Download or read book Human Sacrifice and the Supernatural in African History written by Mbogoni, Lawrence E.Y. and published by Mkuki na Nyota Publishers. This book was released on 2013-11-03 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since time immemorial, human beings the world over have sought answers to the vexing questions of their origins, sickness, death and after death; the meaning of natural phenomena such as earthquakes, eclipses of the sun and moon, birth of twins etc. and how to protect themselves from such mysterious events. They invented God and gods and the occult sciences (witch craft, divination and soothsaying) in order to seek the protection of supernatural powers while individuals used them to gain power to dominate others and to accumulate wealth. Human sacrifice was one way in which they sought to expiate the gods for what they believed were punishments for their transgressions. One example, the Ghana Asante Kingdom's very origins are associated with human sacrifice. On the eve of war against Denkyira, individuals volunteered themselves to be sacrificed in order to guarantee victory. Later, human sacrifice in Asante was mainly politically motivated as kings and religious leaders offered human sacrifice in remembrance of their ancestral spirits and to seek their protection against their enemies. The Asante Kingdom is one of several examples included in this study of human sacrifice and ritual killing on the African continent. Case studies include practices in Sierra Leone, Tanzania (Mainland), Zanzibar, Uganda and Swaziland. Advertisements relating to the occult was a common feature of Drum magazine, the popular South African magazine in Southern, Eastern and Central Africa in late years of colonial and early years of postcolonial periods, indicating a wide belief in these practices among the people in these countries? Each case examined is introduced by an expose of folklore that puts in perspective beliefs in the supernatural and how folklore continues to perpetuate them. Through careful study of these select cases, this book highlights general features of human sacrifice which recur with striking uniformity in all parts of sub Saharan Africa, and why they persist until today. He draws upon extensive written sources to expose these practices in other cultures including those in Western societies.
Download or read book Human Sacrifice in History and Today written by Nigel Davies and published by William Morrow. This book was released on 1981 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book International Law in the Long Nineteenth Century 1776 1914 written by Inge Van Hulle and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-09-16 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International Law in the Long Nineteenth Century gathers ten studies that reflect the ever-growing variety of themes and approaches that scholars from different disciplines bring to the historiography of international law in the period.
Download or read book Blood Sacrifices written by Robert J. Bunker and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2016-05-21 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blood Sacrifices contributors: Dawn Perlmutter, Ph.D. Robert J. Bunker, Ph.D. Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D. Paul Rexton Kan, Ph.D. Lt.Col. Lisa J. Campbell, B.A., SME Beheadings Tony M. Kail, B.A., SME Esoteric Religions Pamela Ligouri Bunker, M.Litt., M.A. Charles Cameron, B.A., SME Religious Violence SA Andrew Bringuel, II, M.A., SME Criminal Extremism Jose de Arimateia da Cruz, Ph.D. Mark Safranski, M.A., M.Ed. Alma Keshavarz, M.P.P., Ph.D. Student Pauletta Otis, Ph.D. The acknowledgment that blood sacrifice, particularly human sacrifice, actively occurs in the 21st century is a pivotal triumph in scholarly research. Twenty years ago, this book could not have been published. In most universities, think tanks, and government research facilities, characterizing any type of murder as sacrificial was viewed at best as a secondary motive and at worst as junk science. - Dr. Dawn Perlmutter
Download or read book Human Leopard Society written by K J Beatty and published by . This book was released on 2020-12-24 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The bush seemed to me pervaded with something supernatural, a spirit which was striving to bridge the animal and the human ..." From the preface Were the Human Leopard Society members cannibals for the purpose of satisfying an appetite for human flesh, or was it some far out religious rite? These and numerous other questions will be answered in this historic account. The Human Leopard Society, the Human Alligator Society and the Human Baboon Society were West-African underground organizations, responsible for weird rituals and murders, rumors of cannibalism and human sacrifice. During the harvesting of human fat to replenish the energy of some primitive entity, the members of these groups came to believe in the reinvigorating effect of the human meat gourmet. Their morbid activities spanned decades and came to an end with the labors of the Special Commission Court, and the ensuing punishment of the perpetrators. Notoir Books is a publisher of new old books on topics of esoteric interests, eccentric memoirs, overlooked history, otherworldly stories and distinctive voices. You can visit notoirbooks.com for more.These sordid records of the Special Commission Court once again prove the reality that truth is often stranger than fiction.
