Download or read book From the Kingdom of Kongo to Congo Square written by Jeroen Dewulf and published by University of Louisiana. This book was released on 2017 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book presents a provocatively new interpretation of one of New Orleans's most enigmatic traditions--the Mardi Gras Indians. By interpreting the tradition in an Atlantic context, Dewulf traces the 'black Indians' back to the ancient Kingdom of Kongo and its war dance known as sangamento. He shows that good warriors in the Kongo kingdom were per definition also good dancers, masters of a technique of dodging, spinning, and leaping that was crucial in local warfare. Enslaved Kongolese brought the rhythm, dancing moves, and feathered headwear of sangamentos to the Americas in performances that came to be known as 'Kongo dances.' By comparing Kongo dances on the African island of Saao Tomae with those in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Louisiana, Dewulf demonstrates that the dances in New Orleans's Congo Square were part of a much broader Kongolese performance tradition. He links that to Afro-Catholic mutual-aid societies that honored their elected community leaders or 'kings' with Kongo dances. While the public rituals of these brotherhoods originally thrived in the context of Catholic procession culture around Epiphany and Corpus Christi, they transitioned to carnival as a result of growing orthodoxy within the Church. Dewulf's groundbreaking research suggests a much greater impact of Kongolese traditions and of popular Catholicism on the development of African American cultural heritage and identity. His conclusions force us to radically rethink the traditional narrative on the Mardi Gras Indians, the kings of Zulu, and the origins of black participation in Mardi Gras celebrations"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book The Kingdom of Kongo written by John Kelly Thornton and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Kongo Kingdom written by Koen Bostoen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique and forward-thinking book that sheds new light on the origins, dynamics, and cosmopolitan culture of the Kongo Kingdom from a cross-disciplinary perspective.
Download or read book The Kingdom of Kongo written by Anne Hilton and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1985 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzes in detail the political, social, and religious changes that occurred in the region of the kingdom of Kongo between the late fifteenth and the ninetenth century.
Download or read book New Orleans written by T. R. Johnson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-03-02 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive literary history of New Orleans, one of the most storied cities in the world.
Download or read book Kongo Power and Majesty written by Alisa LaGamma and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 2015-09-16 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating account of the effects of turbulent history on one of Africa’s most storied kingdoms, Kongo: Power and Majesty presents over 170 works of art from the Kingdom of Kongo (an area that includes present-day Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola). The book covers 400 years of Kongolese culture, from the fifteenth century, when Portuguese, Dutch, and Italian merchants and missionaries brought Christianity to the region, to the nineteenth, when engagement with Europe had turned to colonial incursion and the kingdom dissolved under the pressures of displacement, civil war, and the devastation of the slave trade. The works of art—which range from depictions of European iconography rendered in powerful, indigenous forms to fearsome minkondi, or power figures—serve as an assertion of enduring majesty in the face of upheaval, and richly illustrate the book’s powerful thesis.
Download or read book A Report of the Kingdom of Congo written by Duarte Lopes and published by . This book was released on 1881 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Afonso I Mvemba a Nzinga King of Kongo written by John K. Thornton and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 2023-11-22 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "John K. Thornton’s new book is another must-read. It contains both translations of the extant letters of the most significant king of Kongo’s history, Afonso I (r. 1506–1542), and a powerful, learned, and highly readable analysis of what these letters tell us about the life and times of one of the most important rulers anywhere in the world during the sixteenth century. This book will be essential reading for scholars, teachers, and students engaged with the history of the Kingdom of Kongo." —Toby Green, King’s College London
Download or read book Mardi Gras Indians written by Michael Smith and published by Pelican Publishing. This book was released on 1905 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sociological study of the African American carnival revelers in New Orleans who dress in Native American-influenced costumes. One of the most dazzling elements of the Mardi Gras celebrations, the Mardi Gras Indians receive the attention and respect of carnival-goers for their elaborately beaded costumes and entertaining dances. But what few realize about the groups is that the parading is more than just for show. Costuming, dancing, and all the rituals of these groups are acts of cultural preservation that date back more than a century. In this book, author Michael P. Smith addresses the sociological issues surrounding the mislabeled and rarely understood Maroon groups now known as “Mardi Gras Indians.” His textual analysis of the culture examines its African origins and how the participants help to develop the African American cultural identity. He looks at how some African Americans resisted efforts to suppress traditions that are re-emerging in modern society. Researched and documented by generations of oral and written history, this work clearly outlines the mistaken identification of the Mardi Gras Indians as just an entertainment element of the carnival season. It also shows the vital role this traditional culture plays in the community, much as the black Spiritual Churches do, in preserving an authentic base for the unique cultural heritage of blacks in New Orleans. This work illustrates how the Mardi Gras Indians are a part of the New Orleans second-line tradition. A dynamic element of this book is the collection of more than one hundred color photos. These prints capture the striking beauty of spectacles with a purpose far greater than entertaining. Combined with authoritative text by Smith, the visual images round out this examination of the roots of the Mardi Gras Indians and current practices of the whole range of African American cultural societies and parading groups in the Crescent City.
