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Maternal Divinity Yemonja
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Book Synopsis Maternal Divinity, Yemonja by : Lloyd Weaver
Download or read book Maternal Divinity, Yemonja written by Lloyd Weaver and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As there are spirits in the earth, so the Yoruba believe that there are spirits dwelling in the rivers, lagoons and the sea. These spirits are revered principally by those who dwell near rivers, lagoons or the sea and who believe that the spirits, if suitably provided can in return provide man's needs. They control abundance of fish, they prevent the capsizing of canoes and river accidents; some of the spirits supply children to the barren. "Yemonja", for example, is believed to be the goddess of waters generally and from her body, according to the people's belief, all rivers, lagoons and the sea flow out. Today she is associated with the Ogun River and is given elaborate worship in those areas through which it flows, particularly in Abeokuta.
Book Synopsis Divining the Self by : Velma E. Love
Download or read book Divining the Self written by Velma E. Love and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Explores the dynamics of African American engagements with the Holy Odu, the unwritten sacred scriptures of the West African Ifa Orisha tradition. Examines the experiences of selected practitioners, focusing on the ways in which the divinatory narrative and associated mythology impact self-understanding and worldview"--Provided by publisher.
Book Synopsis The African Diaspora by : Toyin Falola
Download or read book The African Diaspora written by Toyin Falola and published by University Rochester Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The African diaspora is arguably the most important event in modern African history. From the fifteenth century to the present, millions of Africans have been dispersed -- many of them forcibly, others driven by economic need or political persecution--to other continents, creating large communities with African origins living outside their native lands. The majority of these communities are in North America. This historic displacement has meant that Africans are irrevocably connected to economic and political developments in the West and globally. Among the known legacies of the diaspora are slavery, colonialism, racism, poverty, and underdevelopment, yet the ways in which these same factors worked to spur the scattering of Africans are not fully understood -- by those who were part of this migration or by scholars, historians, and policymakers. In this definitive study of the diaspora in North America, Toyin Falola offers a causal history of the western dispersion of Africans and its effects on the modern world. Reengaging old and familiar debates and framing new ones that enrich the discourse surrounding Africa, Falola isolates the thread, running nearly six centuries, that connects the history of slavery, the transatlantic slave trade, and current migrations. A boon to scholars and policymakers and accessible to the general reader, the book explores diverse narratives of migration and shows that the cultures that migrated from Africa to the Americas have the capacity to unite and create a new pan-Africanist movement within the globalized world. Toyin Falola is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the 2011 recipient of the Distinguished Africanist Award from the African Studies Association and serves as the vice president of the International Scientific Committee of the UNESCO Slave Route Project. His previous books published by the University of Rochester Press include The Power of African Cultures and Nationalism and African Intellectuals.
Book Synopsis Vodou Visions by : Sallie Ann Glassman
Download or read book Vodou Visions written by Sallie Ann Glassman and published by Garrett County Press. This book was released on 2014-08-30 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces readers to Vodou's rich history, powerful ancestors, and vibrant spirits, known as Lwa. With more than one hundred breathtaking illustrations, Vodou Visions reveals how to honor and invoke the Lwa with specific ceremonial offerings and litanies. Using methods drawn from more than twenty years of practice, Vodou priestess Sallie Ann Glassman shares purification and empowerment rituals for individuals, communities, homes and spiritual spaces.
Book Synopsis Recovering the African Feminine Divine in Literature, the Arts, and Practice by : LaJuan Simpson-Wilkey
Download or read book Recovering the African Feminine Divine in Literature, the Arts, and Practice written by LaJuan Simpson-Wilkey and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-12-04 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recovering the African Feminine Divine in Literature, the Arts, and Performing Arts: Yemonja Awakening provides context to the myriad ways in which the African feminine divine is being reclaimed by scholars, practitioners and cultural scholars worldwide. This volume addresses the complex ways in which the reclamation of and recognition of Yemonja facilitates cultural survival and the formation of African -centric identity. These cultural practices are symbolically represented by Yemonja, the African female deity who is the mother of the entire world of the Orisha. Also known as Yemaya, Iemanya and Yemaya-Olokun, Yemonja is the deity whose province is the ocean and, given that the Middle Passage was the cultural and spatial crossroad to Africa’s numerous diasporas, this deity links the shared histories of African and African –descent cultural praxis worldwide. Since Yemonja also references sexual, creative, spatial and spiritual energies, the editors and contributors see her as pivotal to this project as an expansive and original cartography of impact of the African feminine divine globally. This work provides the context for understanding how the spiritual conceptualizations of the African feminine divine underpin critical cultural forms, even when it has been previously unacknowledged and despite the cultural encounters with European and Western models of being. Scholars of African diaspora studies and the arts will find this book particularly interesting.
