The Arakmbut--mythology, Spirituality, and History

The Arakmbut--mythology, Spirituality, and History PDF Author: Andrew Gray
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781571818768
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
The Arakmbut are an indigenous people who live in the Madre de Dios region of thesoutheastern Peruvian rain forest. Since their first encounters with missionaries in the 1950s, they have shown resilience and a determination to affirm their identity in the face of many difficulties. During the last fifteen years, Arakmbut survival has been under threat from a goldrush that has attracted hundreds of colonists onto their territories. This trilogy of books traces the ways in which the Arakmbut overcome the dangers that surround them: their mythology and cultural strength; their social flexibility; and their capacity to incorporate non-indigenous concepts and activities into their defence strategies. Each area is punctuated by the constant presence of the invisible spirit, which provides a seamless theme connecting the books to each other. Following the Arakmbuts' recommendation, the author uses their three greatest myths to introduce social, cultural and historical aspects of their lives. He ends with a discussion of the relationship between myth and history showing how the Arakmbut recreate their myths at the dramatic moments of their history. Buy all three volumes for 20% discount

The Arakmbut--mythology, Spirituality, and History

The Arakmbut--mythology, Spirituality, and History PDF Author: Andrew Gray
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781571818768
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Arakmbut are an indigenous people who live in the Madre de Dios region of thesoutheastern Peruvian rain forest. Since their first encounters with missionaries in the 1950s, they have shown resilience and a determination to affirm their identity in the face of many difficulties. During the last fifteen years, Arakmbut survival has been under threat from a goldrush that has attracted hundreds of colonists onto their territories. This trilogy of books traces the ways in which the Arakmbut overcome the dangers that surround them: their mythology and cultural strength; their social flexibility; and their capacity to incorporate non-indigenous concepts and activities into their defence strategies. Each area is punctuated by the constant presence of the invisible spirit, which provides a seamless theme connecting the books to each other. Following the Arakmbuts' recommendation, the author uses their three greatest myths to introduce social, cultural and historical aspects of their lives. He ends with a discussion of the relationship between myth and history showing how the Arakmbut recreate their myths at the dramatic moments of their history. Buy all three volumes for 20% discount

The Last Shaman

The Last Shaman PDF Author: Andrew Gray
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781571818362
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
The Arakmbut are an indigenous people who live in the Madre de Dios region of the southeastern Peruvian rain forest. Since their first encounters with missionaries in the 1950s, they have shown resilience and a determination to affirm their identity in the face of many difficulties. During the last fifteen years, Arakmbut survival has been under threat from a goldrush that has attracted hundreds of colonists onto their territories. This trilogy of books traces the ways in which the Arakmbut overcome the dangers that surround them: their mythology and cultural strength; their social flexibility; and their capacity to incorporate non-indigenous concepts and activities into their defence strategies. Each area is punctuated by the constant presence of the invisible spirit, which provides a seamless theme connecting the books to each other. The death of a shaman in 1980 had an enormous spiritual and political consequences for one of the Arakmbut communities, resulting in a shift in its social organization from comparative hierarchy to a more egalitarian system. The author uses this case as an illustration to challenge the idea that indigenous peoples live in fossilized, static worlds. He shows that political activities in conjunction with shamanic communication with the spirit world provide the impetus and context for change. Buy all three volumes for 20% discount

Spirituality

Spirituality PDF Author: Kees Waaijman
Publisher: Peeters Publishers
ISBN: 9789042911833
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 986

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Book Description
This textbook is a systematic guide to the extensive field of spirituality. Kees Waaijman charts the multiform phenomenon of spirituality: the spirituality of ordinary people, the great spiritual traditions and the force of counter-movements. From the foundation of this survey he answers questions like: What exactly is spirituality? What forms can a scholarly approach take? Finally, the book provides methodic access to the study of spirituality, focusing on the following questions: Which are the different forms of spirituality and how can we describe them? How can spiritual texts be given a reliable reading? Which themes can be distinguished in the field of spirituality and what would be a meaningful way to address them? What do we mean by spiritual guidance and what can we learn from it? This textbook has no equal. It is indispensable to scholars wishing to study the subject, but also to others who want to learn about spirituality.

Indigenous Perceptions of the End of the World

Indigenous Perceptions of the End of the World PDF Author: Rosalyn Bold
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030138607
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
This edited volume constructs a ‘cosmopolitics’ of climate change, consulting small-scale sustainable communities on whether the world is ending and why, and how we can take action to prevent it. By comparing scientific and indigenous accounts of the same phenomenon, contributors seek to broaden Western understandings of what climate change constitutes. In this context, existing cosmologies are challenged, opening spaces for hegemonic narratives to enter into conversation with the non-modern and construct ‘worlds otherwise’—situations of world change and renewal through climate change. Bold brings together perspectives from Central America, Mexico, the Amazon, and the Andes to converse with scientific narratives of climate change and create cracks that bring new worlds into being for readers.

