Download or read book When Animals Sing and Spirits Dance written by Claude Boucher and published by Anchor Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Animals Sing and Spirits Dance is an introduction to the diversity and drama that is the gule wamkulu, the 'great dance, ' of the Chewa people of Malawi. Covering 200 characters bedecked in mask and costume or woven structure, the book reveals not only the physical variety of the characters but also analyzes their songs, dances, and often codified messages that are delivered through word and action. It is through the dancers of the gule wamkulu that the ancestors communicate with the living and give instructions on how to abide by the code of moral conduct, the mwambo. It is also through the great dance that we can glean intimate insight into the values and worldview of the Chewa. Illustrated throughout with color photographs and original artwork, When Animals Sing and Spirits Dance is a lively interpretation of the great dance, told very much in the voice of the Chewa themselves. The songs are interpreted in both Chichewa and English, with appropriate recognition that direct representation is often impossible. The gule wamkulu was declared a masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005. This book is a worthy entrée to the majesty, spectacle, and spirituality that is the great dance.
Download or read book Within Our Grasp written by Sharman Apt Russell and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2021 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An important, hopeful book that looks at the urgent problem of childhood malnutrition worldwide and the revolutionary progress being made to end it. A healthy Earth requires healthy children. Yet nearly one-fourth of the world's children are stunted physically and mentally due to a lack of food or nutrients. These children do not die but endure a lifetime of diminished potential. During the past thirty years, says Sharman Russell, we have seen a revolution in how we treat these sick children and in how--with a new understanding of the human body and approach to nutrition, and new ways to reach out to hungry mothers and babies--we have gone from unwittingly killing severely malnourished children to bringing them back to health through the "miracle" of ready-to-eat therapeutic food. Intertwined with stories of scientists and nutrition experts on the front lines of finding ways to end malnutrition for good, Russell writes of her travels to Malawi, one of the poorest and least-developed countries in the world and also the site of pathbreaking, cutting-edge research into childhood malnutrition. (Eighty percent of Malawians are farmers subsisting on less than an acre of land and coping with erratic weather patterns due to global warming; fifty percent live below the poverty line; and forty-two percent of Malawi's children are affected by a lack of food or nutrients.) As she writes of her personal exploration of new friendships and insights in a country known as "the warm heart of Africa," Russell describes the programs that are working best to reduce childhood stunting and explores how malnutrition in children is connected to climate change, how vitamins and minerals are preventing these harmful effects, why the empowerment of women is the single most effective factor in eliminating childhood malnutrition, and what the costs of ending childhood malnutrition are. Sharman Russell, much-admired writer of luminous prose and humane heart, whose writing has been called, "elegant" (The Economist) and "extraordinarily well-crafted, far-reaching, and heart-wrenching" (Booklist), winner of the John Burroughs Medal for distinguished natural history writing, has written an illuminating, inspiring book that makes clear the promise of what is today, gratefully, within our grasp.
Download or read book Victory Over Fear Charms Witchcraft and Worldview in South Central Malawi written by Robert Beaton and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2023-05-25 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is about effective discipleship. The author discusses how it is possible to transform worldview and thus change behaviour (practice) in the area of African traditional religious charm- dependency and related witchcraft practices in the church. He lays foundations for an appropriate approach for renewal, one which takes into consideration cultural sensitivity, Biblical fidelity and pedagogic efficacy. Specific Biblical passages are studied with a view to both theological significance and practically applicable significance for the context, and suggestions are made regarding how to best communicate these Biblical truths effectively in situ. This material provides a malleable resource for church leaders, theological educators and missionaries, to use, develop or modify, according to their own particular didactic needs and specific ATR challenges to Christian discipleship.
Download or read book When You Sing It Now Just Like New written by Robin Ridington and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2021-12-10 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When You Sing It Now, Just Like New is a collection of essays about stories: about hearing, sharing, and recording them, and sometimes even becoming characters in them. These essays, which contextualize stories within anthropology, flow from Robin Ridington and Jillian Ridington's decades of work with the Athapaskan-speaking Dane-zaa people, who live in Canada's Peace River area. The essays in part 1 feature the Ridingtons' audio work as well as Jillian's reflections on her relationships with Dane-zaa women. The authors use a narrative style to lead the reader to an understanding of First Nations' oral and written traditions. The essays in parts 2 and 3 are more scholarly and comparative and draw on ethnographic experience. They speak to one or more theoretical issues and discuss First Nations traditions beyond the Dane-zaa, but always from within the context of shared ethnographic authority. Students of anthropology, folklore, and Native studies can hear samples of audio compositions from the Dane-zaa archive by downloading audio files from the University of Nebraska Press Web site.
