African Beliefs in the New World

African Beliefs in the New World PDF Author: Lucie Pradel
Publisher: Africa World Press
ISBN: 9780865437036
Category : Afro-Caribbean cults
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Like a kaleidoscope, the Caribbean world displays the vibrant colors of its diversity. Ethnic groups from four continents brought their customs and beliefs to this New World. The sheer number of African people brought to the Caribbean islands perpetuated through their spiritual vitality, the central role played by traditional religions in African life. Though they hadn't brought along the material support of their worship, they had buried in their memory other essential supports: memories of gods, of myths, rites, rhythms, tales, legends, proverbs, songs, dances, sculptures, all the fundamental vectors of their religious thought. Through a process of secularization, continuity, adaptation, creation, syncretism and synthesis, these elements helped vitalize the artistic, profane and sacred domains of Caribbean cultures.

African Beliefs in the New World

African Beliefs in the New World PDF Author: Lucie Pradel
Publisher: Africa World Press
ISBN: 9780865437036
Category : Afro-Caribbean cults
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Like a kaleidoscope, the Caribbean world displays the vibrant colors of its diversity. Ethnic groups from four continents brought their customs and beliefs to this New World. The sheer number of African people brought to the Caribbean islands perpetuated through their spiritual vitality, the central role played by traditional religions in African life. Though they hadn't brought along the material support of their worship, they had buried in their memory other essential supports: memories of gods, of myths, rites, rhythms, tales, legends, proverbs, songs, dances, sculptures, all the fundamental vectors of their religious thought. Through a process of secularization, continuity, adaptation, creation, syncretism and synthesis, these elements helped vitalize the artistic, profane and sacred domains of Caribbean cultures.

Santeria from Africa to the New World

Santeria from Africa to the New World PDF Author: George Brandon
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253211149
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
"On his own terms, Brandon more than fulfills his promise to take the reader on the transatlantic journey of the orisha and to explore the complexities of African memory in the diaspora." —American Historical Review "He adeptly addresses broader issues, such as power relations within Caribbean slavery, multiculturalism, and the forms of religious accommodation to cultural change. In addition, he offers a fresh and cogent assessment of the production and reproduction of African beliefs and practices in new contexts. Brandon's exemplary archival research is supplemented by skillful participant observation." —Choice The Yoruba religious tradition arose in West Africa, but its influence has spread beyond Africa to millions of adherents in the Americas as well. Santeria from Africa to the New World retraces one path taken by this tradition—a path from Africa to Cuba and to New York City. George Brandon examines the religion's transatlantic route through Cuban Santeria, Puerto Rican Espiritismo, and Black Nationalism. In following the historical and anthropological evolution of the Yoruba religion, Brandon discusses broader questions of power, multiculturalism, cultural change, and the production and reproduction of African retentions.

Recreating Africa

Recreating Africa PDF Author: James H. Sweet
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807862347
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Exploring the cultural lives of African slaves in the early colonial Portuguese world, with an emphasis on the more than one million Central Africans who survived the journey to Brazil, James Sweet lifts a curtain on their lives as Africans rather than as incipient Brazilians. Focusing first on the cultures of Central Africa from which the slaves came--Ndembu, Imbangala, Kongo, and others--Sweet identifies specific cultural rites and beliefs that survived their transplantation to the African-Portuguese diaspora, arguing that they did not give way to immediate creolization in the New World but remained distinctly African for some time. Slaves transferred many cultural practices from their homelands to Brazil, including kinship structures, divination rituals, judicial ordeals, ritual burials, dietary restrictions, and secret societies. Sweet demonstrates that the structures of many of these practices remained constant during this early period, although the meanings of the rituals were often transformed as slaves coped with their new environment and status. Religious rituals in particular became potent forms of protest against the institution of slavery and its hardships. In addition, Sweet examines how certain African beliefs and customs challenged and ultimately influenced Brazilian Catholicism. Sweet's analysis sheds new light on African culture in Brazil's slave society while also enriching our understanding of the complex process of creolization and cultural survival.

African Religions

African Religions PDF Author: Jacob K. Olupona
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199790582
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
This book connects traditional religions to the thriving religious activity in Africa today.

Undercurrents of Power

Undercurrents of Power PDF Author: Kevin Dawson
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812224930
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Kevin Dawson considers how enslaved Africans carried aquatic skills—swimming, diving, boat making, even surfing—to the Americas. Undercurrents of Power not only chronicles the experiences of enslaved maritime workers, but also traverses the waters of the Atlantic repeatedly to trace and untangle cultural and social traditions.

Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800

Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800 PDF Author: John Thornton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 113964338X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 483

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Book Description
This book explores Africa's involvement in the Atlantic world from the fifteenth century to the eighteenth century. It focuses especially on the causes and consequences of the slave trade, in Africa, in Europe, and in the New World. African institutions, political events, and economic structures shaped Africa's voluntary involvement in the Atlantic arena before 1680. Africa's economic and military strength gave African elites the capacity to determine how trade with Europe developed. Thornton examines the dynamics of colonization which made slaves so necessary to European colonizers, and he explains why African slaves were placed in roles of central significance. Estate structure and demography affected the capacity of slaves to form a self-sustaining society and behave as cultural actors, transferring and transforming African culture in the New World.

African Religion Defined

African Religion Defined PDF Author: Anthony Ephirim-Donkor
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761853294
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
African religion is ancestor worship; that is, funeral preparations, burial of the dead with ceremony and pomp, belief in eternal existence of souls of the dead as ancestors, periodic remembrance of ancestors, and belief that they influence the affairs of their living descendants. Whether called Akw?sidai, Homowo, Voodoo, Nyant?r (Aboakyir), CandomblZ, or Santeria in Africa or the African Diaspora, ancestor worship centers on the ancestors and deities. This makes it a tenably viable religion, because living descendants are genetically linked to their ancestors. The author, a traditional king and professor, studies the Akan in Ghana to demonstrate that ancestor worship is as pragmatic, systematic, theological, teleological, soteriological — with a highly trained clerical body and elders as mediators — and symbolic as any other religion in the world. Ancestor worship follows prescribed rites and rituals, formulas, precepts for ritual efficacy, and festivities of honor with music and dances to provoke ancestors and deities into joining in the celebration.

African Traditions in the Study of Religion in Africa

African Traditions in the Study of Religion in Africa PDF Author: Ezra Chitando
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317184211
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
The historiography of African religions and religions in Africa presents a remarkable shift from the study of 'Africa as Object' to 'Africa as Subject', thus translating the subject from obscurity into the global community of the academic study of religion. This book presents a unique multidisciplinary exploration of African traditions in the study of religion in Africa and the new African diaspora. The book is structured under three main sections - Emerging trends in the teaching of African Religions; Indigenous Thought and Spirituality; and Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. Contributors drawn from diverse African and global contexts situate current scholarly traditions of the study of African religions within the purview of academic encounter and exchanges with non-African scholars and non-African contexts. African scholars enrich the study of religions from their respective academic and methodological orientations. Jacob Kehinde Olupona stands out as a pioneer in the socio-scientific interpretation of African indigenous religion and religions in Africa. This book is to his honour and marks his immense contribution to an emerging field of study and research.

WHITE MAN'S BURDEN

WHITE MAN'S BURDEN PDF Author: Rudyard Kipling
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781716456008
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
This book re-presents the poetry of Rudyard Kipling in the form of bold slogans, the better for us to reappraise the meaning and import of his words and his art. Each line or phrase is thrust at the reader in a manner that may be inspirational or controversial... it is for the modern consumer of this recontextualization to decide. They are words to provoke: to action. To inspire. To recite. To revile. To reconcile or reconsider the legacy and benefits of colonialism. Compiled and presented by sloganist Dick Robinson, three poems are included, complete and uncut: 'White Man's Burden', 'Fuzzy-Wuzzy' and 'If'.

Elements of African Traditional Religion

Elements of African Traditional Religion PDF Author: Elia Shabani Mligo
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1621898245
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 102

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Book Description
African Traditional religion (ATR) is one of the world religions with a great people and a great past. It is embraced by Africans within and outside the continent despite the various ethnic religious practices and beliefs. This book highlights and discusses the common elements which introduce African Traditional Religion as one unified religion and not a collection of religions. The major focus of the book is discussing the need for studying ATR in twenty-first-century Africa whereby globalization and multi-culture are prominent phenomena. Why should we study the religion of indigenous Africans in this age? In response to this question, the book argues that since ATR is part of the African people's culture, there is a need to understand this cultural background in order to contextualize Christian theology. Using some illustrations from Nyumbanitu worship shrine located at Njombe in Tanzania, the book purports that there is a need to understand African people's worldview, their understanding of God, their religious values, symbols and rituals in order to enhance meaningful dialogue between Christianity and African people's current worldview. In this case, the book is important for students of comparative religion in universities and colleges who strive to understand the various religions and their practices.