Author: Kate Ramsey
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226703819
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 446
Book Description
Vodou has often served as a scapegoat for Haiti’s problems, from political upheavals to natural disasters. This tradition of scapegoating stretches back to the nation’s founding and forms part of a contest over the legitimacy of the religion, both beyond and within Haiti’s borders. The Spirits and the Law examines that vexed history, asking why, from 1835 to 1987, Haiti banned many popular ritual practices. To find out, Kate Ramsey begins with the Haitian Revolution and its aftermath. Fearful of an independent black nation inspiring similar revolts, the United States, France, and the rest of Europe ostracized Haiti. Successive Haitian governments, seeking to counter the image of Haiti as primitive as well as contain popular organization and leadership, outlawed “spells” and, later, “superstitious practices.” While not often strictly enforced, these laws were at times the basis for attacks on Vodou by the Haitian state, the Catholic Church, and occupying U.S. forces. Beyond such offensives, Ramsey argues that in prohibiting practices considered essential for maintaining relations with the spirits, anti-Vodou laws reinforced the political marginalization, social stigmatization, and economic exploitation of the Haitian majority. At the same time, she examines the ways communities across Haiti evaded, subverted, redirected, and shaped enforcement of the laws. Analyzing the long genealogy of anti-Vodou rhetoric, Ramsey thoroughly dissects claims that the religion has impeded Haiti’s development.
The Spirits and the Law
Author: Kate Ramsey
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226703819
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 446
Book Description
Vodou has often served as a scapegoat for Haiti’s problems, from political upheavals to natural disasters. This tradition of scapegoating stretches back to the nation’s founding and forms part of a contest over the legitimacy of the religion, both beyond and within Haiti’s borders. The Spirits and the Law examines that vexed history, asking why, from 1835 to 1987, Haiti banned many popular ritual practices. To find out, Kate Ramsey begins with the Haitian Revolution and its aftermath. Fearful of an independent black nation inspiring similar revolts, the United States, France, and the rest of Europe ostracized Haiti. Successive Haitian governments, seeking to counter the image of Haiti as primitive as well as contain popular organization and leadership, outlawed “spells” and, later, “superstitious practices.” While not often strictly enforced, these laws were at times the basis for attacks on Vodou by the Haitian state, the Catholic Church, and occupying U.S. forces. Beyond such offensives, Ramsey argues that in prohibiting practices considered essential for maintaining relations with the spirits, anti-Vodou laws reinforced the political marginalization, social stigmatization, and economic exploitation of the Haitian majority. At the same time, she examines the ways communities across Haiti evaded, subverted, redirected, and shaped enforcement of the laws. Analyzing the long genealogy of anti-Vodou rhetoric, Ramsey thoroughly dissects claims that the religion has impeded Haiti’s development.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226703819
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 446
Book Description
Vodou has often served as a scapegoat for Haiti’s problems, from political upheavals to natural disasters. This tradition of scapegoating stretches back to the nation’s founding and forms part of a contest over the legitimacy of the religion, both beyond and within Haiti’s borders. The Spirits and the Law examines that vexed history, asking why, from 1835 to 1987, Haiti banned many popular ritual practices. To find out, Kate Ramsey begins with the Haitian Revolution and its aftermath. Fearful of an independent black nation inspiring similar revolts, the United States, France, and the rest of Europe ostracized Haiti. Successive Haitian governments, seeking to counter the image of Haiti as primitive as well as contain popular organization and leadership, outlawed “spells” and, later, “superstitious practices.” While not often strictly enforced, these laws were at times the basis for attacks on Vodou by the Haitian state, the Catholic Church, and occupying U.S. forces. Beyond such offensives, Ramsey argues that in prohibiting practices considered essential for maintaining relations with the spirits, anti-Vodou laws reinforced the political marginalization, social stigmatization, and economic exploitation of the Haitian majority. At the same time, she examines the ways communities across Haiti evaded, subverted, redirected, and shaped enforcement of the laws. Analyzing the long genealogy of anti-Vodou rhetoric, Ramsey thoroughly dissects claims that the religion has impeded Haiti’s development.
