Just one generation ago, the Sora tribe in India lived in a world populated by the spirits of their dead, who spoke to them through shamans in trance. Every day, they negotiated their wellbeing in heated arguments or in quiet reflections on their feelings of love, anger, and guilt. Today, young Sora are rejecting the worldview of their ancestors and switching their allegiance to warring sects of fundamentalist Christianity or Hinduism. Communion with ancestors is banned as sacred sites are demolished, female shamans are replaced by male priests, and debate with the dead gives way to prayer to gods. For some, this shift means liberation from jungle spirits through literacy, employment, and democratic politics; others despair for fear of being forgotten after death. How can a society abandon one understanding of reality so suddenly and see the world in a totally different way? Over forty years, anthropologist Piers Vitebsky has shared the lives of shamans, pastors, ancestors, gods, policemen, missionaries, and alphabet worshippers, seeking explanations from social theory, psychoanalysis, and theology. Living without the Dead lays bare today's crisis of indigenous religions and shows how historical reform can bring new fulfillments--but also new torments and uncertainties. Vitebsky explores the loss of the Sora tradition as one for greater humanity: just as we have been losing our wildernesses, so we have been losing a diverse range of cultural and spiritual possibilities, tribe by tribe. From the award-winning author of The Reindeer People, this is a heartbreaking story of cultural change and the extinction of an irreplaceable world, even while new religious forms come into being to take its place.

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.

This ground-breaking study reveals an unorganized and previously unacknowledged religion at the heart of American culture. Nature, Albanese argues, has provided a compelling religious center throughout American history.

As a sangoma (traditional healer), Nkunzi is able to explore dimensions of her sexual identity because of her relationship with both male and female ancestors.

‘In Zulu culture a man must be a man and do male things and a woman must be a woman and do female things but with sangomas it is more flexible. I can dance like a woman and wear a woman’s clothes and dance like a man and wear a man’s clothes. I can do the work of a man, like slaughtering a goat or a cow although in traditional Zulu culture a woman cannot slaughter …’

Conscious of her constitutional rights as an urban young lesbian in a time of a relentless spate of hate crimes against township lesbians, Nkunzi is simultaneously sensitive to the demands of the guiding ancestral voice of the traditional, rural Zulu patriarch whose name she bears. Her quest is for a middle path of balance and integration between the living and the dead, the traditional and the modern.

"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."

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.

This book provides an introduction Native American religious traditions, placing them within their historical, social, and political contexts. The book focuses on three diverse indigenous traditions: the Lakota of the Northern Plains, the Dine (Navajo) of the Southwest, and Coast Salish of the Pacific Northwest. This book highlights their distinct oral traditions, ceremonial practices, the impact of colonialism on Native religious life, and the ways in which indigenous communities of North America have responded, and continue to respond, to colonialism and Euroamerican cultural hegemony. For people interested in the study of Native American Religious Traditions.

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.

A definitive compendium of African myth and folktale, retold in rich, vibrant prose, Indaba, My Children is a stunning literary and ethnographic achievement. As a young man, Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa, a Zulu from the South African province of Natal, was determined to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather and become a tribal historian in order to keep the rich oral tradition of his culture alive. In this book, begun in response to the injustices against Africans and their culture, he sets these legends down in writing. He begins with the creation myth, when Ninavanhu-Ma, the Great Mother, created the human race. From there, an epic unfolds, an intricate and vivid cultural tapestry populated by gods and mortals, cattle herders and supreme kings, witch doctors, lovers, grave diggers, warriors, and handmaidens. The story continues all the way up to the colonial era, when a Portuguese Kapitanoh and his crew arrive on the African shore. Indaba, My Children is a classic and indispensable resource for anyone interested in the cultural life of Africa and the human experience as it is filtered into myth.

"Spirit Wars" is an exploration of the ways in which the destruction of spiritual practices and beliefs of native peoples in North America has led to conditions of collective suffering--a process sometimes referred to as cultural genocide. Ronald Niezen approaches this topic through wide-ranging case studies involving different colonial powers and state governments: the seventeenth-century Spanish occupation of the Southwest, the colonization of the Northeast by the French and British, nineteenth-century westward expansion and nationalism in the swelling United States and Canada, and twentieth-century struggles for native people's spiritual integrity and freedom. Each chapter deals with a specific dimension of the relationship between native peoples and non-native institutions, and together these topics yield a new understanding of the forces directed against the underpinnings of native cultures.

