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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Non-Christian religions > Ethnic or tribal religions > General
Indigenous Sustainable Wisdom: First Nation Know-how for Global
Flourishing's contributors describe ways of being in the world that
reflect a worldview that guided humanity for 99% of human history:
They describe the practical traditional wisdom that stems from
Nature-based relational cultures that were or are guided by this
worldview. Such cultures did not cause the kinds of anti-Nature and
de-humanizing or inequitable policies and practices that now
pervade our world. Far from romanticizing Indigenous histories,
Indigenous Sustainable Wisdom offers facts about how human beings,
with our potential for good and evil behaviors, can live in
relative harmony again. Contributions cover views from
anthropology, psychology, sociology, leadership, native science,
native history, and native art.
Across the world from personal relationships to global politics,
differences-cultural, religious, racial, gender, age, ability-are
at the heart of the most disruptive and disturbing concerns. While
it is laudable to nurture an environment promoting the tolerance of
difference, Creative Encounters, Appreciating Difference argues for
the higher goal of actually appreciating difference as essential to
creativity and innovation, even if often experienced as stressful
and complex. Even encounters that are apparently harmful and
negatively valued (arguments, conflict, war, oppression) usually
heighten the potential for creativity, innovation, movement,
action, and identity. Drawing on classic encounters that have
played a significant role in the founding of the academic study of
religion and the social sciences, this book explores in some depth
the dynamics of encounter to reveal both its problematic and
creative aspects and to develop perspectives and strategies to
assure encounters both include the appreciation of difference and
also are recognized as creative and innovative. The two examples
most extensively considered show that the academic study of the
peoples indigenous to North America and to Australia involved
creative constructions (concoctions) of primary examples in order
to establish and give authority to academic theories and
definitions. Rather than damning these examples as "bad
scholarship," this book considers them to be encounters engendering
creative constructions that are distinctive to academia, yet their
potential for harm must be understood. Most important to the book
is a persistent development of perspectives and strategies for
understanding and approaching encounters in order to assure the
appreciation of difference is accompanied by the potential for
creativity and innovation. Specific perspectives and strategies are
related to naming, moving, gesture, and play and, particularly
relevant to religion, the development of an aesthetic of
impossibles. Since these historical examples engage highly relevant
present concerns -the distinction of real and fake, truth and lie,
map and territory-the threading essays show how these more or less
classic examples might contribute to appreciating these
contemporary concerns that are generated in the presence of
difference.
An innovative history of the politics and practice of the Caribbean
spiritual healing techniques known as obeah and their place in
everyday life in the region. Spanning two centuries, the book
results from extensive research on the development and
implementation of anti-obeah legislation. It includes analysis of
hundreds of prosecutions for obeah, and an account of the complex
and multiple political meanings of obeah in Caribbean societies.
Diana Paton moves beyond attempts to define and describe what obeah
was, instead showing the political imperatives that often drove
interpretations and discussions of it. She shows that
representations of obeah were entangled with key moments in
Caribbean history, from eighteenth-century slave rebellions to the
formation of new nations after independence. Obeah was at the same
time a crucial symbol of the Caribbean's alleged lack of modernity,
a site of fear and anxiety, and a thoroughly modern and
transnational practice of healing itself.
Rastafari Reasoning and the RastaWoman: Gender Constructions in the
Shaping of Rastafari Livity examines the complex ways that gender
and race shaped a liberation movement propelled by the Caribbean
evolution of an African spiritual ethos. Jeanne Christensen
proposes that Rastafari represents the most recent reworking of
this spiritual ethos, referred to as African religiosity. The book
contributes a new perspective to the literature on Rastafari, and
through a historical lens, corrects the predominant static view of
Rastafari women. In certain Rastafari manifestations, a growing
livity developed by RastaMen eventually excluded women from an
important ritual called "Reasoning"-a conscious search for
existential and ontological truth through self-understanding
performed in a group setting. Restoring agency to the RastaWoman,
Christensen argues that RastaWomen, intimately in touch with this
spiritual ethos, challenged oppressive structures within the
movement itself. They skirted official restrictions, speaking out
in public and written forums whenever such avenues presented
themselves, and searched for their own truth through conscious
intentional self-examination characteristic of the Reasoning
ritual. With its powerful, theoretically informed narrative,
Rastafari Reasoning and the RastaWoman: Gender Constructions in the
Shaping of Rastafari Livity will appeal to students and scholars
interested in religious transformation, resistance movements,
gender issues, critical race studies, and the history and culture
of the English-speaking Caribbean.
