Download or read book The Yoruba Medicine of Antiquity written by Olusola Oni and published by . This book was released on 2020-05-07 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fact that the Yoruba of yore survived in an environment that their 18th and 19th century Europeans immigrants found challenging attests to the efficacy of the Yoruba medicine. Therefore, one expected that Yoruba medicine would have contributed something to medicine in general, but this has not been so. This semi-autobiographical book was a search for an explanation for this failure. The search has taken the form of an investigation into the philosophy underpinning the practice of medicine by the ancient Yoruba. The search reveals that academic writers generally portrayed Yoruba medicine as devoid of science and rooted in mysticism, divination and religion. However, a review of supposedly peer-reviewed scientific publications reveal that the authors manipulate their data to suit their own preconceptions about the Yoruba. English translations of indigenous Yoruba accounts reveal translators, despite the cloak of academia, who were totally out of their depth, and who made things up, and as a result caused undeserved damage to the advancement of the Yoruba medicine. The Yoruba technique of Igbere, which is similar to the Chinese acupuncture, is deserving of further study. It intrigues also whether the probabilistic language of the Ifa odu could be used to model patterns of diseases.
Download or read book Dynasty and Divinity written by Henry John Drewal and published by National Museum of African Art. This book was released on 2009 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a major part of the extraordinary corpus of ancient Ife art in terra-cotta, stone, and metal, dating from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries.
Download or read book The Yoruba from Prehistory to the Present written by Aribidesi Usman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-04 with total page 519 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rich and accessible account of Yoruba history, society and culture from the pre-colonial period to the present.
Download or read book Art and Risk in Ancient Yoruba written by Suzanne Preston Blier and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-02 with total page 793 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Suzanne Preston Blier examines the intersection of art, risk and creativity in early African arts from the Yoruba center of Ife and the striking ways that ancient Ife artworks inform society, politics, history and religion. Yoruba art offers a unique lens into one of Africa's most important and least understood early civilizations, one whose historic arts have long been of interest to local residents and Westerners alike because of their tour-de-force visual power and technical complexity. Among the complementary subjects explored are questions of art making, art viewing and aesthetics in the famed ancient Nigerian city-state, as well as the attendant risks and danger assumed by artists, patrons and viewers alike in certain forms of subject matter and modes of portrayal, including unique genres of body marking, portraiture, animal symbolism and regalia. This volume celebrates art, history and the shared passion and skill with which the remarkable artists of early Ife sought to define their past for generations of viewers.
Download or read book Imperial Bedlam written by Jonathan Sadowsky and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-04-28 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The colonial government of southern Nigeria began to use asylums to confine the allegedly insane in 1906. These asylums were administered by the British but confined Africans. Yet, as even many in the government recognized, insanity is a condition that shows cultural variation. Who decided the inmates were insane and how? This sophisticated historical study pursues these questions as it examines fascinating source material—writings by African patients in these institutions and the reports of officials, doctors, and others—to discuss the meaning of madness in Nigeria, the development of colonial psychiatry, and the connections between them. Jonathan Sadowsky's well-argued, concise study provides important new insights into the designation of madness across cultural and political frontiers. Imperial Bedlam follows the development of insane asylums from their origins in the nineteenth century to innovative treatment programs developed by Nigerian physicians during the transition to independence. Special attention is given to the writings of those considered "lunatics," a perspective relatively neglected in previous studies of psychiatric institutions in Africa and most other parts of the world. Imperial Bedlam shows how contradictions inherent in colonialism were articulated in both asylum policy and psychiatric theory. It argues that the processes of confinement, the labeling of insanity, and the symptoms of those so labeled reflected not only cultural difference but also political divides embedded in the colonial situation. Imperial Bedlam thus emphasizes not only the cultural background to madness but also its political and experiential dimensions. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1999. The colonial government of southern Nigeria began to use asylums to confine the allegedly insane in 1906. These asylums were administered by the British but confined Africans. Yet, as even many in the government recognized, insanity is a condition that sh
Download or read book Encyclopedia of African Religion written by Molefi Kete Asante and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2009 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collects almost five hundred entries that cover the African response to spirituality, taboos, ethics, sacred space, and objects.
