Afro Cuban Religions

Author : Stephan Palmié
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022601973X
Total Pages : 373 pages
Book Rating : 4.34/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Cooking of History written by Stephan Palmié and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-06-14 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over a lifetime of studying Cuban Santería and other religions related to Orisha worship—a practice also found among the Yoruba in West Africa—Stephan Palmié has grown progressively uneasy with the assumptions inherent in the very term Afro-Cuban religion. In The Cooking of History he provides a comprehensive analysis of these assumptions, in the process offering an incisive critique both of the anthropology of religion and of scholarship on the cultural history of the Afro-Atlantic World. Understood largely through its rituals and ceremonies, Santería and related religions have been a challenge for anthropologists to link to a hypothetical African past. But, Palmié argues, precisely by relying on the notion of an aboriginal African past, and by claiming to authenticate these religions via their findings, anthropologists—some of whom have converted to these religions—have exerted considerable influence upon contemporary practices. Critiquing widespread and damaging simplifications that posit religious practices as stable and self-contained, Palmié calls for a drastic new approach that properly situates cultural origins within the complex social environments and scholarly fields in which they are investigated.

Author : Miguel Barnet
Publisher : Ian Randle Publishers
ISBN 13 : 9789766370541
Total Pages : 174 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Afro-Cuban Religions written by Miguel Barnet and published by Ian Randle Publishers. This book was released on 2001 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Regla de Ocha promotes worship of the Orisha (gods), and uses traditional oracles that originated in the old Yoruba city of Ile-Ife. The Regla de Palo Monte came from the Congo area. The term palo refers to the ritual use of trees and plants, which are believed to have magical powers.".

Author : Kristine Juncker
Publisher : University Press of Florida
ISBN 13 : 0813055024
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4.22/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Afro-Cuban Religious Arts written by Kristine Juncker and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2014-07-15 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book profiles four generations of women from one Afro-Cuban religious family. From a plantation in Havana Province in the 1890s to a religious center in Spanish Harlem in the 1960s, these women were connected by their prominent roles as leaders in the religions they practiced and the dramatic ritual artwork they created. Each woman was a medium in Espiritismo—communicating with dead ancestors for guidance or insight—and also a santera, or priest of Santería, who could intervene with the oricha pantheon. Kristine Juncker argues that, by creating art for more than one religion, these women shatter the popular assumption that Afro-Caribbean religions are exclusive organizations. Most remarkably, the portraiture, sculptures, and photographs in Afro-Cuban Religious Arts offer rare glimpses into the rituals and iconography of these religions. Santería altars are closely guarded, limited to initiates, and typically destroyed upon the death of the santera, while Espiritismo artifacts are rarely considered valuable enough to pass on. The unique and protean cultural legacy detailed here reveals insights into how ritual art became popular imagery, sparked a wider dialogue about culture inheritance, attracted new practitioners, and enabled the movement to explode internationally.

Author : David H. Brown
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000124371
Total Pages : 870 pages
Book Rating : 4.78/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Santería Enthroned written by David H. Brown and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-10-24 with total page 870 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever since its emergence in colonial-era Cuba, Afro-Cuban Santería (or Lucumí) has displayed a complex dynamic of continuity and change in its institutions, rituals, and iconography. Originally published in 2003 Santería Enthroned combines art, history, cultural anthropology, and ethnohistory to show how Africans and their descendants have developed novel forms of religious practice in the face of relentless oppression. Focusing on the royal throne as a potent metaphor in Santería belief and practice it shows how negotiations among ideologically competing interests have shaped the religion’s symbols, rituals, and institutions from the nineteenth century to the present. Rich case studies of change in Cuba and the United States, including a New Jersey temple and South Carolina’s Oyotunji Village, reveal patterns of innovation similar to those found among rival Yoruba kingdoms in Nigeria. Throughout, the book argues for a theoretical perspective on culture as a field of potential strategies and "usuable pasts" that actors draw upon to craft new forms and identities – a perspective that will be invaluable to all students of the African Diaspora.

Author : Eugenio Matibag
Publisher : University Press of Florida
ISBN 13 : 1947372610
Total Pages : 429 pages
Book Rating : 4.10/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Afro-Cuban Religious Experience written by Eugenio Matibag and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2018-02-26 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The books in the Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series demonstrate the University Press of Florida’s long history of publishing Latin American and Caribbean studies titles that connect in and through Florida, highlighting the connections between the Sunshine State and its neighboring islands. Books in this series show how early explorers found and settled Florida and the Caribbean. They tell the tales of early pioneers, both foreign and domestic. They examine topics critical to the area such as travel, migration, economic opportunity, and tourism. They look at the growth of Florida and the Caribbean and the attendant pressures on the environment, culture, urban development, and the movement of peoples, both forced and voluntary. The Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series gathers the rich data available in these architectural, archaeological, cultural, and historical works, as well as the travelogues and naturalists’ sketches of the area in prior to the twentieth century, making it accessible for scholars and the general public alike. The Florida and the Caribbean Open Books Series is made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, under the Humanities Open Books program.