This edition updates the scholarship on ancestor worship-with the
addition of three new chapters. Beginning with Akan theology and
ending with sacrifices, the study examines Akan conception of God,
the abosom (gods and goddesses) relative to creation, centrality of
the ancestors' stool as the ultimate religious symbol housing the
soul of the Akan, and organized annual propitiatory festivities
carried out among the Akan in honor of the ancestors (Nananom
Nsamanfo) and abosom. The book, therefore, serves as an invaluable
resource for those interested in the phenomenon of African
religion, because it provides real insight into ancestor worship in
ways that are meaningful, practical, systematic, and as a way of
life by an Akan Traditional ruler ( dikro) and a professor of
Africana studies.
The Mi'kmaq of eastern Canada were among the first indigenous
North Americans to encounter colonial Europeans. As early as the
mid-sixteenth century, they were trading with French fishers, and
by the mid-seventeenth century, large numbers of Mi'kmaq had
converted to Catholicism. Mi'kmaw Catholicism is perhaps best
exemplified by the community's regard for the figure of Saint Anne,
the grandmother of Jesus. Every year for a week, coinciding with
the saint's feast day of July 26, Mi'kmaw peoples from communities
throughout Quebec and eastern Canada gather on the small island of
Potlotek, off the coast of Nova Scotia. It is, however, far from a
conventional Catholic celebration. In fact, it expresses a complex
relationship between the Mi'kmaq, Saint Anne, a series of
eighteenth-century treaties, and a cultural hero named
Kluskap.
Finding Kluskap brings together years of historical research and
learning among Mi'kmaw peoples on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.
The author's long-term relationship with Mi'kmaw friends and
colleagues provides a unique vantage point for scholarship, one
shaped by not only personal relationships but also by the cultural,
intellectual, and historical situations that inform postcolonial
peoples. The picture that emerges when Saint Anne, Kluskap, and the
mission are considered in concert with one another is one of the
sacred life as a site of adjudication for both the meaning and
efficacy of religion--and the impact of modern history on
contemporary indigenous religion.
Throughout Haitian history-from 17th century colonial
Saint-Domingue to 21st century postcolonial Haiti-arguably, the
Afro-Haitian religion of Vodou has been represented as an
"unsettling faith" and a "cultural paradox," as expressed in
various forms and modes of Haitian thought and life including
literature, history, law, politics, painting, music, and art.
Competing voices and conflicting ideas of Vodou have emerged from
each of these cultural symbols and intellectual expressions. The
Vodouist discourse has not only pervaded every aspect of the
Haitian life and experience, it has defined the Haitian cosmology
and worldview. Further, the Vodou faith has had a momentous impact
on the evolution of Haitian intellectual, aesthetic, and literary
imagination; comparatively, Vodou has shaped Haitian social ethics,
sexual and gender identity, and theological discourse such as in
the intellectual works and poetic imagination of Jean Price-Mars,
Dantes Bellegarde, Jacques Roumain, Jacques Stephen Alexis, etc.
Similarly, Vodou has shaped the discourse on the intersections of
memory, trauma, history, collective redemption, and Haitian
diasporic identity in Haitian women's writings such as in the
fiction of Edwidge Danticat, Myriam Chancy, etc. The chapters in
this collection tell a story about the dynamics of the Vodou faith
and the rich ways Vodou has molded the Haitian narrative and
psyche. The contributors of this book examine this constructed
narrative from a multicultural voice that engages critically the
discipline of ethnomusicology, drama, performance, art,
anthropology, ethnography, economics, literature, intellectual
history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, religion, and theology.