Download or read book Drawing the Past Volume 2 written by Dorian L. Alexander and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2022-01-04 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contributions by Dorian L. Alexander, Chris Bishop, David Budgen, Lewis Call, Lillian Céspedes González, Dominic Davies, Sean Eedy, Adam Fotos, Michael Goodrum, Simon Gough, David Hitchcock, Robert Hutton, Iain A. MacInnes, Małgorzata Olsza, Philip Smith, Edward Still, and Jing Zhang In Drawing the Past, Volume 2: Comics and the Historical Imagination in the World, contributors seek to examine the many ways in which history worldwide has been explored and (re)represented through comics and how history is a complex construction of imagination, reality, and manipulation. Through a close analysis of such works as V for Vendetta, Maus, and Persepolis, this volume contends that comics are a form of mediation between sources (both primary and secondary) and the reader. Historical comics are not drawn from memory but offer a nonliteral interpretation of an object (re)constructed in the creator’s mind. Indeed, when it comes to history, stretching the limits of the imagination only serves to aid in our understanding of the past and, through that understanding, shape ourselves and our futures. This volume, the second in a two-volume series, is divided into three sections: History and Form, Historical Trauma, and Mythic Histories. The first section considers the relationship between history and the comic book form. The second section engages academic scholarship on comics that has recurring interest in the representation of war and trauma. The final section looks at mythic histories that consciously play with events that did not occur but nonetheless inflect our understanding of history. Contributors to the volume also explore questions of diversity and relationality, addressing differences between nations and the cultural, historical, and economic threads that bind them together, however loosely, and however much those bonds might chafe. Together, both volumes bring together a range of different approaches to diverse material and feature remarkable scholars from all over the world.
Download or read book Aspects of Colonial Tanzania History written by Lawrence Ezekiel Yona Mbogoni and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2013 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aspects of Colonial Tanzanian History is a collection of essays that examines the lives and experiences of both colonizers and the colonized during colonial rule in what is today known as Tanzania. Dr. Mbogoni examines a range of topics hitherto unexplored by scholars of Tanzania history, namely: excessive alcohol consumption (the sundowners); adultery and violence among the colonial officials; attitudes to inter-racial sexual liaisons especially between Europeans and Africans; game-poaching; European settler vigilantism; radio broadcasting; film production and the nature of Arab slavery in Zanzibar. A particularly noteworthy case related to European vigilantism is examined: the trial of Oldus Elishira, a Maasai, for the murder of a European settler farmer in 1955. The victim, Harold M. Stuchbery, was speared to death when he attempted to "arrest" a group of Maasai young men who were passing through his farm. The event highlighted the differences in the concepts of justice held by Maasai and the imported justice systems from the colonizers. It also raised vexing questions about the colonial judge's acquittal of Oldus Elishira, while the Maasai who should have been satisfied with that decision decided to take it upon themselves to mete out an appropriate punishment to Elshira instead of total acquittal, and to compensate Mrs. Stuchbery for the death of her husband by giving her a number of heads of cattle.
Download or read book The Religious Nile written by Terje Oestigaard and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-07-30 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nile is arguably the most famous river in the world. For millennia, the search for its source defeated emperors and explorers. Yet the search for its source also contained a religious quest - a search for the origin of its divine and life-giving waters. Terje Oestigaard reveals how the beliefs associated with the river have played a key role in the cultural development and make-up of the societies and civilizations associated with it. Drawing upon his personal experience and fieldwork in Africa, including details of rites and ceremonies now fast disappearing, the author brings out in rich detail the religious and spiritual meanings attached to the life-giving waters by those whose lives are so bound to the river. Part religious quest, part exploration narrative, the author shows how this mighty river is a powerful source for a greater understanding of human nature, society and religion.
Download or read book Ritual Sacrifice written by Brenda Ralph Lewis and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2007-01-15 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The principle of sacrifice is as old as human life itself. This book provides an overview of sacrificial practices around the world since prehistoric times. It also examines the reasons behind these rituals, and in the case of human sacrifice an attempt is made to understand the mentality of the 'victims' who often willingly went to their deaths.
Download or read book Mothers of Faith written by Sumani, Wilfred M., SJ and published by Orbis Books. This book was released on 2017-12-14 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Aztecs written by David Carrasco and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2012-01-26 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illuminates the complexities of Aztec life. Readers meet a people highly skilled in sculpture, astronomy, city planning, poetry, and philosophy, who were also profoundly committed to cosmic regeneration through the thrust of the ceremonial knife and through warfare.