Indigenous Rights and Development

Indigenous Rights and Development PDF Author: Andrew Gray
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781571818379
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
The Arakmbut are an indigenous people in the southeastern Peruvian rain forest who have survived with their culture intact despite encounters with missionaries since the 1950s and a gold rush into their territory over the past 15 years. This final volume of the series looks at the growing consciousness among the Arakmbut of their own rights and the growing development of indigenous rights internationally, and describes the importance of the invisible spirit world in the Arakmbut legal system. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Social Sciences

Social Sciences PDF Author: Lawrence Boudon
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 9780292705357
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 998

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Book Description
"The one source that sets reference collections on Latin American studies apart from all other geographic areas of the world.... The Handbook has provided scholars interested in Latin America with a bibliographical source of a quality unavailable to scholars in most other branches of area studies." —Latin American Research Review Beginning with volume 41 (1979), the University of Texas Press became the publisher of the Handbook of Latin American Studies, the most comprehensive annual bibliography in the field. Compiled by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress and annotated by a corps of more than 130 specialists in various disciplines, the Handbook alternates from year to year between social sciences and humanities. The Handbook annotates works on Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and the Guianas, Spanish South America, and Brazil, as well as materials covering Latin America as a whole. Most of the subsections are preceded by introductory essays that serve as biannual evaluations of the literature and research under way in specialized areas. The Handbook of Latin American Studies is the oldest continuing reference work in the field. Lawrence Boudon, of the Library of Congress Hispanic Division, has been the editor since 2001, and Katherine D. McCann has been assistant editor since 2000. The subject categories for Volume 59 are as follows: Anthropology Economics Geography Government and Politics International Relations Sociology Electronic Resources for the Social Sciences

The Link with Nature and Divine Meditations in Asia

The Link with Nature and Divine Meditations in Asia PDF Author: Bernard Formoso
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781571811219
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
Peasant societies in many parts of the world regulate their relationship with the natural environment through earth gods who anchor a group of families not in genealogical terms, as in the case of ancestors, but in ecological terms. The articles in this volume illustrate the role of, and the cultural activities surrounding, the earth gods in rural communities in Asian societies. More specifically, they show that, within the Asian context, it is possible to differentiate between two modes representing the earth gods and the relationship with nature, i.e., one that corresponds to state societies and the other to tribal ones.

Cultural Shaping of Violence

Cultural Shaping of Violence PDF Author: Myrdene Anderson
Publisher: Purdue University Press
ISBN: 9781557533456
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Violence and increasing public awareness of violence mark society's contemporary condition. Sept. 11, 2001 made this condition even more indelible. Cultural Shaping of Violence proposes that violence cannot be described, let alone understond or addressed, unless tied to the cultural settings that influence it. The book's 27 chapters, researched and written by 28 scholars of seven nationalities, document violence in 22 distinct cultural settings in 17 nation-states on five continents. Internal to each society, a number of sites of violence may thrive, from the domestic sphere to social institutions and political arenas. In whatever site or guise, violence reverberates throughout the social fabric and beyond.

The Master Plant

The Master Plant PDF Author: Andrew Russell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000189740
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Described as a ‘master plant’ by many indigenous groups in lowland South America, tobacco is an essential part of shamanic ritual, as well as a source of everyday health, wellbeing and community. In sharp contrast to the condemnation of the tobacco industry and its place in contemporary public health discourse, the book considers tobacco in a more nuanced light, as an agent both of enlightenment and destruction.Exploring the role of tobacco in the lives of indigenous peoples, The Master Plant offers an important and unique contribution to this field of study through its focus on lowland South America: the historical source region of this controversial plant, yet rarely discussed in recent scholarship. The ten chapters in this collection bring together ethnographic accounts, key developments in anthropological theory and emergent public health responses to indigenous tobacco use. Moving from a historical study of tobacco usage – covering the initial domestication of wild varieties and its value as a commodity in colonial times – to an examination of the transcendent properties of tobacco, and the magic, symbolism and healing properties associated with it, the authors present wide-ranging perspectives on the history and cultural significance of this important plant. The final part of the book examines the changing landscape of tobacco use in these communities today, set against the backdrop of the increasing power of the national and transnational tobacco industry.The first critical overview of tobacco and its uses across lowland South America, this book encourages new ways of thinking about the problems of commercially exploited tobacco both within and beyond this source region.

The Relative Native

The Relative Native PDF Author: Eduardo Viveiros de Castro
Publisher: HAU Books
ISBN: 0990505030
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
This volume is the first to collect the most influential essays and lectures of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. Published in a wide variety of venues, and often difficult to find, the pieces are brought together here for the first time in a one major volume, which includes his momentous 1998 Cambridge University Lectures, “Cosmological Perspectivism in Amazonia and Elsewhere.” Rounded out with new English translations of a number of previously unpublished works, the resulting book is a wide-ranging portrait of one of the towering figures of contemporary thought—philosopher, anthropologist, ethnographer, ethnologist, and more. With a new afterword by Roy Wagner elucidating Viveiros de Castro’s work, influence, and legacy, The Relative Native will be required reading, further cementing Viveiros de Castro’s position at the center of contemporary anthropological inquiry.