Vodou is also studied from multiple theoretical approaches
including queer, feminist theory, critical race theory, Marxism,
postcolonial criticism, postmodernism, and psychoanalysis.
One glaring lacuna in studies of Haitian Vodou is the scarcity of
works exploring the connection between the religion and its main
roots, traditional Yoruba religion. Discussions of Vodou very often
seem to present the religion in vacuo, as a sui generis phenomenon
that arose in Saint-Domingue and evolved in Haiti, with no
antecedents. What is sorely needed then is more comparative studies
of Haitian Vodou that would examine its connections to traditional
Yoruba religion and thus illuminate certain aspects of its
mythology, belief system, practices, and rituals. This book seeks
to bridge these gaps. Vodou in the Haitian Experience studies
comparatively the connections and relationships between Vodou and
African traditional religions such as Yoruba religion and Egyptian
religion. Such studies might enhance our understanding of the
religion, and the connections between Africa and its Diaspora
through shared religious patterns and practices. The general reader
should be mindful of the transnational and transcultural
perspectives of Vodou, as well as the cultural, socio-economic, and
political context which gave birth to different visions and ideas
of Vodou. The chapters in this collection tell a story about the
dynamics of the Vodou faith and the rich ways Vodou has molded the
Haitian narrative and psyche. The contributors of this book examine
this constructed narrative from a multicultural voice that engages
critically the discipline of ethnomusicology, drama, performance,
art, anthropology, ethnography, economics, literature, intellectual
history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, religion, and theology.
Vodou is also studied from multiple theoretical approaches
including queer, feminist theory, critical race theory, Marxism,
postcolonial criticism, postmodernism, and psychoanalysis.
This book examines alleged "superhuman" powers predominantly
associated with smith/artisans in five African societies. It
discusses their ritual and social roles, mythico-histories, symbols
surrounding their art, and changing relationships between these
specialists and their patrons. Needed but also feared, these
smith/artisans work in traditionally hereditary occupations and in
stratified but negotiable relationships with their rural patron
families. Many of them now also work for new customers in an
expanding market economy, which is still characterized by personal,
face-to-face interactions. Rasmussen maintains that a framework
integrating anthropological theories of witchcraft, alterity,
symbolism, and power is fundamental to understanding local
accusations and tensions in these relationships. She also argues
that it is critical to deconstruct and disentangle guilt, blame,
and envy-concepts that are often conflated in anthropology at the
expense of falsely accused "witch" figures. The first portion of
this book is an ethnographic analysis of smith/artisans in Tuareg
society, and draws on primary source data from this author's
long-term social/cultural anthropological field research in Tuareg
(Kel Tamajaq) communities of northern Niger and Mali. The latter
portion of the book is a cross-cultural comparison, and it
re-analyzes the Tuareg case, drawing on secondary data on ritual
powers and smith/artisans in four other African societies: the
Amhara of Ethiopia, the Bidan (Moors) of Mauritania, the Kapsiki of
Cameroon, and the Mande of southern Mali. In the concluding
analysis, there is discussion of similarities and differences
between these cases, the social consequences of ritual knowledge
and power in each community, and their wider implications for
anthropology of religion, human rights, and African studies.
An innovative history of the politics and practice of the Caribbean
spiritual healing techniques known as obeah and their place in
everyday life in the region. Spanning two centuries, the book
results from extensive research on the development and
implementation of anti-obeah legislation. It includes analysis of
hundreds of prosecutions for obeah, and an account of the complex
and multiple political meanings of obeah in Caribbean societies.
Diana Paton moves beyond attempts to define and describe what obeah
was, instead showing the political imperatives that often drove
interpretations and discussions of it. She shows that
representations of obeah were entangled with key moments in
Caribbean history, from eighteenth-century slave rebellions to the
formation of new nations after independence. Obeah was at the same
time a crucial symbol of the Caribbean's alleged lack of modernity,
a site of fear and anxiety, and a thoroughly modern and
transnational practice of healing itself.
