Òrìşà Devotion as World Religion

Òrìşà Devotion as World Religion PDF Author: Jacob Kẹhinde Olupona
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 9780299224646
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 628

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Book Description
As the twenty-first century begins, tens of millions of people participate in devotions to the spirits called Òrìsà. This book explores the emergence of Òrìsà devotion as a world religion, one of the most remarkable and compelling developments in the history of the human religious quest. Originating among the Yorùbá people of West Africa, the varied traditions that comprise Òrìsà devotion are today found in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Australia. The African spirit proved remarkably resilient in the face of the transatlantic slave trade, inspiring the perseverance of African religion wherever its adherents settled in the New World. Among the most significant manifestations of this spirit, Yorùbá religious culture persisted, adapted, and even flourished in the Americas, especially in Brazil and Cuba, where it thrives as Candomblé and Lukumi/Santería, respectively. After the end of slavery in the Americas, the free migrations of Latin American and African practitioners has further spread the religion to places like New York City and Miami. Thousands of African Americans have turned to the religion of their ancestors, as have many other spiritual seekers who are not themselves of African descent. Ifá divination in Nigeria, Candomblé funerary chants in Brazil, the role of music in Yorùbá revivalism in the United States, gender and representational authority in Yorùbá religious culture--these are among the many subjects discussed here by experts from around the world. Approaching Òrìsà devotion from diverse vantage points, their collective effort makes this one of the most authoritative texts on Yorùbá religion and a groundbreaking book that heralds this rich, complex, and variegated tradition as one of the world's great religions.

Òrìşà Devotion as World Religion

Òrìşà Devotion as World Religion PDF Author: Jacob Kẹhinde Olupona
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 9780299224646
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 628

Get Book

Book Description
As the twenty-first century begins, tens of millions of people participate in devotions to the spirits called Òrìsà. This book explores the emergence of Òrìsà devotion as a world religion, one of the most remarkable and compelling developments in the history of the human religious quest. Originating among the Yorùbá people of West Africa, the varied traditions that comprise Òrìsà devotion are today found in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Australia. The African spirit proved remarkably resilient in the face of the transatlantic slave trade, inspiring the perseverance of African religion wherever its adherents settled in the New World. Among the most significant manifestations of this spirit, Yorùbá religious culture persisted, adapted, and even flourished in the Americas, especially in Brazil and Cuba, where it thrives as Candomblé and Lukumi/Santería, respectively. After the end of slavery in the Americas, the free migrations of Latin American and African practitioners has further spread the religion to places like New York City and Miami. Thousands of African Americans have turned to the religion of their ancestors, as have many other spiritual seekers who are not themselves of African descent. Ifá divination in Nigeria, Candomblé funerary chants in Brazil, the role of music in Yorùbá revivalism in the United States, gender and representational authority in Yorùbá religious culture--these are among the many subjects discussed here by experts from around the world. Approaching Òrìsà devotion from diverse vantage points, their collective effort makes this one of the most authoritative texts on Yorùbá religion and a groundbreaking book that heralds this rich, complex, and variegated tradition as one of the world's great religions.

City of 201 Gods

City of 201 Gods PDF Author: Jacob Olupona
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520265564
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
The author focuses on one of the most important religious centers in Africa: the Yoruba city of Ile-Ife in southwest Nigeria. The spread of Yoruba traditions in the African diaspora has come to define the cultural identity of millions of black and white people in Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, and the United States. He describes how the city went from great prominence to near obliteration and then rose again as a contemporary city of gods. Throughout, he corroborates the indispensable linkages between religion, cosmology, migration, and kinship as espoused in the power of royal lineages, hegemonic state structure, gender, and the Yoruba sense of place.

Christianity, Islam, and Orisa-Religion

Christianity, Islam, and Orisa-Religion PDF Author: J.D.Y. Peel
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520285859
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s open access publishing program for monographs. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. The Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria are exceptional for the copresence among them of three religious traditions: Islam, Christianity, and the indigenous orisa religion. In this comparative study, at once historical and anthropological, Peel explores the intertwined character of the three religions and the dense imbrication of religion in all aspects of Yoruba history up to the present. For over 400 years, the Yoruba have straddled two geocultural spheres: one reaching north over the Sahara to the world of Islam, the other linking them to the Euro-American world via the Atlantic. These two external spheres were the source of contrasting cultural influences, notably those emanating from the world religions. However, the Yoruba not only imported Islam and Christianity but also exported their own orisa religion to the New World. Before the voluntary modern diaspora that has brought many Yoruba to Europe and the Americas, tens of thousands were sold as slaves in the New World, bringing with them the worship of the orisa. Peel offers deep insight into important contemporary themes such as religious conversion, new religious movements, relations between world religions, the conditions of religious violence, the transnational flows of contemporary religion, and the interplay between tradition and the demands of an ever-changing present. In the process, he makes a major theoretical contribution to the anthropology of world religions.