Download or read book Reading Religion and Spirituality in Jamaican Reggae Dancehall Dance written by 'H' Patten and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-03-30 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the genealogy of Jamaican dancehall while questioning whether dancehall has a spiritual underscoring, foregrounding dance, and cultural expression. This study identifies the performance and performative (behavioural actions) that may be considered as representing spiritual ritual practices within the reggae/dancehall dance phenomenon. It does so by juxtaposing reggae/dancehall against Jamaican African/neo-African spiritual practices such as Jonkonnu masquerade, Revivalism and Kumina, alongside Christianity and post-modern holistic spiritual approaches. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in performance studies, popular culture, music, theology, cultural studies, Jamaican/Caribbean culture, and dance specialists.
Download or read book Partial Stories written by Claire L. Wendland and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-04-22 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A close look at stories of maternal death in Malawi that considers their implications in the broader arena of medical knowledge. By the early twenty-first century, about one woman in twelve could expect to die of a pregnancy or childbirth complication in Malawi. Specific deaths became object lessons. Explanatory stories circulated through hospitals and villages, proliferating among a range of practitioners: nurse-midwives, traditional birth attendants, doctors, epidemiologists, herbalists. Was biology to blame? Economic underdevelopment? Immoral behavior? Tradition? Were the dead themselves at fault? In Partial Stories, Claire L. Wendland considers these explanations for maternal death, showing how they reflect competing visions of the past and shared concerns about social change. Drawing on extended fieldwork, Wendland reveals how efforts to legitimate a single story as the authoritative version can render care more dangerous than it might otherwise be. Historical, biological, technological, ethical, statistical, and political perspectives on death usually circulate in different expert communities and different bodies of literature. Here, Wendland considers them together, illuminating dilemmas of maternity care in contexts of acute change, chronic scarcity, and endemic inequity within Malawi and beyond.
Download or read book Water Beings written by Veronica Strang and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2023-04-19 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking to the vast human history of water worship, a crucial study of our broken relationship with all things aquatic—and how we might mend it. Early human relationships with water were expressed through beliefs in serpentine aquatic deities: rainbow-colored, feathered or horned serpents, giant anacondas, and dragons. Representing the powers of water, these beings were bringers of life and sustenance, world creators, ancestors, guardian spirits, and lawmakers. Worshipped and appeased, they embodied people’s respect for water and its vital role in sustaining all living things. Yet today, though we still recognize that “water is life,” fresh- and saltwater ecosystems have been critically compromised by human activities. This major study of water beings and what has happened to them in different cultural and historical contexts demonstrates how and why some—but not all—societies have moved from worshipping water to wreaking havoc upon it and asks what we can do to turn the tide.
Download or read book Why Suy Sing written by Anthony Seeger and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Like many other South American Indian communities, the Suya Indians of Mato Grosso, Brazil, devote a great deal of time and energy to making music, especially singing. In paperback for the first time, Anthony Seeger's Why Suya Sing considers the reasons for the importance of music for the Suya - and by extension for other groups - through an examination of myth telling, speech making, and singing in an initiation ceremony." "This new paperback edition features a CD offering examples of the myth telling, speeches, and singing discussed, as well as a new afterword that describes the continuing use of music by the Suya in their recent conflicts with cattle ranchers and soybean farmers." -- Prové de l'editor.
Download or read book Culture and Society written by George Peter Murdock and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2010-11-23 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty four essays cover a broad range of topics in cultural anthropology, and represent the best writings of George Peter Murdock and reveal his theoretical orientation and his many landmark contributions to the field.
Download or read book Working with Rock Art written by Benjamin Smith and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2012-12-01 with total page 868 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cutting edge contributions that consider new approaches to the documentation of rock art; its interpretation using indigenous knowledge; and the presentation of rock art. This volume contains contributions that consider new approaches to three areas: the documentation of rock art; its interpretation using indigenous knowledge; and the presentation of rock art. Working with Rock Art is the first edited volume to consider each of these areas in a theoretical rather than a technical fashion, and it therefore makes a significant contribution to the discipline. The volume aims to promote the sharing of new experiences between leading researchers in the field. While the geographic focus is truly global, there is a dominant north-south axis with strong representation from researchers in southern Africa and northern Europe, two leading centres for new approaches in rock art research. Working with Rock Art opens up a long overdue dialogue about shared experiences between these two centres, and a number of the chapters are the first published results of new collaborative research. Since this volume covers the recording, interpretation and presentation of rock art, it will attract a wide audience of researchers, heritage managers and students, as well as anyone interested in the field of rock art studies.