Margaret Mitchell Armand presents a cutting edge interdisciplinary
terrain inside an indigenous exploration of her homeland. Her
contribution to the historiography of Haitian Vodou demonstrates
the struggle for its recognition in Haiti's post-independence phase
as well as its continued misunderstanding. Through a
methodological, original study of the colonial culture of slavery
and its dehumanization, Healing in the Homeland: Haitian Vodou
Traditions examines the sociocultural and economic oppression
stemming from the local and international derived politics and
religious economic oppression. While concentrating the narratives
on stories of indigenous elites educated in the western traditions,
Armand moves pass the variables of race to locate the historical
conjuncture at the root of the persistent Haitian national
division. Supported by scholarships of indigenous studies and
current analysis, she elucidates how a false consciousness can be
overcome to reclaim cultural identity and pride, and include a
sociocultural, national educational program, and political platform
that embraces traditional needs in a global context of mutual
respect. While shredding the western adages, and within an
indigenous model of understanding, this book purposefully brings
forth the struggle of the African people in Haiti.
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.
La religion yoruba tiene sus origenes en la tribu del mismo nombre,
que duro aproximadamente doce siglos. El trafico de esclavos
permitio que sus habitantes fueran transportados a America, a donde
llevaron su religion, que se fundio con el catolicismo para dar
lugar a otro de sus nombres: santeria.. Actualmente es un credo con
un gran numero de devotos, por lo cual surge este libro, que
presenta un glosario de terminos yoruba, con cientos de palabras y
frases religiosas y folcloricas.
The Liberatory Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. is a
philosophical anthology which explores Dr. King's legacy as a
philosopher and his contemporary relevance as a thinker-activist.
It consists of sixteen chapters organized into four sections: Part
I, King within Philosophical Traditions, Part II, King as Engaged
Social and Political Philosopher, Part III, King's Ethics of
Nonviolence, and Part IV, Hope Resurgent or Dream Deferred:
Perplexities of King's Philosophical Optimism. Most chapters are
written by philosophers, but two are by philosophically informed
social scientists. The contributors examine King's relationships to
canonical Western philosophical traditions, and to African-American
thought. King's contribution to traditional branches of philosophy
such as ethics, social philosophy and philosophy of religion is
explored, as well as his relevance to contemporary movements for
social justice. As is evident from the title, the book considers
the importance of King's thought as liberatory discourse. Some
chapters focus on "topical" issues like the relevance of King's
moral critique of the Vietnam War to our present involvement in
Middle Eastern wars. Others focus on more densely theoretical
issues such as Personalism, existential philosophy or Hegelian
dialectics in King's thought. The significance of King's
reflections on racism, economic justice, democracy and the quest
for community are abiding themes. But the volume closes, quite
fittingly, on the importance of the theme of hope. The text is a
kind of philosophical dialogue on the enduring value of the legacy
of the philosopher, King.
The Ifugao of Northern Luzon, the Philippines, are famous for their
extensive system of irrigated rice terraces, and previous
anthropological accounts of the Ifugao have stressed their immense
importance for social life. This book attempts to "go against the
grain" and approach Ifugao society through an often overlooked
element, namely their pigs. By a detailed ethnographic description
of Ifugao cultural practices related to kinship, animism, prestige,
and death, Pigs and Persons in the Philippines shows how pigs are
involved in the constitution and re-constitution of relations
between humans and between humans and spirits. Remme draws upon
theories of relationality, performativity, and assemblages to argue
that the exchange and consumption of pig meat have the ontological
effect of enacting persons. He also shows how pigs are the prime
means of engaging in relations with spirits and argues further that
prestige can be understood as a heterogeneous assemblage of
relations of which pigs play a central role. While pigs are thus
constitutively involved in the enactment of persons, Remme also
shows how they are operative in the re-constitution of relations
that occurs at death. In documenting these practices, Remme argues
for a relational understanding of personhood that goes beyond
inter-human relations and includes relations with nonhuman beings,
including spirits, and animals.
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