Download or read book Saving Lives Buying Time written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2004-09-09 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than 50 years, low-cost antimalarial drugs silently saved millions of lives and cured billions of debilitating infections. Today, however, these drugs no longer work against the deadliest form of malaria that exists throughout the world. Malaria deaths in sub-Saharan Africaâ€"currently just over one million per yearâ€"are rising because of increased resistance to the old, inexpensive drugs. Although effective new drugs called "artemisinins" are available, they are unaffordable for the majority of the affected population, even at a cost of one dollar per course. Saving Lives, Buying Time: Economics of Malaria Drugs in an Age of Resistance examines the history of malaria treatments, provides an overview of the current drug crisis, and offers recommendations on maximizing access to and effectiveness of antimalarial drugs. The book finds that most people in endemic countries will not have access to currently effective combination treatments, which should include an artemisinin, without financing from the global community. Without funding for effective treatment, malaria mortality could double over the next 10 to 20 years and transmission will intensify.
Download or read book Yoruba Art and Language written by Rowland Abiodun and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-13 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Yoruba was one of the most important civilizations of sub-Saharan Africa. While the high quality and range of its artistic and material production have long been recognized, the art of the Yoruba has been judged primarily according to the standards and principles of Western aesthetics. In this book, which merges the methods of art history, archaeology, and anthropology, Rowland Abiodun offers new insights into Yoruba art and material culture by examining them within the context of the civilization's cultural norms and values and, above all, the Yoruba language. Abiodun draws on his fluency and prodigious knowledge of Yoruba culture and language to dramatically enrich our understanding of Yoruba civilization and its arts. The book includes a companion website with audio clips of the Yoruba language, helping the reader better grasp the integral connection between art and language in Yoruba culture.
Download or read book Handbook of African Medicinal Plants Second Edition written by Maurice M. Iwu and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 1993-02-18 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Handbook of African Medicinal Plants provides a comprehensive review of over 1,000 species of plants employed in indigenous African medicine. It gives a concise description of the materia medica of an enormous and extensively varied continent, with well over 2,000 distinct tribes and several distinct floras. A detailed pharmacognostical profile of the major herbs is presented, including the common name, synonyms, African names, habitat and distribution, medicinal uses, chemical constituents, and published pharmacologic activity. This extensive catalog of plants is presented both in alphabetic order and according to family. References are cited from over 600 publications, and photographs and sketches illustrate many of the plants. The book also provides an introduction to African cosmology and beliefs as they relate to healing and the use of herbs. Handbook of African Medicinal Plants is an invaluable, practical desk reference that should be on the bookshelf of every pharmacognosist, ethnobiologist, botanist, ecologist, phytochemist, pharmacologist, and scientist interested in tropical plant utilization as a tool for the conservation of biodiversity and as a source of new drug leads.
Download or read book Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance written by John M. Riddle and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text traces the history of contraception and abortifacients from ancient Egypt to the 17th century, and discusses the scientific merit of the ancient remedies and why this knowledge about fertility control was gradually lost over the course of the Middle Ages.
Download or read book Library of Congress Subject Headings written by Library of Congress and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 964 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 Library of Congress Subject Headings written by Library of Congress. Office for Subject Cataloging Policy and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 1352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Mandaean Book of John written by Charles G. Häberl and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-11-18 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Given the degree of popular fascination with Gnostic religions, it is surprising how few pay attention to the one such religion that has survived from antiquity until the present day: Mandaism. Mandaeans, who esteem John the Baptist as the most famous adherent to their religion, have in our time found themselves driven from their historic homelands by war and oppression. Today, they are a community in crisis, but they provide us with unparalleled access to a library of ancient Gnostic scriptures, as part of the living tradition that has sustained them across the centuries. Gnostic texts such as these have caught popular interest in recent times, as traditional assumptions about the original forms and cultural contexts of related religious traditions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, have been called into question. However, we can learn only so much from texts in isolation from their own contexts. Mandaean literature uniquely allows us not only to increase our knowledge about Gnosticism, and by extension all these other religions, but also to observe the relationship between Gnostic texts, rituals, beliefs, and living practices, both historically and in the present day.
