Indigenous and African Diaspora Religions in the Americas explores
spirit-based religious traditions across vast geographical and
cultural expanses, including Canada, the United States, Haiti, the
Dominican Republic, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Brazil, and
Chile. Using interdisciplinary research methods, this collection of
original perspectives breaks new ground by examining these
traditions as typologically and historically related. This curated
selection of the traditions allows readers to compare and highlight
convergences, while the description and comparison of the
traditions challenges colonial erasures and expands knowledge about
endangered cultures. The inclusion of spirit-based traditions from
a broad geographical area emphasizes the typology of religion over
ethnic compartmentalization. The individuals and communities
studied in this collection serve spirits through ritual, singing,
instruments, initiation, embodiment via possession or trance,
veneration of nature, and, among some indigenous people, the
consumption of ritual psychoactive entheogens. Indigenous and
African diaspora practices focused on service to ancestors and
spirits reflect ancient substrates of religiosity. The rationale to
separate them on disciplinary, ethnic, linguistic, geographical, or
historical grounds evaporates in our interconnected world. Shared
cultural, historical, and structural features of American
indigenous and African diaspora spirit-based traditions mutually
deserve our attention since the analyses and dialogues give way to
discoveries about deep commonalities and divergences among
religions and philosophies. Still struggling against the effects of
colonialism, enslavement, and extinction, the practitioners of
these spirit-based religious traditions hold on to important but
vulnerable parts of humanity's cultural heritage. These readings
make possible journeys of recognition as well as discovery.
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