Download or read book A Report of the Kingdom of Congo written by Margarite Hutchinson and published by . This book was released on 2015-06-30 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from A Report of the Kingdom of Congo: And of the Surrounding Countries; Drawn Out of the Writings and Discourses of the Portuguese The last twenty-five years have seen the veil drawn back from a great part of the continent of Africa. The labours of many travellers following in the steps of Livingstone have combined to throw a light on the Dark Continent, of which we knew as little as the inhabitants knew of us. We have learnt much of the physical features of the country, and of the character of the tribes with whom explorers have made acquaintance, but we have also learnt that much that has appeared to us so new was, in fact, only rediscovered. The maps of the 16th century fairly illustrate the knowledge of that time. If we compare them with the maps of the beginning of the 19th century, we cannot fail to observe how much of that knowledge was loft, although more recent explorations showed how much of truth was contained in them. The translation that is now offered to the public will have its use in showing the kind of information that was to be had in Europe in the 16th century, and the character of the men who obtained it. It may do more. It may stimulate research into this long-neglected portion of history; and possibly the investigation of libraries in Portugal and Spain may yet throw more light on the condition of Central Africa at that time, and on the nature of the Portuguese Government over it; and, perhaps, give us some answer to the questions how that government was formed, and how it came to be lost. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Download or read book A Report of the Kingdom of Congo and of the Surrounding Countries written by Duarte Lopez and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-29 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating contemporary account, reissued here in its 1881 annotated English translation, of sixteenth-century Portuguese exploration of West Africa.
Download or read book City of a Million Dreams written by Jason Berry and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2015, the beautiful jazz funeral in New Orleans for composer Allen Toussaint coincided with a debate over removing four Confederate monuments. Mayor Mitch Landrieu led the ceremony, attended by living legends of jazz, music aficionados, politicians, and everyday people. The scene captured the history and culture of the city in microcosm--a city legendary for its noisy, complicated, tradition-rich splendor. In City of a Million Dreams, Jason Berry delivers a character-driven history of New Orleans at its tricentennial. Chronicling cycles of invention, struggle, death, and rebirth, Berry reveals the city's survival as a triumph of diversity, its map-of-the-world neighborhoods marked by resilience despite hurricanes, epidemics, fires, and floods. Berry orchestrates a parade of vibrant personalities, from the founder Bienville, a warrior emblazoned with snake tattoos; to Governor William C. C. Claiborne, General Andrew Jackson, and Pere Antoine, an influential priest and secret agent of the Inquisition; Sister Gertrude Morgan, a street evangelist and visionary artist of the 1960s; and Michael White, the famous clarinetist who remade his life after losing everything in Hurricane Katrina. The textured profiles of this extraordinary cast furnish a dramatic narrative of the beloved city, famous the world over for mysterious rituals as people dance when they bury their dead.
Download or read book A Report of the Kingdom of Congo written by Duarte Lopes and published by Trieste Publishing. This book was released on 2017-09-06 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trieste Publishing has a massive catalogue of classic book titles. Our aim is to provide readers with the highest quality reproductions of fiction and non-fiction literature that has stood the test of time. The many thousands of books in our collection have been sourced from libraries and private collections around the world.The titles that Trieste Publishing has chosen to be part of the collection have been scanned to simulate the original. Our readers see the books the same way that their first readers did decades or a hundred or more years ago. Books from that period are often spoiled by imperfections that did not exist in the original. Imperfections could be in the form of blurred text, photographs, or missing pages. It is highly unlikely that this would occur with one of our books. Our extensive quality control ensures that the readers of Trieste Publishing's books will be delighted with their purchase. Our staff has thoroughly reviewed every page of all the books in the collection, repairing, or if necessary, rejecting titles that are not of the highest quality. This process ensures that the reader of one of Trieste Publishing's titles receives a volume that faithfully reproduces the original, and to the maximum degree possible, gives them the experience of owning the original work.We pride ourselves on not only creating a pathway to an extensive reservoir of books of the finest quality, but also providing value to every one of our readers. Generally, Trieste books are purchased singly - on demand, however they may also be purchased in bulk. Readers interested in bulk purchases are invited to contact us directly to enquire about our tailored bulk rates.