Author : Nathaniel Samuel Murrell
Publisher : Temple University Press
ISBN 13 : 1439901759
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.55/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Afro-Caribbean Religions written by Nathaniel Samuel Murrell and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 2010-01-25 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion is one of the most important elements of Afro-Caribbean culture linking its people to their African past, from Haitian Vodou and Cuban Santeria—popular religions that have often been demonized in popular culture—to Rastafari in Jamaica and Orisha-Shango of Trinidad and Tobago. In Afro-Caribbean Religions, Nathaniel Samuel Murrell provides a comprehensive study that respectfully traces the social, historical, and political contexts of these religions. And, because Brazil has the largest African population in the world outside of Africa, and has historic ties to the Caribbean, Murrell includes a section on Candomble, Umbanda, Xango, and Batique. This accessibly written introduction to Afro-Caribbean religions examines the cultural traditions and transformations of all of the African-derived religions of the Caribbean along with their cosmology, beliefs, cultic structures, and ritual practices. Ideal for classroom use, Afro-Caribbean Religions also includes a glossary defining unfamiliar terms and identifying key figures.

Author : Michelle A. Gonzalez
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780813037158
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Afro-Cuban Theology written by Michelle A. Gonzalez and published by . This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comparing Cuban American and African American religiosity, this book argues that Afro-Cuban religiosity and culture are central to understanding the Cuban and Cuban American condition. It interprets this saturation of the Afro-Cuban as transcending race and affecting Cubans and Cuban Americans in spite of their pigmentation or self-identification.

Author : Christine Ayorinde
Publisher : Gainesville : University Press of Florida
ISBN 13 : 9780813027555
Total Pages : 283 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Afro-Cuban Religiosity, Revolution, and National Identity written by Christine Ayorinde and published by Gainesville : University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2004 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Afro-Cuban religions--especially the practice of santería, based on West African traditions--are an essential aspect of contemporary Cuban identity, Christine Ayorinde argues, and their existence has forced the current revolutionary state into bizarre and contradictory positions. Ayorinde's bold assertion confounds official pronouncements about the irrelevance of religion in a modern socialist state. The revolutionary leadership has acknowledged the centrality of Cuba's African heritage, while upholding the idea of a nationhood that transcends racial difference. Ayorinde proposes that the conflict between the desire to recognize the country's African roots and the official commitment to a secular state has created a complex, often paradoxical situation. Despite an ideological campaign to create a new, rational society, African-derived religions are emerging today for the first time from a position of marginality. Cuba now is beset with a sense of disorientation as well as a return to old habits and patterns, including racial inequality. Based mostly inside Cuba, Ayorinde's research includes interviews and conversations with individual Cubans, including practitioners of Afro-Cuban religions from different ethnic backgrounds. Some are movers and shakers in the liberal debate about contemporary religion, some are new initiates, others have been practicing for 50 years or more. Some have been members of the Communist Party; others never have been, and make their living from the practice of their religion. Ayorinde also interviewed both religious and atheist commentators on Afro-Cuban religions and culture, including academics, journalists, party officials, and members of governmental and nongovernmental institutions, many at the forefront of efforts to give santería greater recognition as a central component of the national culture. In addition, the book offers a fresh historical overview of changing religious forms and attitudes in Cuba, examining the encounter with European culture and the Roman Catholic Church, religious practice among slaves in the 19th century, the concept of racial fraternity articulated by Cuban patriot José Martí, and the witchcraft scares of the early decades of the 20th century, when religious practices were associated with criminality. Its emphasis on the period since 1959 and on the current decade, in which the government has begun to rethink aspects of the revolution, places it on the cutting edge of studies that examine contemporary Cuban culture.

Author : Michael Atwood Mason
Publisher : Smithsonian Institution
ISBN 13 : 1588345483
Total Pages : 176 pages
Book Rating : 4.86/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Living Santería written by Michael Atwood Mason and published by Smithsonian Institution. This book was released on 2016-06-21 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1992 Smithsonian anthropologist Michael Atwood Mason traveled to Cuba for initiation as a priest into the Santería religion. Since then he has created an active oricha “house” and has initiated five others as priests. He is a rare combination: a scholar-practitioner who is equally fluent in his profession and his religion. Interweaving his roles as researcher and priest, Mason explores Santería as a contemporary phenomenon and offers an understanding of its complexity through his own experiences and those of its many practitioners. Balancing deftly between a devotee's account of participation and an anthropologist's theoretical analysis, Living Santería offers an original and insightful understanding of this growing religious tradition.

Author : Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231539916
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.13/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Electric Santería written by Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-08 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Santería is an African-inspired, Cuban diaspora religion long stigmatized as witchcraft and often dismissed as superstition, yet its spirit- and possession-based practices are rapidly winning adherents across the world. Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús introduces the term "copresence" to capture the current transnational experience of Santería, in which racialized and gendered spirits, deities, priests, and religious travelers remake local, national, and political boundaries and reconfigure notions of technology and transnationalism. Drawing on eight years of ethnographic research in Havana and Matanzas, Cuba, and in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay area, Beliso-De Jesús traces the phenomenon of copresence in the lives of Santería practitioners, mapping its emergence in transnational places and historical moments and its ritual negotiation of race, imperialism, gender, sexuality, and religious travel. Santería's spirits, deities, and practitioners allow digital technologies to be used in new ways, inciting unique encounters through video and other media. Doing away with traditional perceptions of Santería as a static, localized practice or as part of a mythologized "past," this book emphasizes the religion's dynamic circulations and calls for nontranscendental understandings of religious transnationalisms.