Download or read book Black Magic written by Yvonne P. Chireau and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2006-11-20 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Chireau has written a marvelous text on an important dimension of African American religious culture. Expanding beyond the usual focus of scholarship on Christianity, she describes and analyzes the world of magical-medical-religious practice, challenging hallowed distinctions among "religion" and "magic." Anyone interested in African American religion will need to reckon seriously with Chireau's text on conjure."—Albert J. Raboteau, Princeton University "Deprived of their own traditions and defined as chattel, enslaved Africans formed a new orientation in America. Conjuring—operating alongside of and within both the remnants of African culture and the acquired traditions of North America—served as a theoretical and practical mode of deciphering and divining within this, enabling them to create an alternate meaning of life in the New World. Chireau's is the first full-scale treatment of this important dimension of African American culture and religion. A wonderful book!"—Charles H. Long, Professor of History of Religions University of California, Santa Barbara and author of Significations: Signs, Symbols and Images in the Interpretation of Religion
Download or read book Violence Peace and Everyday Modes of Justice and Healing in Post Colonial Africa written by Ngonidzashe Marongwe and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2019-02-06 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Violence in its various proportions, genres and manifestations has had an enduring historical legacy the world over. However, works speaking to approaches aimed at mitigating violence characteristic of Africa are very limited. As some scholars have noted, Africans have experienced cycles of violence since the pre-colonial epoch, such that overt violence has become banalised on the African continent. This has had the effect of generating complex results, legacies and perennial emotional wounds that call for healing, reconciliation, justice and positive peace. Yet, in the absence of systematic and critical approaches to the study of violence on the continent, discourses on violence would hardly challenge the global matrices of violence that threaten peace and development in Africa. This volume is a contribution in the direction of such urgently needed systematic and critical approaches. It interrogates, from different angles and with inspiration from a multidisciplinary perspective, the contentious production and resilience of violence in Africa. It calls for a paradigm shift an alternative approach that forges and merges African customary dispute resolution and Western systems of dispute resolution towards a framework of positive peace, holistic restoration, sustainable development and equity. The book is a welcome contribution to students and practitioners in security studies, African studies, development studies, global studies, policy studies, and political science.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Spirits and Ghosts in World Mythology written by Theresa Bane and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-03-10 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all the anomalous phenomenon reported, ghost sightings are by far the most common. The words "ghost" and "spirit" are used interchangeably in American English but in other cultures the lingering souls of the departed are not to be confused with ancestral spirits, demonic spirits, numens or poltergeists. This encyclopedia lists hundreds of entities of the spirit realm--from aatxe to zuzeca--from world mythology and folklore.
Download or read book The Strange World of Human Sacrifice written by Jan N. Bremmer and published by Peeters Publishers. This book was released on 2007 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Strange World of Human Sacrifice is the first modern collection of studies on one of the most gruesome and intriguing aspects of religion. The volume starts with a brief introduction, which is followed by studies of Aztec human sacrifice and the literary motif of human sacrifice in medieval Irish literature. Turning to ancient Greece, three cases of human sacrifice are analysed: a ritual example, a mythical case, and one in which myth and ritual are interrelated. The early Christians were the victims of accusations of human sacrifice, but in turn imputed the crime to heterodox Christians, just as the Jews imputed the crime to their neighbours. The ancient Egyptians rarely seem to have practised human sacrifice, but buried the pharaoh's servants with him in order to serve him in the afterlife, albeit only for a brief period at the very beginning of pharaonic civilization. In ancient India we can follow the traditions of human sacrifice from the earliest texts up to modern times, where especially in eastern India goddesses, such as Kali, were long worshipped with human victims. In Japanese tales human sacrifice often takes the form of self-sacrifice, and there may well be a line from these early sacrifices to modern kamikaze. The last study throws a surprising light on human sacrifice in China. The volume is concluded with a detailed index
Download or read book African Religions written by Jacob K. Olupona and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book connects traditional religions to the thriving religious activity in Africa today.
Download or read book Ritual Servitudes and Christian Social Practices in Ghana written by David Stiles-Ocran and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-10-21 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the kinds of Christian service or diaconia that develop in non-institutionalized practices for supporting survivors of indigenous ritual servitude or Trokosi in Africa. Drawing on empirical research from Ghana, it examines the possibilities of freedom, equality, and dignity for liberated Trokosi and the manner in which these women’s experiences constitute a repudiation of dominant patriarchal family systems. With close attention to the work of indigenous parachurches – which function outside of institutionalized churches – in challenging the contemporary practice of ritual slavery and offering its survivors a lived space in which they need not remain “hidden” as they seek restoration and integration into wider society, Ritual Servitudes and Christian Social Practices in Ghana will appeal to scholars of sociology, theology, and religion with interests in gender, contemporary ministries and African religion.
