Download or read book Witchcraft Sorcery and Social Categories Among the Safwa written by Alan Harwood and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-08-16 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1970, this book explores the role of concepts of disease in the social life of the Safwa of Tanzania, particularly through beliefs concerning witchcraft and sorcery. Examining Safwa ideas about the cuasation of disease and death and the use of aetiological terms in actual cases, it demonstrates a parallel between these ideas and terms, on the one hand and the Safwa system of social categories on the other. A descrption of the Safwa environment, way of life and social system is followed by an account of the concepts of death and disease and of their causes as revealed in ancestor rites, divination and autopsy. An analysis of case histories demonstrates that the cause assigned to a particular instance of illness or death depends upon the status relationship between discputing parties who are associated with the patient. The way in which the parallel between aetiological and social categoeis helps to control the outcome of disputes is also examined.
Download or read book The Witch written by Ronald Hutton and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-01 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book sets the notorious European witch trials in the widest and deepest possible perspective and traces the major historiographical developments of witchcraft
Download or read book The Scottish Witch Hunt in Context written by Julian Goodare and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2002-09-21 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a collection of essays on Scottish witchcraft and witch-hunting, which covers the whole period of the Scottish witch-hunt, from the mid-16th century to the early 18th. It particularly emphasizes the later stages, since scholars are now as keen to explain why witch-hunting declined as why it occurred. There are studies of particular witchcraft panics, including a reassessment of the role of King James VI. The book thus covers a wide range of topics concerned with Scottish witch-hunting - and also places it in the context of other topics: gender relations, folklore, magic and healing, and moral regulation by church and state.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Witchcraft written by Jonathan Bryan Durrant and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers the history of witchcraft from 1750 B.C.E. though the modern day. Includes a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography featuring cross-referenced entries on witch hunts, witchcraft trials, and related practices around the world.
Download or read book Witchcraft in the Modern World written by Brian P. Levack and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-28 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Witchcraft and magical beliefs have captivated historians and artists for millennia, and stimulated an extraordinary amount of research among scholars in a wide range of disciplines. This new collection, from the editor of the highly acclaimed 1992 set, Articles on Witchcraft, Magic, and Demonology, extends the earlier volumes by bringing together the most important articles of the past twenty years and covering the profound changes in scholarly perspective over the past two decades. Featuring thematically organized papers from a broad spectrum of publications, the volumes in this set encompass the key issues and approaches to witchcraft research in fields such as gender studies, anthropology, sociology, literature, history, psychology, and law. This new collection provides students and researchers with an invaluable resource, comprising the most important and influential discussions on this topic. A useful introductory essay written by the editor precedes each volume.
Download or read book Man in Adaptation written by Yehudi A. Cohen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-12 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do specific activities and institutions in which people are involved fit into the overall adaptive strategy of their society? What are the particular pressures leading to change in each of these spheres when the group's strategy of adaptation changes? What are the human demands made by a hunting-gathering strategy that lead to the development of particular family systems, modes of social control, religious beliefs and practices, values and ideologies, and personality structures? What are the new human demands that lead to the reorganization of these aspects of life as the group moves from one level of development to another? Man in Adaptation: The Institutional Framework introduces the institutional, psychological, and ideological dimensions of the strategies of adaptation that have characterized human societies from the earliest known forms of social life to the present. Cohen includes topics that are of principal anthropological concern—notably marriage, law and social control, religion and magic, value systems, personality, and art. There are no studies that deal with cultural change as such in this book. Where possible, Cohen includes articles that deal with changes in particular spheres of activity, such as family organization, law, religion, and value systems. He argues that change is not a special situation. Instead, culture is change and change is culture, and it is unrealistic to study change outside the specific social and technological organization of a given society. This volume unifies the subject matter of anthropology within a single and powerful explanatory framework and incorporates the work of the most renowned anthropological experts on man.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Witchcraft written by Michael David Bailey and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The only single-volume, scholarly reference work available on this subject, this dictionary provides reliable information on magic and witchcraft for the entire span of western history, from classical antiquity to modern Wicca. Particular attention is paid to the history of witchcraft in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, the era of the great witch-hunts.
