Download or read book Of Land and Spirits written by Alan Thrush and published by . This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 467 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Battle action from Britain's last colony in Africa ... A uniquely sour taste filling his mouth: strain and fear. In peripheral vision, Corporal Sibanda's wiry form moving parallel with him, rifle traversing slowly from side to side like the head of a cobra, covering every twist and turn of the bank ahead. Andrew's gunner on the other bank and, overhead in the rain, the roaring whine of the gunship and the incoming second wave, drowning out all other sound except the snapping rifle fire and the occasional snatch of radio conversation coming over the handset dangling from his yoke ... 'The best piece of writing, novels or otherwise, on the fighting in the Rhodesian bush. Thrush writes skilfully from personal experience that lends strong credibility to a work that he protests is pure fiction. The historical background is accurate - and in some instances revealing.' - Professor Richard Wood - History Department, University of Durban-Westville. Zimbabwe-Rhodesia - March 1980. It is a time of turmoil and suffering as white rule gives way to black nationalism in a part of British colonial Africa riven by a war that has cost 35 000 dead and untold wounded. In the humid, pre-dawn gloom, Rhodesian Army units are poised to re-group and attack assembled guerrilla forces. Results of the internationally supervised elections are seeping through: an overwhelming vote for Robert Mugabe. In camps across the country, twenty thousand guerrillas stand to their weapons, waiting for the frantan to come crashing and burning into hut, trench and bunker. Waiting for the soldiers, pouring down from the sky. The fight is to the death - the climax of eight years of war between two allied guerrilla armies and an established government which has dared to unilaterally declare its independence from England; and which is willing to fight to defend it. It is the end of Empire in Africa: Rhodesian history, and Zimbabwean history, too. This is the best-selling classic of the five years of civil war leading to the birth of Zimbabwe - the story of Andrew Scott, John Bruton, George Sibanda, Kuretu, Mpehla and many others of the Rhodesian Army as they fight with great skill a war they cannot win. For even as the kills mount, so the numbers of the enemy inside the country grow ever larger. It is also the story of a rural population and its swikiros - the spirit mediums who lead and guard - won over to the revolutionary side by Jason Mavunha, Elias Chimombe and other guerrillas of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army who have dared to fight for the ancestral land. This is political fiction and war fiction at its finest - the story of a white community wanting to hold on to standards and tradition despite the cost in human life, without realising the effect this is having on their sons who must carry on the fight. Of a black community whose sons serve on both sides, and which suffers reprisal and atrocity. Nowhere has the sheer weariness of war been better portrayed, with its numbing boredom interspersed with gut-wrenching excitement. There is bravery, cowardice, comradeship and, above all, the loss that comes from civil war. Praise from the media for this historical fiction saga: 'Stark and realistic.' - Mail & Guardian. 'Vivid, accurate, and often lyrical.' - Personality. 'On a par with All Quiet on the Western Front or Henry Williamson's A Test to Destruction for its war writing; the equal of Mukiwa for descriptions of Rhodesia.' - W G Eaton - Australian Press. 'Thrush has produced the best of the genre.' - The Citizen. 'A must-read for any lover of African historical fiction.' - book reviewer. 'Fascinating. Throbs with authenticity.' - John Gordon Davis - author of Hold My Hand I'm Dying. 'Clearest yet depiction of the Rhodesian bush war ... from both sides.' - The Star. Genres: war books fiction; bush war fiction; political thriller; Zimbabwean history; saga. To read a story sample, click on the cover photo above.
Download or read book Demons and Spirits of the Land written by Claude Lecouteux and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-07-17 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the wild spirits that once roamed the lands and inhabited the waters and the pagan rites used to gain their good will • Explores medieval stories and folk traditions of brownies, fairies, giants, dragons, will-o’-the-wisps, and demons • Explains the specific rites performed to negotiate with the local spirits and ensure their permission before building on new land • Shows how these beliefs carried through to modern times, especially in architecture Our pagan ancestors knew that every forest has brownies and fairies, every spring its lady, and every river malevolent beings in its depths. They told tales of giants in the hills, dragons in the lakes, marshes swarming with will-o’-the-wisps, and demons and wild folk in the mountains who enjoyed causing landslides, avalanches, and floods. They both feared and respected these entities, knowing the importance of appeasing them for safe travel and a prosperous homestead. Exploring medieval stories, folk traditions, spiritual place names, and pagan rituals of home building and site selection, Claude Lecouteux reveals the multitude of spirits and entities that once inhabited the land before modern civilization repressed them into desert solitude, impenetrable forests, and inaccessible mountains. He explains how, to our ancestors, enclosing a space was a sacred act. Specific rites had to be performed to negotiate with the local spirits and ensure proper placement and protection of a new building. These land spirits often became the household spirit, taking up residence in a new building in exchange for permission to build on their territory. Lecouteux explores Arthurian legends, folk tales, and mythology for evidence of the untamed spirits of the wilderness, such as giants, dragons, and demons, and examines the rites and ceremonies used to gain their good will. Lecouteux reveals how, despite outright Church suppression, belief in these spirits carried through to modern times and was a primary influence on architecture, an influence still visible in today’s buildings. The author also shows how our ancestors’ concern for respecting nature is increasingly relevant in today’s world.