Download or read book Food in the Social Order written by Mary Douglas and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-04 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1984, This work is a cross-cultural study of the moral and social meaning of food. It is a collection of articles by Douglas and her colleagues covering the food system of the Oglala Sioux, the food habits of families in rural North Carolina, meal formats in an Italian-American community near Philadelphia. It also includes a grid/group analysis of food consumption.
Download or read book Taking African Cartoons Seriously written by Peter Limb and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2018-10-01 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cartoonists make us laugh—and think—by caricaturing daily events and politics. The essays, interviews, and cartoons presented in this innovative book vividly demonstrate the rich diversity of cartooning across Africa and highlight issues facing its cartoonists today, such as sociopolitical trends, censorship, and use of new technologies. Celebrated African cartoonists including Zapiro of South Africa, Gado of Kenya, and Asukwo of Nigeria join top scholars and a new generation of scholar-cartoonists from the fields of literature, comic studies and fine arts, animation studies, social sciences, and history to take the analysis of African cartooning forward. Taking African Cartoons Seriously presents critical thematic studies to chart new approaches to how African cartoonists trade in fun, irony, and satire. The book brings together the traditional press editorial cartoon with rapidly diverging subgenres of the art in the graphic novel and animation, and applications on social media. Interviews with bold and successful cartoonists provide insights into their work, their humor, and the dilemmas they face. This book will delight and inform readers from all backgrounds, providing a highly readable and visual introduction to key cartoonists and styles, as well as critical engagement with current themes to show where African political cartooning is going and why.
Download or read book Creating Circles and Ceremonies written by Oberon Zell-Ravenheart and published by Red Wheel/Weiser. This book was released on 2006-07-07 with total page 609 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Creating Circles and Ceremonies is the accumulation of decades of circles, ceremonies, rituals, Mystery plays, initiations, rites of passage, and other magickal workings co-created by the Zell-Ravenhearts, today's foremost Wizard/Witch couple. For more than 30 years, Oberon and Morning Glory have traveled widely throughout the worldwide magickal community--participating in gatherings, conducting workshops, and creating rituals for groups large and small. They have met and made Magick with the leaders of many traditions: Celtic Shamanism, British Dianic, Italian Strega, Welsh Witchcraft, Faerie Trad, Ceremonial Magick, Ozark Druidry, the New Reformed Order of the Golden Dawn (NROOGD), Hinduism, Native American tribes, Greek and Egyptian mythology, and the futuristic Church of All Worlds. Here, in one easy-to-read volume, is their collection of chants, invocations, circle-castings, quarter-callings, spells, and ceremonies. It is also a "kit" to use to assemble your own rituals, for any season or reason: Book I presents a basic ritual outline. Each element is followed by numerous examples which may be "plugged in" to customize your own ceremony. Book II gives numerous examples of actual ceremonies: Esbats (full Moons) and special occasions; Rites of Passage; Mysteries and Initiations; spells and consecrations. These can be adapted and modified as needed for any size group--from small family gatherings in your living room, to huge outdoor celebrations involving thousands of people. Book III provides an assortment of full rituals and ritual elements for celebrations of the eight great seasonal festivals called the Wheel of the Year. Versions of these have been commemorated for millennia in most traditional cultures of the Northern Hemisphere; and today are universal throughout the worldwide Pagan community.
Download or read book Flowers in the Mirror written by Li Ju-chen and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fertility Conjuncture Difference written by Philip Kreager and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2017-09-01 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last forty years anthropologists have made major contributions to understanding the heterogeneity of reproductive trends and processes underlying them. Fertility transition, rather than the story of the triumphant spread of Western birth control rationality, reveals a diversity of reproductive means and ends continuing before, during, and after transition. This collection brings together anthropological case studies, placing them in a comparative framework of compositional demography and conjunctural action. The volume addresses major issues of inequality and distribution which shape population and social structures, and in which fertility trends and the formation and size of families are not decided solely or primarily by reproduction.
Download or read book Faiths of Man written by James George Roche Forlong and published by . This book was released on 1906 with total page 648 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Culture Element Distributions written by and published by . This book was released on 1935 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
