Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan


Book Description

Beneath the rural Islamic society in ancient villages perched among the Great Causasus Mountains, animist tattoos on women and decorations on ritual spoon boxes share symbols that are believed to protect the heart and the family. Three experts have recorded this system of folk medicine.




Shamanic Journeys Through Daghestan


Book Description

Known as the land of the mountains, Dagestan lies immediately north of the Caucasus Mountains, and stretches for approximately 250 miles along the west shore of the Caspian Sea. With its mountainous terrain making travel and communication difficult, Daghestan is still largely tribal. Despite over a century of Tsarist control followed by seventy years of repressive Soviet rule, there are still 32 distinct ethnic groups in Daghestan, each with its own language, making it unquestionably the most complex of the Caucasian republics. Shamanic practices are still prevalent in this country, where one of the ten lost tribes of Israel can be found. In Daghestan, as in the neighbouring countries of Georgia, Chechnya, and Azerbaijan, these roots lie in shamanism. This book, one of only a handful available in English on the country, contains the texts of some of these stories as well as commentaries on them.




Dagestan - History, Culture, Identity


Book Description

Dagestan – History, Culture, Identity provides an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of Dagestan, a strategically important republic of the Russian Federation which borders Chechnya, Georgia and Azerbaijan, and its people. It outlines Dagestan’s rich and complicated history, from 5th c ACE to post USSR, as seen from the viewpoint of the Dagestani people. Chapters feature the new age of social media, urban weddings, modern and traditional medicine, innovative food cultivation, the little-known history of Mountain Jews during the Soviet period, flourishing heroes of sport and finance, emerging opportunities in ethno-tourism and a recent Dagestani music revival. In doing so, the authors examine the large number of different ethnic groups in Dagestan, their languages and traditions, and assess how the people of Dagestan are coping and thriving despite the changes brought about by globalisation, new technology and the modern world: through which swirls an increasing sense of identity in an indigenous multi-ethnic society.




The Tattooing Arts of Tribal Women


Book Description

This account of the vanishing art of wmen's tribal tattooing is the record of anthropologist Lars Krutak's ten year research with indigenous peoples around the globe.




Shamanic Journeys Through the Caucasus


Book Description

What were the religious beliefs and practices of the early inhabitants of the Caucasus? Some of the answers can be found by looking at the folktales from the region, which is what this book does.




Tattoo Traditions of Asia


Book Description

For millennia, tattoos have documented the history of humanity one painful mark at a time. They form a visual language on the skin, expressing an individual’s desires and fears as well as cultural values, family ties, and spiritual beliefs on the surfaces of the body. The Indigenous peoples of Asia have created some of the world’s oldest and most distinctive tattoos, but their many contributions to body art and practice have been largely overlooked. Tattoo Traditions of Asia is the first single volume dedicated to the anthropological study of an ancient cultural practice and artform that spans many countries and societies, ancestral lands, and contemporary communities across the continent and its islands. This richly illustrated survey combines the author's twenty years of fieldwork, interviewing hundreds of Indigenous tattoo bearers and contemporary tattoo practitioners, with painstaking research conducted in obscure archives throughout the region and elsewhere to break new ground on one of the least-understood mediums of Indigenous Asian expressive culture—a vital tradition to be celebrated, an inspirational story told in skin and ink.




The Gentleman's Bedside Companion


Book Description

Delightful Things to Read About Before the Snoring Starts Have you ever found that once you are between the sheets, Madame Bovary is too heavy, magazines are too slippery, and Crime and Punishment is too long? The Gentleman's Bedside Companion is the answer-a bracing collection of information, humor, and curiosities that will help every man make his mark on the world with panache. Spanning the arts, sciences, sports, and the opposite sex, topics include: Bananas as proof of God's existence Great bits from the Bible Famous painters and how they died The Monkees, a potted history All about submarines Useful foreign pickup lines An international swearing dictionary Let the horizontal reading begin. Watch a Video




Uncle John's Triumphant 20th Anniversary Bathroom Reader


Book Description

At a whopping 600 absorbing pages, Uncle John pulled out all the stops to make the behemoth Triumphant 20th Anniversary Bathroom Reader the epitome of Throne Room entertainment. Happy birthday, Uncle John! This 20th anniversary edition proves that some things do get better with age. Since 1987, the Bathroom Readers’ Institute has led the movement to stand up for those who sit down and read in the bathroom (and everywhere else for that matter). Uncle John’s Triumphant 20th Bathroom Reader is jam-packed with 600 pages of all-new articles (as usual, divided by length for your sitting convenience). In what other single book could you find such a lively mix of surprising trivia, strange lawsuits, dumb crooks, origins of everyday things, forgotten history, quirky quotations, and wacky wordplay? Uncle John rules the world of information and humor, so get ready to be thoroughly entertained as you read about: * The incredible (edible) history of bread * The secret congressional bomb shelter * Farts in the news * The history of the aloha shirt * The real Zorro * The worst city in America * How your taste buds work * It’s the Peanuts story, Charlie Brown And much, much more!




Getting Published


Book Description

"... Its key concern is to give its readers an understanding of the stages, processes and pitfalls involved in getting from an idea in one's head (or ... a PhD thesis on one's desk) to a published academic book in a colleague's hand."--BACK COVER.




Uncle John's New & Improved Funniest Ever


Book Description

The popular bathroom reader series is back with this collection that’s flush with laughs. It’s new, it’s improved, it’s the funniest ever! Back by popular demand, this newly revised edition includes plenty of all-time favorites, along with more than twenty-five pages of new content. That’s page after page after page of laugh-out-loud dumb jokes, dumb jocks, toasts, pranks, kings, kittens, caboodles, and, of course, poorly translated kung fu movie subtitles such as “It took my seven digestive pills to dissolve your hairy crab!” So, whether you like your humor witty or witless, light or dark, silly or sublime, you’ll laugh until your head explodes. Chortle at: ·Dumb crooks: The robber who ran face-first into a wall because he forgot to poke eye holes in his pillowcase. ·Witty wordplay: If Snoop Dogg were to marry Winnie-the-Pooh, his name would become Snoop Dogg Pooh. ·Flubbed headlines: “British Left Waffles On House Floor” ·Quirky stars: Billy Idol’s concert rider demands he have one large tub of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter in his dressing room. ·Job lingo: If you hear an ER doc mention a “VIP,” be on the lookout for a “very intoxicated patient.” ·Sputtering sportscasters: “If only faces could talk.” —Pat Summerall And much, much more




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