Download or read book A History of the Yoruba People written by Stephen Adebanji Akintoye and published by Amalion Publishing. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 710 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A History of the Yoruba People is an audacious comprehensive exploration of the founding and growth of one of the most influential groups in Africa. In this commendable book, S. Adebanji Akintoye deploys four decades of historiography research with current interpretation and analyses to present the most complete and authoritative volume on the Yoruba to date. This exceptionally lucid account gathers and imparts a wealth of research and discourses on Yoruba studies for a wider group of readership than ever before. Very few attempts have tried to grapple fully with the historical foundations and development of a group that has contributed to shaping the way African communities are analysed from prehistoric to modern times. “A wondrous achievement, a profound pioneering breakthrough, a reminder to New World historians of what ‘proper history’ is all about – a recount which draws the full landed and spiritual portrait of a people from its roots up – A History of the Yoruba People is yet another superlative work of brilliant chronicling and persuasive interpretation by an outstanding scholar and historiographer of Africa.~ Prof Michael Vickers, author of Ethnicity and Sub-Nationalism in Nigeria: Movement for a Mid-West Stateand Phantom Trail: Discovering Ancient America. “This book is more than a 21st century attempt to (re)present a comprehensive history of the Yoruba ... shifting the focus to a broader and more eclectic account. It is a far more nuanced, evidentially-sensitive, systematic account.” ~ Wale Adebanwi, Assist. Prof., African American and African Studies, UC Davis, USA. “Akintoye links the Yoruba past with the present, broadening and transcending Samuel Johnson in scope and time, and reviving both the passion and agenda that are over a century old, to reveal the long history and definable identity of a people and an ethnicity...Here is an accessible book, with the promise of being ageless, written by the only person who has sustained an academic interest in this subject for nearly half a century, providing the treasures of accumulated knowledge, robust encounters with received wisdom, and mature judgement about the future.” ~ Toyin Falola, The Frances Higginbotham Nalle Professor in History, University of Texas at Austin, USA.
Download or read book Slaves and Religions in Graeco Roman Antiquity and Modern Brazil written by Dick Geary and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Slaves have never been mere passive victims of slavery. Typically, they have responded with ingenuity to their violent separation from their native societies, using a variety of strategies to create new social networks and cultures. Religion has been a major arena for such slave cultural strategies. Through participation in religious and ritual activities, slaves have generated important elements of identity, shared humanity, and even resistance, within their lives. This volume presents papers from a conference of the University of Nottingham’s Institute for the Study of Slavery – the only UK centre studying its history from antiquity to the present. It breaks new ground by juxtaposing slave strategies within the diverse religious cultures of Graeco-Roman antiquity and modern Brazil. After a wide-ranging historiographical survey, eleven experts examine how in both societies slave religious activities involved both constraints and opportunities, shedding particular new light on the neglected religious strategies of Graeco-Roman slaves.
Download or read book African Herbal Pharmacopoeia written by Thomas Brendler and published by Bernan Press(PA). This book was released on 2010 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The African Herbal Pharmacopoeia (AfrHP) provides comprehensive, up to date botanical, commercial and phytochemical information on over fifty of the most important African medicinal plants. The technical data were made on plant samples sourced from across the continent. These monographs prepared by leading African scientists, have been reviewed by international experts. Additional data includes micro morphology of the plant material, distribution maps and TLC Chromatograms. These data are crucial for producers, collectors and traders in medicinal plants and extracts as well as researchers, manufacturers and practitioners. The scope, quality and standard of these herbal monographs are comparable to those prepared in Europe, North America and Asia. Whilst this is the very first edition, it is being proposed to proceed to a second edition, quickly, as more plant species will be covered.