The Laws of the Spirit World
Author: Khorshed Bhavnagri
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
ISBN: 817992985X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
WITH A BRAND NEW LOOK! ON FEBRUARY 22, 1980, KHORSHED AND RUMI BHAVNAGRI’S WORLD WAS SHATTERED. ONE MONTH LATER, A NEW ONE OPENED. Khorshed and Rumi Bhavnagri lost their sons, Vispi and Ratoo, in a tragic car crash. With both their sons gone, the couple felt they would not survive for long. They had lost all faith in God until a miraculous message from the Spirit World gave them hope and sent them on an incredible journey.
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
ISBN: 817992985X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
WITH A BRAND NEW LOOK! ON FEBRUARY 22, 1980, KHORSHED AND RUMI BHAVNAGRI’S WORLD WAS SHATTERED. ONE MONTH LATER, A NEW ONE OPENED. Khorshed and Rumi Bhavnagri lost their sons, Vispi and Ratoo, in a tragic car crash. With both their sons gone, the couple felt they would not survive for long. They had lost all faith in God until a miraculous message from the Spirit World gave them hope and sent them on an incredible journey.
Possession, Ecstasy, and Law in Ewe Voodoo
Author: Judy Rosenthal
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813918044
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
As a new resident of Togo in 1985, Judy Rosenthal witnessed her first Gorovodu trance ritual. Over the next eleven years, she studied this voodoo in West Africa's Ewe populations of coastal Ghana, Togo, and Benin, an area once called the Slave Coast. The result is Possession, Ecstasy, and Law in Ewe Voodoo, an ethnography of spirit possession that focuses on law and morality in "medecine Vodu" orders. Gorovodu is not a doctrinal set, but rather a lingusitic, moral, and spiritual community, with both real and imagined aspects. In medecine Vodu possession, the deities evoked are spirits of "bought people" from the savanna regions, slaves who worked for southern coastal lineages, often marrying into Ewe families. Drumming and dancing rituals, replete with voluptuous trances and gender reversals, bring these "foreign" spirits back into Ewe communities to protect worshippers, heal the sick and troubled, arbitrate disputes, and enjoy themselves as they did before they died. (Rosenthal employs Bakhtin's theory of carnival to interpret the openly festive element of Gorovodu.) The changeable nature of the religion echoes the lack of boundaries of the Gorovodu family and the residents' belief that communal and individual identity are fluid rather than fixed. Numerous name changes early in this century indicated a strategy for resisting colonial control. Writing from a background of anthropology, Rosenthal carefully monitors her own role as narrator in the book, aware of the cultural distance between her and the Africans she is writing about. She intends this ethnography to mirror the "texts" of voodoo itself, a body of signifiers and meanings with which the reader must interact in order to make sense of it.
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813918044
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
As a new resident of Togo in 1985, Judy Rosenthal witnessed her first Gorovodu trance ritual. Over the next eleven years, she studied this voodoo in West Africa's Ewe populations of coastal Ghana, Togo, and Benin, an area once called the Slave Coast. The result is Possession, Ecstasy, and Law in Ewe Voodoo, an ethnography of spirit possession that focuses on law and morality in "medecine Vodu" orders. Gorovodu is not a doctrinal set, but rather a lingusitic, moral, and spiritual community, with both real and imagined aspects. In medecine Vodu possession, the deities evoked are spirits of "bought people" from the savanna regions, slaves who worked for southern coastal lineages, often marrying into Ewe families. Drumming and dancing rituals, replete with voluptuous trances and gender reversals, bring these "foreign" spirits back into Ewe communities to protect worshippers, heal the sick and troubled, arbitrate disputes, and enjoy themselves as they did before they died. (Rosenthal employs Bakhtin's theory of carnival to interpret the openly festive element of Gorovodu.) The changeable nature of the religion echoes the lack of boundaries of the Gorovodu family and the residents' belief that communal and individual identity are fluid rather than fixed. Numerous name changes early in this century indicated a strategy for resisting colonial control. Writing from a background of anthropology, Rosenthal carefully monitors her own role as narrator in the book, aware of the cultural distance between her and the Africans she is writing about. She intends this ethnography to mirror the "texts" of voodoo itself, a body of signifiers and meanings with which the reader must interact in order to make sense of it.
