Muntu


Book Description

Over a quarter of a century has passed since Muntu was first published in English, but this landmark examination still provides one of the most in-depth looks at African and neo-African culture. In his insightful study, Janheinz Jahn surveys the whole range of traditional and modern African thought expressed in religion, language, philosophy, literature, art, music and dance. He demonstrates that African culture, far from being doomed to destruction or homogenization under the onslaught of the West, is evolving into a rich and independent civilization that is capable of incorporating those elements of the West that do not threaten its basic values. Muntu (the Bantu word for “human”) presents an invaluable insight into the foundations of the unique and vital tapestry of cultures that compromise Africa today.




The World Dream Book


Book Description

A unique self-help guide to dream interpretation using techniques and icons from cultures around the world. • Challenges the assumption that all symbols universally signify the same thing to all dreamers. • Includes numerous stories, games, and exercises for inducing, recalling, interpreting, and utilizing dreams. • Extends beyond Jung and Freud to include dream theory from numerous world cultures, including the Temiar of Malaya, the African Ibans, the Lepchka of the Himalayas, and the Ute of North America. Dreaming can be used as a tool for understanding our own consciousness, enhancing creativity, receiving visions, conquering fears, interpreting recent events, healing the body, and evolving the soul. Tapping into the vast dreaming experiences and lore of the world's cultures--from the Siwa people of the Libyan desert to the Naskapi Indians of Labrador--Sarvananda Bluestone challenges the assumption that all symbols universally signify the same thing to all dreamers. The World Dream Book encourages readers to develop their own, personalized symbols for understanding their consciousness and provides a series of stories, multicultural techniques, and games to help them do so. Playful explorations, such as the aboriginal "Sipping the Water of the Moon," teach how to induce, recall, interpret, and utilize the power of dreams. Readers will discover how a stone under a pillow can help us remember a dream and will explore their own dormant artist and writer as they reclaim the power of their sleeping consciousness. Sarvananda Bluestone applies his uniquely engaging style to demonstrate that, with a few simple tools, everybody has the capacity to unleash their full dreaming potential.




Mali


Book Description

Mali is one of the world's poorest nations, and the second largest country of francophone West Africa. In 1883 it became a colony of France. Following independence in 1960, the country pursued an aggressive socialist programme under the leadership of Modibo Keita, who was overthrown in a bloodless military coup in 1968. Four coup attempts followed in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as a highly publicized student strike and two disastrous droughts. Mall continues to be troubled by political and social tensions. This annotated bibliography, the first on Mall to be published in English, provides extensive coverage of English-and French-language publications on all aspects of the country.




Son-Jara


Book Description

The epic of Son-Jara (also known as Sunjata or Sundiata) celebrates the exploits of the legendary founder of the Empire of Old Mali and is still widely recited among Mandekan-speaking peoples of West Africa today. As performed by griots, or professional bards, it embodies deeply rooted aspects of Mande cosmology and worldview. This edition of the epic presents the full, linear Mandekan text side by side with John William Johnson's important English translation. Fully annotated and explained, the text provides historical and contextual frameworks for understanding this African epic. A complete recitation of the epic by Jeli fa-Digi Sisòkò recorded in the town of Kita, Mali, is sold separately. This powerful text and inspiring performance show why the epic of Son-Jara has taken its place among the world's greatest epics.







How to Read Signs and Omens in Everyday Life


Book Description

Discover your psychic powers and learn to use the wonders of nature and the world around you as magical tools of divination. • Practical and enjoyable exercises help readers reconnect with their innate psychic sensitivity. • Includes 75 methods and practices of divination from around the world. Since the beginning of time, diviners and seers have been finding signs and omens in the world around them--in pools of water, tea leaves, delicate patterns of cracked animal bones, and the ripples of clouds in the sky. Because these observers have been able to tap into a deeper level of awareness, they have come to sense hidden truths in powerful and mysterious ways. In modern times we call those who possess these abilities "psychic," but native cultures accepted that each of us has an innate sixth sense and can learn how to read the forces of nature that appear before us. In this fascinating and enlightening guide, historian and psychic Sarvananda Bluestone shows us how our innate knowledge can be rediscovered, allowing us to become far more in tune with our surroundings than we ever dreamed possible. He teaches us to use everyday objects and the wonders of nature as magical tools that offer a window into the future--and ourselves. Whether watching birds cross the morning sky or divining the subtle energies of the earth, you will see the world in an entirely new light. Filled with practical exercises, How to Read Signs and Omens in Everyday Life demonstrates how the discovery of the power within ourselves requires nothing more than a little guidance and a willingness to see.




Traveling Spirit Masters


Book Description

A group of ritual musicians and former slaves brought from sub-Saharan Africa to Morocco, the Gnawa heal those they believe to be possessed, using incense, music, and trance. But their practice is hardly of only local interest: the Gnawa have long participated in the world music market through collaborations with African-American jazz musicians and French recording artists. In this first book in English on Gnawa music and its global reach, author Deborah Kapchan explores how these collaborations transfigure racial and musical identities on both sides of the Atlantic. She also addresses how aesthetic styles associated with the sacred come to inhabit non-sacred contexts, and what new amalgams they produce. Her narrative details the fascinating intrinsic properties of trance, including details of enactment, the role of gesture and the body, and the use of the senses, and how they both construct authentic Gnawa identity and reconstruct historically determined relations of power. Traveling Spirit Masters is a captivating and elucidating demonstration of how and why trance—and indeed all sacred music—is fast becoming a transnational sensation.




The Routledge Dictionary of Anthropologists


Book Description

This detailed and comprehensive guide provides biographical information on the most influential and significant figures in world anthropology, from the birth of the discipline in the nineteenth century to the present day. Each of the fifteen chapters focuses on a national tradition or school of thought, outlining its central features and placing the anthropologists within their intellectual contexts. Fully indexed and cross-referenced, The Routledge Dictionary of Anthropologists will prove indispensable for students of anthropology.




The Forging of Israel


Book Description

In this rich and elegantly presented interdisciplinary study, the theme is the impact of iron technology on the material and cultural life of ancient Israel. The author argues that iron itself and the processes of ironworking functioned as dominant cultural symbols, conveying meanings about significant transformations that established Israel's social and religious identity. This wide-ranging monograph is particularly valuable for its integration of material about ironworking in traditional African societies, anthropological theories on symbolism and archaeological information on the development of iron technology in the Near East.