Book Synopsis Relocating the Sacred by : Niyi Afolabi
Download or read book Relocating the Sacred written by Niyi Afolabi and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2022-11-01 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Brazil is home to the largest African diaspora, the religions of its African descendants have often been syncretized and submerged, first under the force of colonialism and enslavement and later under the spurious banner of a harmonious national Brazilian character. Relocating the Sacred argues that these religions nevertheless have been preserved and manifested in a strategic corpus of shifting masks and masquerades of Afro-Brazilian identity. Following the re-Africanization process and black consciousness movement of the 1970s to 1990s, Afro-Brazilians have questioned racial democracy, seeing how its claim to harmony actually dispossesses them of political power. By embracing African deities as a source of creative inspiration and resistance, Afro-Brazilians have appropriated syncretism as a means of not only popularizing African culture but also decolonizing themselves from the past shame of slavery. This book maps the role of African heritage in—and relocation of the sacred to—three sites of Brazilian cultural production: ritual altars, literature, and carnival culture.
Book Synopsis African Spiritual Traditions in the Novels of Toni Morrison by : K. Zauditu-Selassie
Download or read book African Spiritual Traditions in the Novels of Toni Morrison written by K. Zauditu-Selassie and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Addresses a real need: a scholarly and ritually informed reading of spirituality in the work of a major African American author. No other work catalogues so thoroughly the grounding of Morrison's work in African cosmogonies. Zauditu-Selassie's many readings of Ba Kongo and Yoruba spiritual presence in Morrison's work are incomparably detailed and generally convincing."--Keith Cartwright, University of North Florida Toni Morrison herself has long urged for organic critical readings of her works. K. Zauditu-Selassie delves deeply into African spiritual traditions, clearly explaining the meanings of African cosmology and epistemology as manifest in Morrison's novels. The result is a comprehensive, tour-de-force critical investigation of such works as The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Paradise, Love, Beloved, and Jazz. While others have studied the African spiritual ideas and values encoded in Morrison's work, African Spiritual Traditions in the Novels of Toni Morrison is the most comprehensive. Zauditu-Selassie explores a wide range of complex concepts, including African deities, ancestral ideas, spiritual archetypes, mythic trope, and lyrical prose representing African spiritual continuities. Zauditu-Selassie is uniquely positioned to write this book, as she is not only a literary critic but also a practicing Obatala priest in the Yoruba spiritual tradition and a Mama Nganga in the Kongo spiritual system. She analyzes tensions between communal and individual values and moral codes as represented in Morrison's novels. She also uses interviews with and nonfiction written by Morrison to further build her critical paradigm.
Book Synopsis Women Versed in Myth by : Colleen S. Harris
Download or read book Women Versed in Myth written by Colleen S. Harris and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-09-12 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout history, men have prayed to gods and poets have interpreted ancient myths for new audiences. But what about women? With sections on teaching and modern writing, this collection of new essays examines how modern female poets--including H.D., Louise Gluck, Ruth Fainlight, Rita Dove, Sylvia Plath and others--have subverted classical expectations in interpreting such legends as Persephone, Helen and Eurydice. Other mythological figures are also explored and rewritten, including Buddhism's Kwan Yin, Celtic Macha, the Aztecs' Coatlicue, Pele of Hawaii, India's Sita, Sumer's Inanna, Yemonja of the Yoruba and many more.