Download or read book African Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry written by Ras Michael Brown and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-27 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry examines perceptions of the natural world revealed by the religious ideas and practices of African-descended communities in South Carolina from the colonial period into the twentieth century. Focusing on Kongo nature spirits known as the simbi, Ras Michael Brown describes the essential role religion played in key historical processes, such as establishing new communities and incorporating American forms of Christianity into an African-based spirituality. This book illuminates how people of African descent engaged the spiritual landscape of the Lowcountry through their subsistence practices, religious experiences and political discourse.
Download or read book Spirit of the New England Tribes written by William S. Simmons and published by University Press of New England. This book was released on 2018-03-06 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanning three centuries, this collection traces the historical evolution of legends, folktales, and traditions of four major native American groups from their earliest encounters with European settlers to the present. The book is based on some 240 folklore texts gathered from early colonial writings, newspapers, magazines, diaries, local histories, anthropology and folklore publications, a variety of unpublished manuscript sources, and field research with living Indians.
Download or read book A Cross for Two Graves written by Alan Thrush and published by . This book was released on 2021-02-13 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A buried secret. Dark memory from a hard-fought war. Psychological trauma ... In 2011, four men and one woman undertake a reluctant search for wreckage of a downed military helicopter and the secrets it carried. Nobody can be sure what they will find. Now, expertly weaving re-creation of factual historical events into a deceptively simple fictional account of one quest to find a crashed air force aircraft and the remains of those flying into battle aboard it, author Alan Thrush delivers a tantalising subtext: the complexities of post-traumatic stress and its impact. The result is a moving account of the long-lasting effects of modern warfare on soldiers - their eternal burden woven into a tapestry of love and war, lifelong friendships and debts of honour forged in battle. As the story ratchets back and forth in time between the glass-and-steel skylines of present-day London and Johannesburg, and the harsh, unforgiving bush of the central African battleground, the unearthing of buried memories begins to claw at mental scar tissue carefully cultivated to mask personal pain, while the search itself threatens to reveal a dangerous truth. For aboard that helicopter on the day of its destruction was a capture - a prisoner taken in combat and a man who survived it to become a leading figure on the playing fields of today's politics. His ties to his former enemy must be protected ... at all costs. 'Atmospheric. I could not put it down.' James Mitchell, books editor and author of Tartan on the Veld
Download or read book Beyond the Burning Lands written by John Christopher and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-02-17 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes excerpt from the author's The Sword of the Spirits.
Download or read book Song of the Spirits written by Sarah Lark and published by AmazonCrossing. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Lark recounts...the sometimes peaceful, sometimes uneasy relationship between the Maori natives and the pakeha--the colonists. And the land, which can be rocky and formidable and also breathtakingly beautiful, is as much a character as anyone else." --Historical Novel Society New Zealand, 1893: William Martyn is better educated and more cultivated than the other men breaking their backs searching for gold near Queenstown. William is the son of landed Irish nobility, and he comes to town ready to invest in the best equipment. On his search for supplies, he encounters spirited and beautiful young Elaine O'Keefe, who promptly falls in love with him. He is captivated by her charms until Kura, Elaine's half-Maori cousin, comes to visit. William succumbs at once to Kura's exotic beauty and free-spiritedness, and tension develops not only between the two cousins but also between the colonial settlers and their Maori neighbors.
Download or read book The House of the Spirits written by Isabel Allende and published by Everyman's Library. This book was released on 2005-04-19 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Landscape of the Spirits written by Todd W. Bostwick and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2002-09-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: High above the noise and traffic of metropolitan Phoenix, Native American rock art offers mute testimony that another civilization once thrived in the Arizona desert. In the city's South Mountains, prehispanic peoples pecked thousands of images into the mountains' boulders and outcroppings—images that today's hikers can encounter with every bend in the trail. Todd Bostwick, an archaeologist who has studied the Hohokam for more than twenty years, and Peter Krocek, a professional photographer with a passion for archaeology, have combed the South Mountains to locate nearly all of the ancient petroglyphs found in the canyons and ridges. Their years of learning the landscape and investigating the ancient designs have resulted in a book that explores this wealth of prehistoric rock art within its natural and cultural contexts, revealing what these carvings might mean, how they got there, and when they were made. Landscape of the Spirits is the first book to cover these ancient images and is one of the most comprehensive treatments of a rock art location ever published. It conveys the range of different rock art elements and compositions found in the South Mountains—animals, humans, and geometric shapes, as well as celestial and calendrical markings at key sites—through accurate descriptions, drawings, and photographs. Interpretations of the petroglyphs are based on Native American ethnographic accounts and consider the most recent theories concerning shamanism and archaeoastronomy. Written in a simple and accessible style, Landscape of the Spirits is an indispensable volume for anyone exploring the South Mountains, and for rock art enthusiasts everywhere who wish to broaden their understanding of the prehistoric world. It is both an authoritative overview of these ancient wonders and an unprecedented benchmark in southwestern rock art research at a single geographic location.