Download or read book The A to Z of Witchcraft written by Michael D. Bailey and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2009-09-15 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A great deal has been written about the history of witchcraft, but much of what has been written is unreliable, exaggerated, or inaccurate. This problem is especially acute in regard to modern witchcraft, or Wicca, and its supposed connections to historical witchcraft in medieval and early modern Europe. The A to Z of Witchcraft provides a reliable reference source for both academics and general readers interested in the actual historical development of witchcraft in the western world. The focus of the dictionary is on Western Europe during the late-medieval and early modern periods, when the specific idea of diabolical witchcraft developed and when the so-called 'great witch-hunts' occurred. Entries are also provided that deal with magic and witchcraft in the earlier Christian period and classical antiquity, as well as with the lingering belief in witchcraft in the modern world, and with the development of the modern, neo-pagan religion of witchcraft, also known as Wicca. For comparative purposes, some entries have been provided that deal with aspects and systems of magic found in other parts of the world that seem to bear some relation to the idea of witchcraft as it developed in Christian Europe. The regions dealt with are mainly Africa, along with such New-World practices as Voodoo and Santeria. Entries in the dictionary cover important people in the history of witchcraft, from the medieval inquisitors and early modern magistrates who developed the stereotype of the historical witch to the modern individuals who have developed the religion of Wicca. Also included are legal terms and concepts important to the prosecution of the supposed crime of witchcraft, and religious and theological concepts pertaining to the demonic elements that came to be associated with witchcraft, as well as more popular beliefs and aspects of common folklore and mythology that became attached to the developing idea of witchcraft. Geographic entries are also included, discussing the scope of witch-hunting in various regions of Europe and the world, and describing specific examples of major witch-hunts such as those that occurred in Salem, Massachusetts.
Download or read book The Context of Medicines in Developing Countries written by Sjaak van der Geest and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Western pharmaceuticals are flooding the Third World. Injections, capsules and tablets are available in city markets and village shops, from 'traditional' practitioners and street vendors, as well as from more orthodox sources like hospitals. Although many are aware of this 'pharmaceutical invasion', little has been written about how local people perceive and use these products. This book is a first attempt to remedy that situation. It presents studies of the ways Western medicines are circulated and understood in the cities and rural areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America. We feel that such a collection is long overdue for two reasons. The first is a practical one: people dealing with health problems in developing countries need information about local situations and they need examples of methods they can use to examine the particular contexts in which they are working. We hope that this book will be useful for pharmacists, doctors, nurses, health planners, policy makers and concerned citizens, who are interested in the realities of drug use. Why do people want various kinds of medicine? How do they evaluate and choose them and how do they obtain them? The second reason for these studies of medicines is to fill a need in medical anthropology as a field of study. Here we address our colleagues in anthropol ogy, medical sociology and related disciplines.
Download or read book Magical Interpretations Material Realities written by Henrietta L. Moore and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Magical Interpretations, Material Realities brings together many of today's best scholars of contemporary Africa. The theme of "witchcraft" has long been associated with exoticizing portraits of a "traditional" Africa, but this volume takes the question of occult as a point of entry into the moral politics of some very modern African realities.' - James Ferguson, University of California, USA 'These essays bear eloquent testimony to the ongoing presence and power of the occult imaginary, and of the intimate connection between global capitalism and local cosmology, in postcolonial Africa. A major contribution to scholarship that aims to rework the divide between modernity and tradition.' - Charles Piot, Duke University, USA This volume sets out recent thinking on witchcraft in Africa, paying particular attention to variations in meanings and practices. It examines the way different people in different contexts are making sense of what 'witchcraft' is and what it might mean. Using recent ethnographic materials from across the continent, the volume explores how witchcraft articulates with particular modern settings for example: the State in Cameroon; Pentecostalism in Malawi; the university system in Nigeria and the IMF in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Tanzania. The editors provide a timely overview and reconsideration of long-standing anthropological debates about 'African witchcraft', while simultaneously raising broader concerns about the theories of the western social sciences.