Governing Spirits
Author: Reinaldo L. Román
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 080788894X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
Freedom of religion did not come easily to Cuba or Puerto Rico. Only after the arrival of American troops during the Spanish-American War were non-Catholics permitted to practice their religions openly and to proselytize. When government efforts to ensure freedom of worship began, reformers on both islands rejoiced, believing that an era of regeneration and modernization was upon them. But as new laws went into effect, critics voiced their dismay at the rise of popular religions. Reinaldo L. Roman explores the changing relationship between regulators and practitioners in neocolonial Cuba and Puerto Rico. Spiritism, Santeria, and other African-derived traditions were typically characterized in sensational fashion by the popular press as "a plague of superstition." Examining seven episodes between 1898 and the Cuban Revolution when the public demanded official actions against "misbelief," Roman finds that when outbreaks of superstition were debated, matters of citizenship were usually at stake. He links the circulation of spectacular charges of witchcraft and miracle-making to anxieties surrounding newly expanded citizenries that included people of color. Governing Spirits also contributes to the understanding of vernacular religions by moving beyond questions of national or traditional origins to illuminate how boundaries among hybrid practices evolved in a process of historical contingencies.
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 080788894X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
Freedom of religion did not come easily to Cuba or Puerto Rico. Only after the arrival of American troops during the Spanish-American War were non-Catholics permitted to practice their religions openly and to proselytize. When government efforts to ensure freedom of worship began, reformers on both islands rejoiced, believing that an era of regeneration and modernization was upon them. But as new laws went into effect, critics voiced their dismay at the rise of popular religions. Reinaldo L. Roman explores the changing relationship between regulators and practitioners in neocolonial Cuba and Puerto Rico. Spiritism, Santeria, and other African-derived traditions were typically characterized in sensational fashion by the popular press as "a plague of superstition." Examining seven episodes between 1898 and the Cuban Revolution when the public demanded official actions against "misbelief," Roman finds that when outbreaks of superstition were debated, matters of citizenship were usually at stake. He links the circulation of spectacular charges of witchcraft and miracle-making to anxieties surrounding newly expanded citizenries that included people of color. Governing Spirits also contributes to the understanding of vernacular religions by moving beyond questions of national or traditional origins to illuminate how boundaries among hybrid practices evolved in a process of historical contingencies.
Fire and the Spirits
Author: Rennard Strickland
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806116198
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Volume 133 in The Civilization of the Americas Series This book traces the emergency of the Cherokee system of laws from the ancient spirit decrees to the fusion of tribal law ways with Anglo-American law. The Cherokees enacted their first written law in 1808 in Georgia. In succeeding years the leaders and tribal councils of the southeastern and Oklahoma groups wrote a constitution, established courts, and enacted laws that were in accord with the old tribal values but reflected and accommodated to the whites' legal system. Thanks to the great gift of Sequoyah-his syllabary-the Cherokees were well versed in their laws, able to read and interpret them from a very early time. The system served the people well. It endured until 1898, when the federal government abolished the tribal government. The author provides a brief review of Cherokee history and explains the circumstances surrounding the stages of development of the legal system. Excerpts from editorials in the Cherokee Phoenix and the Cherokee Advocate, letters, and tribal documents give added insight into the problems the Cherokees faced and their efforts to resolve them. Of particular interest is a series of charts explaining the complex Cherokee spirit system of crimes (or "deviations") and the punishments meted out for them. A legal historian of Osage and Cherokee heritage, Rennard Strickland is considered a pioneer in introducing Indian law into university curriculum. He has written and edited more than 35 books and is frequently cited by courts and scholars for his work as revision editor in chief of the Handbook of Federal Indian Law. Strickland has been involved in the resolution of a number of significant Indian cases. He was the founding director of the Center for the Study of American Indian Law and Policy at the University of Oklahoma. He is the first person to have served both as president of the Association of American Law Schools and as chair of the Law School Admissions Council. He is also the only person to have received both the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) Award and the American Bar Association's Spirit of Excellence Award. Strickland was the dean of the law school from 1997 to 2002.