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.

Addressing problems of objectivity and authenticity, Sabine MacCormack reconstructs how Andean religion was understood by the Spanish in light of seventeenth-century European theological and philosophical movements, and by Andean writers trying to find in it antecedents to their new Christian faith.

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.

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.

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.

For the past thirty years, adherents of a millenarian cult in Papua New Guinea, known as the Pomio Kivung, have been awaiting 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. From the stable mainstream of the cult, localized splinter groups periodically emerge, hoping to expedite the millennium; the core of this volume concerns the close study of one such group in two Baining villages.
The two aspects of the cult studied here--on the one hand a large, uniform, and stable mainstream organization with a well-defined hierarchy demanding orthodoxy of views, and on the other hand a small-scale and temporary movement, emotional and innovatieve in its views--stand in sharp contrast one to the other, but are here seen as divergent manifestations of the same relifious ideology, implemented in differing ways. This original theory of "modes of religiosity" which Whitehouse develops draws on recent findings in cognitive psychology to link styles of codification and cultural transmission to the political scale, structure, and ethos of religious communities.

Research of Mongolion folk-religion has been the subject of special attention in recent years. Editions and translations of extant texts have appeared, providing detailed descriptions of the rituals. This book examines a very special ritual of folk-religion, the ceremony of calling back the soul of the dead. Among the Mongols it was commonly believed that illness and death were caused by the absence of the soul, so a special ritual was required to call back the wandering soul. The research for this volume has been based on texts preserved in the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. A background is given by observations of researchers who have visited the relevant areas and personal communications of Mongols. These rituals are still living and carried out by Mongolians and their neighbouring peoples. The very old ceremony, must have belonged to an early layer of folk-religion. It has now become a ritual of the Lamaist church. Influence of Tibetan Buddhism is found. A special chapter is devoted to evil spirits. The volume is richly illustrated.

The traditions of oral ritual speech in the Himalayas have a lively existence alongside the written "great" traditions that predominate. However, as Martin Gaenszle shows, the oral traditions are still little known and even less understood. This collection of oral texts from Nepal, Bhutan, and northeast India, rich with translation and interpretation, serves two purposes. First, it presents the texts themselves, not just as fragments, but as coherent performances of ritual speech, varied in their linguistic form. Second, it displays various possible methods of presenting oral ritual texts in written form; no single standard form is yet agreed upon. In Ritual Speech in the Himalayas, each contributor showcases a unique style of transforming the spoken language and its translation or comments into an editorial format to fit the respective genres and scholarly interests, such as interlinear or sectional translation, morphological glossing, or musical scores.

In 1992 Smithsonian anthropologist Michael Atwood Mason traveled to Cuba for initiation as a priest into the Santeria religion. Since then he has created an active oricha "house" and has initiated five others as priests. He is a rare combination: a scholar-practitioner who is equally fluent in his profession and his religion. Interweaving his roles as researcher and priest, he explores Santeria as a contemporary phenomenon and offers an understanding of its complexity through his own experiences and those of its many practitioners.

The rituals of Santeria focus on the establishment, maintenance, and transformation of the practitioners' identities -- how they create their "moral universe" and use it to change their lives. Mason examines several of the most significant ritual performances to illustrate the practitioners' intense personal relationships with the gods, or orichas, and how both humans and orichas act and are acted upon. Through his own experience Mason illuminates how the religion changes people socially and psychologically as they deepen these relationships.

Balancing deftly between a devotee's account of participation and an anthropologist's theoretical analysis, Living Santeria offers an original and insightful understanding of this growing religious tradition.

Rich ethnographic studies expanding the understanding of ngoma in Africa. The indigenous African healing system of music, dance, possession and trance is perhaps best known through John Janzen's book Ngoma: Discourse of Healing in Central and Southern Africa. This collection engages with Janzen'sanalysis and examines ngoma in its culturally diverse manifestations. North America: Ohio U Press