Download or read book Spirits of Earth written by Robert A. Birmingham and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2009-12-18 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between A.D. 700 and 1100 Native Americans built more effigy mounds in Wisconsin than anywhere else in North America, with an estimated 1,300 mounds—including the world’s largest known bird effigy—at the center of effigy-building culture in and around Madison, Wisconsin. These huge earthworks, sculpted in the shape of birds, mammals, and other figures, have aroused curiosity for generations and together comprise a vast effigy mound ceremonial landscape. Farming and industrialization destroyed most of these mounds, leaving the mysteries of who built them and why they were made. The remaining mounds are protected today and many can be visited. explores the cultural, historical, and ceremonial meanings of the mounds in an informative, abundantly illustrated book and guide. Finalist, Social Science, Midwest Book Awards
Download or read book Spirit of the Land written by Conrad Heisner and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2008-12 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Land ownership is exciting but being a part of the land, claimed by the land, opens a bond to all the people of the land. From ancient people to modern people land has fashioned an identity and bond between people who share common problems, troubles, joys and celebrations. It is as though people become connected through the ages. Our own stories are what tell about the connected lore. Lore is personal, but never private. Telling the lore, sharing the lore creates, and is created by, spirits mingling stories into a common humanity. Lore is humorous; lore is heartbreaking; serious and silly, but lore of identity is the backbone of culture. It is why we laugh together and why we cry together. My stories are not much different than the stories of all time. In this book some of the Spirits of the Land do their speaking through what I remember, through what I have learned about events, and through imagination. Childhood memories, significant times in life, historical understandings- these are the body of lore ready to be woven into our spirit as people. As I sought to understand all of this I was guided by a powerful voice. It was a mystical voice, a driving voice. I came to know the voice of the spirit world as a physical body, a face I could see, hear and talk to, in a small pool of water. The face and the voice came at her own will and sometimes overtook my will. The face and voice left my view when it willed me to act on my own strengths. But the voice of the face is never gone. The spirit is never gone. It is the Spirit of the Land.
Download or read book Spirits of the Ordinary written by Kathleen Alcalá and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 1998 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of Isabel Allende and Laura Esquivel, Alcala presents a magical, multigenerational tale of family passions set along the Mexican-American border in the 1870s. "A strong and finely rendered book in which passions both ordinary and extraordinary are made vivid and convincing".--Larry McMurtry.
Download or read book A Book of Spirits and Thieves written by Morgan Rhodes and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-05 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A "Falling kingdoms spin-off series, which explores a whole new side of Mytica"--Dust jacket flap.
Download or read book The Laws of the Spirit World written by Khorshed Bhavnagri and published by Jaico Publishing House. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Spirits and Spells written by Bruce Coville and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-09-30 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Create your character and roll the dice—it’s all just a game . . . or is it? Why can’t Tansy’s boyfriend, Travis, be into something normal—like football? Instead, he likes complicated games with magical characters and fantastic setups. In fact, Travis just discovered a new one called Spirits and Spells, which he’s sure will be a huge hit. To try it out, Tansy, Travis, and four of their friends gather one night in an abandoned mansion—the perfect setting for their spooky quest. All six accept their characters’ roles and special abilities and set off to find four objects of power that Travis has hidden nearby. But as they move deeper into the house, the players encounter obstacles that definitely weren’t supposed to be there, and the dangers start to seem all too real. Before morning, each of them will be forced to call on their new powers as they struggle to keep their magical identities from taking over and getting what they really want: a way back into this world. This ebook features an illustrated personal history of Bruce Coville including rare images from the author’s collection.
Download or read book Night Spirits written by Ila Bussidor and published by Univ. of Manitoba Press. This book was released on 2000-03-16 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over 1500 years, the Sayisi Dene, 'The Dene from the East', led an independent life, following the caribou herds and having little contact with white society. In 1956, an arbitrary government decision to relocate them catapulted the Sayisi Dene into the 20th century. It replaced their traditional nomadic life of hunting and fishing with a slum settlement on the outskirts of Churchill, Manitoba. Inadequately housed, without jobs, unfamiliar with the language or the culture, their independence and self-determination deteriorated into a tragic cycle of discrimination, poverty, alcoholism and violent death. By the early 1970s, the band realized they had to take their future into their own hands again. After searching for a suitable location, they set up a new community at Tadoule Lake, 250 miles north of Churchill. Today they run their own health, education and community programs. But the scars of the relocation will take years to heal, and Tadoule Lake is grappling with the problems of a people whose ties to the land, and to one another, have been tragically severed. In Night Spirits, the survivors, including those who were children at the time of the move, as well as the few remaining elders, recount their stories. They offer a stark and brutally honest account of the near-destruction of the Sayisi Dene, and their struggle to reclaim their lives. It is a dark story, told in hope.
Download or read book Buckland s Book of Spirit Communications written by Raymond Buckland and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This book was released on 2013-12-01 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of the bestselling "Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft" writes a handbook for anyone who wishes to communicate with spirits, as well as for the less adventurous who simply want to satisfy their curiosity about the subject.