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806116198
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Volume 133 in The Civilization of the Americas Series This book traces the emergency of the Cherokee system of laws from the ancient spirit decrees to the fusion of tribal law ways with Anglo-American law. The Cherokees enacted their first written law in 1808 in Georgia. In succeeding years the leaders and tribal councils of the southeastern and Oklahoma groups wrote a constitution, established courts, and enacted laws that were in accord with the old tribal values but reflected and accommodated to the whites' legal system. Thanks to the great gift of Sequoyah-his syllabary-the Cherokees were well versed in their laws, able to read and interpret them from a very early time. The system served the people well. It endured until 1898, when the federal government abolished the tribal government. The author provides a brief review of Cherokee history and explains the circumstances surrounding the stages of development of the legal system. Excerpts from editorials in the Cherokee Phoenix and the Cherokee Advocate, letters, and tribal documents give added insight into the problems the Cherokees faced and their efforts to resolve them. Of particular interest is a series of charts explaining the complex Cherokee spirit system of crimes (or "deviations") and the punishments meted out for them. A legal historian of Osage and Cherokee heritage, Rennard Strickland is considered a pioneer in introducing Indian law into university curriculum. He has written and edited more than 35 books and is frequently cited by courts and scholars for his work as revision editor in chief of the Handbook of Federal Indian Law. Strickland has been involved in the resolution of a number of significant Indian cases. He was the founding director of the Center for the Study of American Indian Law and Policy at the University of Oklahoma. He is the first person to have served both as president of the Association of American Law Schools and as chair of the Law School Admissions Council. He is also the only person to have received both the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) Award and the American Bar Association's Spirit of Excellence Award. Strickland was the dean of the law school from 1997 to 2002.
Bourbon Justice
Author: Brian F. Haara
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1640124276
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
Brian Haara recounts the development of commercial laws that guided the United States from an often reckless laissez-faire mentality, through the growing pains of industrialization, past the overcorrection of Prohibition, and into its final state as a nation of laws.
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1640124276
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
Brian Haara recounts the development of commercial laws that guided the United States from an often reckless laissez-faire mentality, through the growing pains of industrialization, past the overcorrection of Prohibition, and into its final state as a nation of laws.
Spirits Among Us
Author: Sherry Howard
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781478870289
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Scooter has been wheelchair bound ever since the accident that took her mother's life. Carrying on her mother's ghost hunting work, Scooter and her best friend Harlan create a YouTube show called Spirits Among Us. Wanting to get a message from her mother before she passes over, Scooter buys a special ghost hunting camera and places it in her family's cemetery. But, when a string of robberies frighten the locals, will the camera capture more than a ghost?
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781478870289
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Scooter has been wheelchair bound ever since the accident that took her mother's life. Carrying on her mother's ghost hunting work, Scooter and her best friend Harlan create a YouTube show called Spirits Among Us. Wanting to get a message from her mother before she passes over, Scooter buys a special ghost hunting camera and places it in her family's cemetery. But, when a string of robberies frighten the locals, will the camera capture more than a ghost?
Montesquieu: The Spirit of the Laws
Author: Charles de Secondat baron de Montesquieu
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521369749
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 814
Book Description
The Spirit of the Laws is, without question, one of the central texts in the history of eighteenth-century thought, yet there has been no complete, scholarly English-language edition since that of Thomas Nugent, published in 1750. This lucid translation renders Montesquieu's problematic text newly accessible to a fresh generation of students, helping them to understand quite why Montesquieu was such an important figure in the early enlightenment and why The Spirit of the Laws was, for example, such an influence upon those who framed the American constitution. Fully annotated, this edition focuses attention upon Montesquieu's use of sources and his text as a whole, rather than upon those opening passages towards which critical energies have traditionally been devoted, and a select bibliography and chronology are provided for those coming to Montesquieu's work for the first time.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521369749
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 814
Book Description
The Spirit of the Laws is, without question, one of the central texts in the history of eighteenth-century thought, yet there has been no complete, scholarly English-language edition since that of Thomas Nugent, published in 1750. This lucid translation renders Montesquieu's problematic text newly accessible to a fresh generation of students, helping them to understand quite why Montesquieu was such an important figure in the early enlightenment and why The Spirit of the Laws was, for example, such an influence upon those who framed the American constitution. Fully annotated, this edition focuses attention upon Montesquieu's use of sources and his text as a whole, rather than upon those opening passages towards which critical energies have traditionally been devoted, and a select bibliography and chronology are provided for those coming to Montesquieu's work for the first time.