Download or read book Afro Catholic Festivals in the Americas written by Cécile Fromont and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2019-04-24 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume demonstrates how, from the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade, enslaved and free Africans in the Americas used Catholicism and Christian-derived celebrations as spaces for autonomous cultural expression, social organization, and political empowerment. Their appropriation of Catholic-based celebrations calls into question the long-held idea that Africans and their descendants in the diaspora either resignedly accepted Christianity or else transformed its religious rituals into syncretic objects of stealthy resistance. In cities and on plantations throughout the Americas, men and women of African birth or descent staged mock battles against heathens, elected Christian queens and kings with great pageantry, and gathered in festive rituals to express their devotion to saints. Many of these traditions endure in the twenty-first century. The contributors to this volume draw connections between these Afro-Catholic festivals—observed from North America to South America and the Caribbean—and their precedents in the early modern kingdom of Kongo, one of the main regions of origin of men and women enslaved in the New World. This transatlantic perspective offers a useful counterpoint to the Yoruba focus prevailing in studies of African diasporic religions and reveals how Kongo-infused Catholicism constituted a site for the formation of black Atlantic tradition. Afro-Catholic Festivals in the Americas complicates the notion of Christianity as a European tool of domination and enhances our comprehension of the formation and trajectory of black religious culture on the American continent. It will be of great interest to scholars of African diaspora, religion, Christianity, and performance. In addition to the editor, the contributors include Kevin Dawson, Jeroen Dewulf, Junia Ferreira Furtado, Michael Iyanaga, Dianne M. Stewart, Miguel A. Valerio, and Lisa Voigt.
Download or read book Congo Square written by Freddi Williams Evans and published by University of Louisiana. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comprehensive study of one of the New World's most sacred sites of African American memory and community.
Download or read book Jockomo written by Shane Lief and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2019-10-25 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jockomo: The Native Roots of Mardi Gras Indians celebrates the transcendent experience of Mardi Gras, encompassing both ancient and current traditions of New Orleans. The Mardi Gras Indians are a renowned and beloved fixture of New Orleans public culture. Yet very little is known about the indigenous roots of their cultural practices. For the first time, this book explores the Native American ceremonial traditions that influenced the development of the Mardi Gras Indian cultural system. Jockomo reveals the complex story of exchanges that have taken place over the past three centuries, generating new ways of singing and speaking, with many languages mixing as people’s lives overlapped. Contemporary photographs by John McCusker and archival images combine to offer a complementary narrative to the text. From the depictions of eighteenth-century Native American musical processions to the first known photo of Mardi Gras Indians, Jockomo is a visual feast, displaying the evolution of cultural traditions throughout the history of New Orleans. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Mardi Gras Indians had become a recognized local tradition. Over the course of the next one hundred years, their unique practices would move from the periphery to the very center of public consciousness as a quintessentially New Orleanian form of music and performance, even while retaining some of the most ancient features of Native American culture and language. Jockomo offers a new way of seeing and hearing the blended legacies of New Orleans.
Download or read book Object Performance in the Black Atlantic written by Paulette Richards and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-07-28 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given that slaveholders prohibited the creation of African-style performing objects, is there a traceable connection between traditional African puppets, masks, and performing objects and contemporary African American puppetry? This study approaches the question by looking at the whole performance complex surrounding African performing objects and examines the material culture of object performance. Object Performance in the Black Atlantic argues that since human beings can attribute private, personal meanings to objects obtained for personal use such as dolls, vessels, and quilts, the lines of material culture continuity between African and African American object performance run through objects that performed in ritual rather than theatrical capacity. Split into three parts, this book starts by outlining the spaces where the African American object performance complex persisted through the period of slavery. Part Two traces how African Americans began to reclaim object performance in the era of Jim Crow segregation and Part Three details how increased educational and economic opportunities along with new media technologies enabled African Americans to use performing objects as a powerful mode of resistance to the objectification of Black bodies. This is an essential study for any students of puppetry and material performance, and particularly those concerned with African American performance and performance in North America more broadly.