Throughout West African societies, at times of social crises, postmenopausal women-the Mothers-make a ritual appeal to their innate moral authority. The seat of this power is the female genitalia. Wielding branches or pestles, they strip naked and slap their genitals and bare breasts to curse and expel the forces of evil. In An Intimate Rebuke Laura S. Grillo draws on fieldwork in Cote d'Ivoire that spans three decades to illustrate how these rituals of Female Genital Power (FGP) constitute religious and political responses to abuses of power. When deployed in secret, FGP operates as spiritual warfare against witchcraft; in public, it serves as a political activism. During Cote d'Ivoire's civil wars FGP challenged the immoral forces of both rebels and the state. Grillo shows how the ritual potency of the Mothers' nudity and the conjuration of their sex embodies a moral power that has been foundational to West African civilization. Highlighting the remarkable continuity of the practice across centuries while foregrounding the timeliness of FGP in contemporary political resistance, Grillo shifts perspectives on West African history, ethnography, comparative religious studies, and postcolonial studies.

To many Westerners, the disappearance of African traditions of witchcraft might seem inevitable with continued modernization. In The Modernity, of Witchcraft, Peter Geschiere uses his own experiences among the Maka and in other parts of eastern and southern Cameroon, as well as other anthropological research, to argue that contemporary ideas and practices of witchcraft are more a response to modern exigencies than a lingering cultural custom. The prevalence of witchcraft, especially in African politics and entrepreneurship, demonstrates the unlikely balance it has achieved with the forces of modernity. Geschiere explores why modern techniques and commodities, usually of Western provenance, have become central in rumors of the occult.

Witchcraft is viewed as both a leveling and an oppressive force: a weapon of the weak to attack the powerful but also a tool of the powerful to maintain their position. Modern witchdoctors play a pivotal role not only in local cultures but also in stories of success and failure of state politicians, businessmen, and local football teams. Since the early 1980s they have been used as expert witnesses in state trials, helping to condemn defendants by their supposed expertise, rather than by hard evidence. The belief in witchcraft pervades all political levels: President Soglo of Benin, one of the few democratically elected on the continent, nearly missed his own inauguration because of an alleged witchcraft attack. Geschiere suggests that the African state is a true breeding ground for modern transformations of witchcraft because the ambiguity of this discourse can contain both the obsession of power and the increasing feelings of powerlessness among thepeople in the face of modern developments. There are unexpected parallels here with certain aspects of politics in Western democracies.

The ease with which witchcraft has incorporated the money economy, new power relations, and modern consumer goods is a striking example of its resilience in the face of Western influences. Geschiere uses the evolving relationship of witchcraft and modernity to demonstrate that democracy in Africa can succeed only if it is related to local cultures and their discourse on power.

This study is one that anthropologists, political scientists, and others concerned with contemporary Africa cannot afford to ignore.

In The Dream Seekers, Lee Irwin demonstrates the central importance of visionary dreams as sources of empowerment and innovation in Plains Indian religion. He examines 350 dreams from 150 years of published and unpublished sources to describe the shared features of cosmology for twenty-three groups of Plains Indians.

Irwin describes the different means of acquiring visions, including stress, illness, social conflict, and mourning and the spontaneous vision experience common among Plains Indian women. He also explores the stages of the structured male vision quest, unsuccessful or abandoned quests, and threshold experiences during a vision. His conclusion is that dreams not only strengthen the group's experience of a shared religious world view but also confer the right to enact new patterns of individual and collective behavior.

"The Dream Seekers offers new and genuine insights into the dream experience of the Plains Indians....(and) offers original comments on the dream experience itself -- the receiving of the dream and the transference of the dream's inherent power". -- American Indian Culture and Research Journal.

"No library -- private, professional, public, or academic, with any interest in Native American culture -- should be without this book". -- Western Historical Quarterly.

"Anyone with a particular interest in American Indian studies, anthropology, sociology, or religion will find this volume invaluable". -- Rapport.

Scholarly attention to Indigenous religions has grown massively in the last twenty years. Within varied forms of Indigenous Studies (e.g. Native American Studies, Maori Studies), as a field itself, and within ethnological disciplines such as Anthropology and Religious Studies, issues related to Indigenous peoples have become increasingly important. Indigenous Religions brings together significant journal articles from the last fifteen years to provoke further discussion and to underpin improved teaching and up-to-date research. Some of the selected articles have already played significant roles in shaping debates in diverse areas, but bringing them together, combined with lesser known yet equally significant ones, enhances their significance and gives them a greater value to researchers and students. This collection is intended to provide an unrivalled resource for future developments in the disciplines that touch on Indigenous religions and current issues as they unfold in the twenty-first century.