The Laws of Spirit
Author: Millman Dan
Publisher: Dan Millman
ISBN: 0982428545
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 108
Book Description
Perhaps the most important section in Dan Millman's best-selling book, The Life You Were Born to Live was titled Laws that Change Lives. These laws, as described, were key to overcoming the specific hurdles on a given individual's life path. Different laws played critical roles for different paths. But the author considers these laws so central to all our lives that they needed a book of their own, and a more universal treatment, since anyone could benefit from applying any of these laws. As he writes: "Within the mystery of our existence, the universe operates according to spiritual laws as real as the law of gravity and as constant as the turning of the heavens. Aligning our lives to these laws can transform our relationships, careers, finances, and health. Simply put, they make life work better." The Laws of Spirit, Dan Millman's "little book of big wisdom," offers a teaching tale in which he encounters an ageless woman sage while on a mountain hike. There, in the wilderness, she takes Dan and his readers through experiences and tests in the natural world that demonstrate the power of spiritual laws of balance, choice, process, presence, compassion, faith, action, patience, , surrender, and unity. As the sage relates, "These laws belong to all of us. They rest within our hearts and at the heart of every religion and spiritual tradition." As you make your own journey through the pages of this book, you will find universal solutions to the varied challenges of our lives, leading to perspective and wisdom about the meaning and purpose of our lives here, and our connection with all of creation It begins with a single step: Open the first page of a book you will refer to again and again for inspiration and guidance on life’s journey, up the mountain path.
Publisher: Dan Millman
ISBN: 0982428545
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 108
Book Description
Perhaps the most important section in Dan Millman's best-selling book, The Life You Were Born to Live was titled Laws that Change Lives. These laws, as described, were key to overcoming the specific hurdles on a given individual's life path. Different laws played critical roles for different paths. But the author considers these laws so central to all our lives that they needed a book of their own, and a more universal treatment, since anyone could benefit from applying any of these laws. As he writes: "Within the mystery of our existence, the universe operates according to spiritual laws as real as the law of gravity and as constant as the turning of the heavens. Aligning our lives to these laws can transform our relationships, careers, finances, and health. Simply put, they make life work better." The Laws of Spirit, Dan Millman's "little book of big wisdom," offers a teaching tale in which he encounters an ageless woman sage while on a mountain hike. There, in the wilderness, she takes Dan and his readers through experiences and tests in the natural world that demonstrate the power of spiritual laws of balance, choice, process, presence, compassion, faith, action, patience, , surrender, and unity. As the sage relates, "These laws belong to all of us. They rest within our hearts and at the heart of every religion and spiritual tradition." As you make your own journey through the pages of this book, you will find universal solutions to the varied challenges of our lives, leading to perspective and wisdom about the meaning and purpose of our lives here, and our connection with all of creation It begins with a single step: Open the first page of a book you will refer to again and again for inspiration and guidance on life’s journey, up the mountain path.
The House of the Spirits
Author: Isabel Allende
Publisher: Everyman's Library
ISBN: 1400043182
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 522
Book Description
Chilean writer Isabel Allende’s classic novel is both a richly symbolic family saga and the riveting story of an unnamed Latin American country’s turbulent history. In a triumph of magic realism, Allende constructs a spirit-ridden world and fills it with colorful and all-too-human inhabitants. The Trueba family’s passions, struggles, and secrets span three generations and a century of violent social change, culminating in a crisis that brings the proud and tyrannical patriarch and his beloved granddaughter to opposite sides of the barricades. Against a backdrop of revolution and counterrevolution, Allende brings to life a family whose private bonds of love and hatred are more complex and enduring than the political allegiances that set them at odds. The House of the Spirits not only brings another nation’s history thrillingly to life, but also makes its people’s joys and anguishes wholly our own.
Publisher: Everyman's Library
ISBN: 1400043182
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 522
Book Description
Chilean writer Isabel Allende’s classic novel is both a richly symbolic family saga and the riveting story of an unnamed Latin American country’s turbulent history. In a triumph of magic realism, Allende constructs a spirit-ridden world and fills it with colorful and all-too-human inhabitants. The Trueba family’s passions, struggles, and secrets span three generations and a century of violent social change, culminating in a crisis that brings the proud and tyrannical patriarch and his beloved granddaughter to opposite sides of the barricades. Against a backdrop of revolution and counterrevolution, Allende brings to life a family whose private bonds of love and hatred are more complex and enduring than the political allegiances that set them at odds. The House of the Spirits not only brings another nation’s history thrillingly to life, but also makes its people’s joys and anguishes wholly our own.