grundausrichtung auf das Gute. Seine rein philosophische Argumentation geht den Gegebenheiten der Erfahrung auf den Grund. Das Buch beginnt mit der Darstellung von Liebe als "Prinzip des Seins". Das in Evolution befindliche Sein des Kosmos weist auf das Goettliche als "sich verstroemende Liebe" hin. Liebe erscheint als Aufbauprinzip einer Seinsordnung, die zum Beispiel Ehe und Familie begrundet. Es folgt eine Betrachtung der Liebe als Prinzip des sinnlichen und des geistigen Erkennens. Die Betrachtung kulminiert in einem abschliessenden Teil mit einer Reflexion der Liebe als "Prinzip des Handelns" gegenuber dem Sein, der eigenen Person, den Mitmenschen und der Natur.

Die Autoren des Buches stellen die Geschichte der Budweiser Dioezese dar und reflektieren hierbei aktuelle Forschungsansatze. Das Buch zeichnet ein komplexes Bild der Entstehung und territorialen wie verwaltungstechnischen Entwicklung der Dioezese in den Jahren 1785-1850. Die Autoren arbeiten mit neuen Perspektiven die wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen heraus und dokumentieren die Tatigkeit der einzelnen Bischoefe, des bischoeflichen Konsistoriums und Kapitels. Dieses Buch bietet eine grundliche und systematische Analyse verschiedener Facetten des Lebens der Geistlichen in Sudboehmen: besondere Aufmerksamkeit gilt ihrer sozialen und nationalen Herkunft, ihrer Ausbildung und Erziehung sowie ihrem Alltag und ihren Aktivitaten.

Die Beitrage untersuchen disziplinubergreifend das Phanomen Migration. Die AutorInnen betrachten Migration als ein konstitutives Element der Menschheitsgeschichte und als globales Zukunftsthema. Spatestens seit Beginn der Fluchtlingswelle aus Syrien nach Europa und auch OEsterreich in den Sommermonaten 2015 ist diese Thematik integraler Bestandteil medialer, politischer und oeffentlicher Kontroversen. Migration ist kein modernes Phanomen. Wanderungsprozesse aufgrund existenzieller Bedrohungen oder Hoffnung auf bessere Lebensbedingungen anderswo hat es immer gegeben. Die BeitragerInnen diskutieren Migration aus den Perspektiven der Theologie, Philosophie und der Kunstwissenschaft. Die Bandbreite der Sujets reicht hierbei von alttestamentarischen Bibelstellen bis hin zum Europa der Neuzeit, uber Kolonialismus, Imperialismus und Globalisierung. Aus kunstwissenschaftlicher Perspektive wird der Migrationsbegriff hinsichtlich unterschiedlicher Epochen und Kunstgattungen aufbereitet.