Book Synopsis Understanding Yoruba Life and Culture by : Nike Lawal
Download or read book Understanding Yoruba Life and Culture written by Nike Lawal and published by Africa Research and Publications. This book was released on 2004 with total page 730 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a population of about thirty million, the Yoruba people constitute one of the largest single ethnic groups in sub-Saharan Africa. They are internationally acclaimed for their high art, complex system of government, religion, and philosophy. This multi-authored book written by distinguished scholars like Ayo Bamgbose, Toyin Falola, Stephen Akintoye, Omofolabo Soyinka-Ajayi, Emmanuel Babatunde, H.O. Danmole, Akinbiyi Akinlabi, and Agbo Folarin, is the first of its kind to cover all the important topics and issues in Yoruba culture. Who were the Yoruba? Where did they come from? What is Yoruba society like? What is the role of women in the society? What is the nature of their art forms? What is Yoruba philosophy? These questions and many more are answered in this significant book. (Back cover).
Download or read book Santería written by Mary Ann Clark and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-03-30 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Santería, also known as Yoruba, Lukumi, or Orisha, was originally brought to the Americas from Africa by enslaved peoples destined for the Caribbean and South America. By the late 1980s it was estimated that more than 70 million African and American people participated in, or were familiar with, the various forms of Santeria, including traditional religions in Africa, Vodun in Haiti, Candomble in Brazil, Shango religion in Trinidad, Santeria in Cuba and, of course, variants of all of these in the U.S. Today there are practitioners around the world including Europe and Asia. Because of the secretive nature of the religion, it has been difficult to get accurate and objective information, but here, Clark introduces readers to the religion, explores the basic elements, including the Orisha, and answers the many questions Santeria arouses in observers and practitioners alike. Santería was brought to the United States in two principle waves, one in the early 1960s after the Cuban Revolution and later by the Marielitos who escaped from the island in the 1980s. Since then it has spread to the larger Hispanic community, to the African American community, and to other segments of society as well. Today, practitioners can be found in every state, and interest in Orisha and related traditions has gained popularity. As the number of practitioners has grown so has public awareness. In this compelling introduction, Clark answers such questions as where did this religion come from? What do practioners believe? Is it a cult? What takes place at a ritual event? How does it view death and the afterlife? Is there ritual sacrifice? Clark, a practitioner as well as a scholar of the faith, dispels the myths that surround this religious practice, and brings readers to a better understanding of this growing faith in America.
Book Synopsis Eroticism, Spirituality, and Resistance in Black Women's Writings by : Donna Aza Weir-Soley
Download or read book Eroticism, Spirituality, and Resistance in Black Women's Writings written by Donna Aza Weir-Soley and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Provocative . . . articulates the importance of embodied, erotic spirituality to black female subjectivity and empowerment."--Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature "Sets out to reclaim the right of black women to their sexual and erotic expression untainted by the stereotypes and disparagements that have historically confined them."--African American Review "Captures one of the most challenging concerns of scholars who engage black women's literature, culture, and theory: the ongoing quest to locate a form of black female sexual agency that neither withers in the chilly lake of sexual repression nor explodes in the heat of hypersexual stereotypes."--MELUS: Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States "Successfully undertakes an analysis of how black women writers have used overlapping narrative depictions of sexuality and spirituality to recast the denigrated black female body and rewrite an empowered and fully actualized black female subject."--Candice M. Jenkins, author of Private Lives, Proper Relations: Regulating Black Intimacy "Weir-Soley speaks with an authority that comes from real knowledge of, investment in, and attention to the details of the African cosmologies and textual complexities she unearths."--Carine Mardorossian, SUNY-Buffalo "The most original and significant contributions are the often brilliant readings of Morrison, Adisa, and Danticat. The work is riveting, both methodologically and critically."--Leslie Sanders, York University Western European mythology and history tend to view spirituality and sexuality as opposite extremes. But sex can be more than a function of the body and religion more than a function of the mind, as exemplified in the works and characters of such writers as Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Opal Palmer Adisa, and Edwidge Danticat. Donna Weir-Soley builds on the work of previous scholars who have identified the ways that black women's narratives often contain a form of spirituality rooted in African cosmology, which consistently grounds their characters' self-empowerment and quest for autonomy. What she adds to the discussion is an emphasis on the importance of sexuality in the development of black female subjectivity, beginning with Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and continuing into contemporary black women's writings. Writing in a clear, lucid, and straightforward style, Weir-Soley supports her thesis with close readings of various texts, including Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and Morrison's Beloved. She reveals how these writers highlight the interplay between the spiritual and the sexual through religious symbols found in Voudoun, Santeria, Condomble, Kumina, and Hoodoo. Her arguments are particularly persuasive in proposing an alternative model for black female subjectivity.
