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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.
Examining the vivid, often apocalyptic church murals of Peru from the early colonial period through the nineteenth century, Heaven, Hell, and Everything in Between explores the sociopolitical situation represented by the artists who generated these murals for rural parishes. Arguing that the murals were embedded in complex networks of trade, commerce, and the exchange of ideas between the Andes and Europe, Ananda Cohen Suarez also considers the ways in which artists and viewers worked through difficult questions of envisioning sacredness. This study brings to light the fact that, unlike the murals of New Spain, the murals of the Andes possess few direct visual connections to a pre-Columbian ...
Increasingly, Indigenous people are being drawn into global networks. In the long term, cultural isolation is unlikely to be a viable even if sometimes desired option, so how can Indigenous people protect and advance their cultural values in the face of pressures from an interconnected world? Indigenous Cultures in an Interconnected World is a comprehensive, thought provoking discussion of the challenges that globalisation brings to Indigenous peoples. It discusses successful strategies that have been used by Indigenous peoples to promote their identities and cultural values. It looks at their roles as equal and active participants and, indeed, as innovators and leaders in an interconnected world. The chapters in this book present a global perspective on Indigenous issues. They feature a cross-disciplinary integration that takes a holistic approach in-line with that of most Indigenous peoples and include vignettes of Indigenous cultural practices.
The landscape of the north-east of Scotland ranges from wild mountains to undulating farmlands; from cosy, quaint fishing coves to long, sandy bays. This landscape witnessed the death of MacBeth, the final stand of the Comyns earls of Buchan against Robert the Bruce and the last victory, in Britain, of a catholic army at Glenlivet. But behind these momentous battles lie the quieter histories of ordinary folk farming the land - and supping their local malts. Colin Shepherd paints a picture of rural life within the landscapes of the north-east between the 13th and 18th centuries by using documentary, cartographic and archaeological evidence. He shows how the landscape was ordered by topographi...
Scholars have long recognized the significant role that confraternities, or lay brotherhoods, played in the religious life of medieval and early modern Catholicism. Taking a broad chronological and geographical approach, this collection of essays addresses the varied and fluid nature of confraternities and their relationship to wider society.
A major concern in current anthropological thinking is that the method of recording or translating into writing a society's cultural expressions--dance, rituals, pottery, the social use of space, et al--cannot help but fundamentally alter the meaning of the living words and deeds of the culture in question. Consequently, recent researchers have developed more dialogic methods for collecting, interpreting, and presenting data. These new techniques have yielded much success for anthropologists working in Latin America, especially in their efforts to understand how economically, politically, and socially subordinated groups use culture and language to resist the dominant national culture and to assert a distinct historical identity. This collection addresses these issues of "texts" and textuality as it explores various Latin American languages and cultures.
Weaving the Past is the first comprehensive history of Latin America's indigenous women. While concentrating mainly on native women in Mesoamerica and the Andes, it also covers indigenous peoples in a variety of areas of South and Central America. Drawing on primary and secondary sources, it argues that change, not continuity, has been the norm for indigenous peoples whose resilience in the face of complex and long-term patterns of cultural change is due in no small part to the roles, actions, and agency of women.
Annotation In this book, militarization, nationalism, and globalization are scrutinized at sites of violent conflict from a range of feminist pespectives.
After the Spanish victories over the Inca claimed Tawantinsuyu for Charles V in the 1530s, native Andeans undertook a series of perilous trips from Peru to the royal court in Spain. Ranging from an indigenous commoner entrusted with delivering birds of prey for courtly entertainment to an Inca prince who spent his days amid titles, pensions, and other royal favors, these sojourners were both exceptional and paradigmatic. Together, they shared a conviction that the sovereign's absolute authority would guarantee that justice would be done and service would receive its due reward. As they negotiated their claims with imperial officials, Amerindian peoples helped forge the connections that susta...
The aim of this book is to explore the current research into the ways in which Andean peoples create, transmit, maintain and transform their knowledge in culturally significant ways, and how processes of teaching and learning relate to these. The contributions, from eminent researchers in anthropology, sociology, cultural studies and linguistics, include cross-disciplinary approaches, and cover a diverse geographic area from Ecuador to Peru, Bolivia and Northern Chile. The case studies reflect on the variously harmonious and conflictive relationships between knowledge, power, communicative media and cultural identities in Andean societies, from within local, national and global perspectives.