Download or read book East African Societies written by Aylward Shorter and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focussing on the mechanics of social change and the interaction between ethnic groups, cultures, structures and value systems the background questions of ecology, demography and history are also examined and the process of urbanization and rural revolution described. Trends in marriage and family life, education and religious ideas are also discussed and case studies from each country included. First published in 1974.
Download or read book Of Marriage Violence and Sorcery written by David McKnight and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a fascinating exploration of the relationship between marriage, violence and sorcery in an Australian Aboriginal Community, drawing on David McKnight’s extensive research on Mornington Island. The case studies, which occurred both before and after a Presbyterian Mission was established on the island, allow McKnight to show how the complexities of kin ties and increased sexual competition help to explain incidences of violence and sorcery, without resorting to psychiatric justifications. He demonstrates that kin ties both stimulated conflict and helped to mitigate it. Following on from McKnight’s previous book, Going the Whiteman’s Way (Ashgate 2004), Of Marriage, Violence and Sorcery offers an archive of valuable primary materials, drawing on the author’s forty-year knowledge of the community on Mornington Island.
Download or read book Women s Religious Experience RLE Women and Religion written by Pat Holden and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-03 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of the early literature concerning women’s religious experience is about exceptional women; those who diverged from the traditional female role to become nuns, mystics or charismatic leaders. While women were permitted to be prophets and visionaries they rarely played an important part in church organisation. This paradox is explored in this book and a number of themes emerge: in particular, the dominance of male symbolism within the great religions. The question of whether men and women apprehend religious systems and signs in the same way is also explored. In considering the contemporary scene, the book is able to look at the ways in which religion affects the lives of women in different societies and in different historical periods; this gives us a larger view of the ways in which our own perceptions of ‘femaleness’ have been constructed out of the religious world views of both the past and the present. First Published in 1983.
Download or read book Ibss Anthropology 1972 written by International Committee for Social Science Information and Documentation and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1974-10-24 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1974. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book Theoretical Explorations in African Religion written by Wim van Binsbergen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-28 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1985. This collection of papers on theoretical and methodological perspectives in the study of African religion is the outcome of a conference which the editors were asked to convene on behalf of the African Studies Centre, Leiden, in December 1979.
Download or read book The Good People written by Peter Narvez and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 1997-11-06 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " Whether called "the good people," "the little people," or simply "them," fairies are familiar from their appearances in Shakespeare's plays, Disney's films, and points in between. In many cultures, however, fairies are not just the stuff of distant legend or literature: they are real creatures with supernatural powers. The Good People presents nineteen essays that focus on the actual fairies of folklore -- fairies of past and living traditions who affected, and still affect, people's lives in myriad ways.
Download or read book Kupilikula written by Harry G. West and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2005-09-05 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the Mueda plateau in northern Mozambique, sorcerers are said to feed on their victims, sometimes "making" lions or transforming into lions to literally devour their flesh. When the ruling FRELIMO party subscribed to socialism, it condemned sorcery beliefs and counter-sorcery practices as false consciousness, but since undertaking neoliberal reform, the party—still in power after three electoral cycles—has "tolerated tradition," leaving villagers to interpret and engage with events in the idiom of sorcery. Now, when the lions prowl plateau villages ,suspected sorcerers are often lynched. In this historical ethnography of sorcery, Harry G. West draws on a decade of fieldwork and combines the perspectives of anthropology and political science to reveal how Muedans expect responsible authorities to monitor the invisible realm of sorcery and to overturn or, as Muedans call it, "kupilikula" sorcerers' destructive attacks by practicing a constructive form of counter-sorcery themselves. Kupilikula argues that, where neoliberal policies have fostered social division rather than security and prosperity, Muedans have, in fact, used sorcery discourse to assess and sometimes overturn reforms, advancing alternative visions of a world transformed.