Book Synopsis Women and Goddesses in Myth and Sacred Text by : Tamara Agha-Jaffar
Download or read book Women and Goddesses in Myth and Sacred Text written by Tamara Agha-Jaffar and published by Addison-Wesley Longman. This book was released on 2005 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unable to find a suitable textbook to use in her courses on women in mythology and religion, Agha-Jaffar (Kansas City Kansas Community College) compiled this reader on 18 incarnations of the Great Goddess honored before being dethroned by male deities. Chapters on each one contain a glossary of names and terms. A timeline charts sacred women/goddesses in various cultures from Isis in 3000 BCE to Native American's Corn Mother and White Buffalo Woman.
Book Synopsis Voodoo and Afro-Caribbean Paganism by : Lilith Dorsey
Download or read book Voodoo and Afro-Caribbean Paganism written by Lilith Dorsey and published by Citadel Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few religions are as misunderstood as Afro-Caribbean traditions like Voodoo, Yoruba, Candomble, Shango, Santeria, and Obeah. Even the most wide-ranging books about Paganism rarely include a discussion of the African earth religions.
Book Synopsis Beyond Binaries by : Donna Maxine Weir
Download or read book Beyond Binaries written by Donna Maxine Weir and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 842 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Orisa written by Toyin Falola and published by Africa Research and Publications. This book was released on 2005 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Yemoja written by Solimar Otero and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bridges theory, art, and practice to discuss emerging issues in transnational religious movements in Latina/o and African diasporas. This is the first collection of essays to analyze intersectional religious and cultural practices surrounding the deity Yemoja. In Afro-Atlantic traditions, Yemoja is associated with motherhood, women, the arts, and the family. This book reveals how Yemoja traditions are negotiating gender, sexuality, and cultural identities in bold ways that emphasize the shifting beliefs and cultural practices of contemporary times. Contributors come from a wide range of fieldsreligious studies, art history, literature, and anthropologyand focus on the central concern of how different religious communities explore issues of race, gender, and sexuality through religious practice and discourse. The volume adds the voices of religious practitioners and artists to those of scholars to engage in conversations about how Latino/a and African diaspora religions respond creatively to a history of colonization.
Book Synopsis Worldview, the Orichas and Santeria by : Mercedes Cros Sandoval
Download or read book Worldview, the Orichas and Santeria written by Mercedes Cros Sandoval and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A comprehensive, almost encyclopedic, introduction to Santeria . . . Cros Sandoval's greatest contribution is in tackling the question of why Santeria's Yoruba cosmology has proven so durable and compelling over time, even as it has been transplanted across an ocean and brought into contact with very different traditions in very different societies than its place of origin."--Kristina Wirtz, Western Michigan University "A broad and deep synthesis of scholarship on Santeria . . . fully recognizes the heterogeneous nature of Afro-Cuban religious belief and successfully explores the origins of that heterogeneity."--Theron Corse, Tennessee State University Cros Sandoval's authoritative introduction to the Afro-Cuban religion called Santeria explores how it emerged and developed in Cuba out of transplanted Yoruba beliefs and continues to spread and adjust to changing times and contexts. Systematically exploring every facet of Santeria's worldview, Sandoval examines how practitioners have adapted received beliefs and practices to reconcile them with new environments, from plantation slavery to exile in the United States. Offering a distinctive perspective based on a lifetime of extensive research and firsthand knowledge, Cros Sandoval illuminates Santeria as a theological system and as a vital, continuously evolving community. The adaptation process that gave birth to Santeria was not the singular result of cultural resistance, she argues, but a successful attempt to find meaning linked to alien religious elements in a way that appealed to a diverse following. Beginning with the transatlantic history of how Yoruba traditions came to Cuba and were established and adapted to Cuban society, Sandoval provides a comprehensive comparison of Yoruba and Cuban mythologies, followed by an overview of how Santeria has continued to diffuse and change in response to new contexts and adherents--with an especially illuminating perspective on Santeria among Cubans in Miami. As a reference work and historical treatment of Santeria, Sandoval's work will appeal to both scholars and nonscholars alike, ranging from anthropologists and students of religion and the African Diaspora to psychologists, social workers, and those curious about or inspired by this remarkably durable and adaptable belief system.