Encyclopedia of Women in World Religions [2 volumes]

Encyclopedia of Women in World Religions [2 volumes] PDF Author: Susan de-Gaia
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 902

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Book Description
This reference offers reliable knowledge about women's diverse faith practices throughout history and prehistory, and across cultures. Across the span of human history, women have participated in world-building and life-sustaining cultural creativity, making enormous contributions to religion and spirituality. In the contemporary period, women have achieved greater equality, with more educational opportunities, female role models in public life, and opportunities for religious expression than ever before. Contemporaneously with this increased visibility, women are actively and energetically engaging with religion for themselves and for their communities. Drawing on the expertise of a range of scholars, this reference chronicles the religious experiences of women across time and cultures. The book includes sections on major religions as well as on spirituality, African religions, prehistoric religions, and other broad topics. Each section begins with an introduction, followed by reference entries on specialized subjects along with excerpts from primary source documents. The entries provide numerous suggestions for further reading, and the book closes with a detailed bibliography.

Yoruba Traditions and African American Religious Nationalism

Yoruba Traditions and African American Religious Nationalism PDF Author: Tracey E. Hucks
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 0826350771
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
Exploring the Yoruba tradition in the United States, Hucks begins with the story of Nana Oseijeman Adefunmi’s personal search for identity and meaning as a young man in Detroit in the 1930s and 1940s. She traces his development as an artist, religious leader, and founder of several African-influenced religio-cultural projects in Harlem and later in the South. Adefunmi was part of a generation of young migrants attracted to the bohemian lifestyle of New York City and the black nationalist fervor of Harlem. Cofounding Shango Temple in 1959, Yoruba Temple in 1960, and Oyotunji African Village in 1970, Adefunmi and other African Americans in that period renamed themselves “Yorubas” and engaged in the task of transforming Cuban Santer'a into a new religious expression that satisfied their racial and nationalist leanings and eventually helped to place African Americans on a global religious schema alongside other Yoruba practitioners in Africa and the diaspora. Alongside the story of Adefunmi, Hucks weaves historical and sociological analyses of the relationship between black cultural nationalism and reinterpretations of the meaning of Africa from within the African American community.

The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Religions

The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Religions PDF Author: Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190916966
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 569

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Book Description
The Caribbean is a microcosm of the world. In this very small geographic space one encounters global religions as well as religious practices that are indigenous to the region. This volume provides an overview of Caribbean religions, one that respects the diversity of the religious traditions and the national particularity of the region. It addresses the prominent religious traditions in the Caribbean, with a focus on multiple geographic settings, and examines a cross-section of themes that impact the region broadly and the academic study of Caribbean religion.

Obeah, Orisa, and Religious Identity in Trinidad, Volume 2, Orisa

Obeah, Orisa, and Religious Identity in Trinidad, Volume 2, Orisa PDF Author: Dianne M. Stewart
Publisher: Religious Cultures of African
ISBN: 9781478013921
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Dianne M. Stewart analyzes the sacred poetics, religious imagination, and African heritage of Yoruba-Orisa devotees in Trinidad from the mid-nineteenth century to the present.

African Indigenous Religious Traditions in Local and Global Contexts

African Indigenous Religious Traditions in Local and Global Contexts PDF Author: Ogungbile, David O.
Publisher: Malthouse Press
ISBN: 9785325016
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 461

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Book Description
This volume honours one of the great scholars of our era, Professor Jacob Olupona. Although he has conducted significant portions of his career outside of Nigeria, he has not separated himself from his colleagues or from interests in religions in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. His publications and presentations offer the international scholarly community important critical insights into a range of religious activities, life ways and ideas originating in Africans and the African Diaspora. In spite of the diversity in the thoughts and opinions expressed, and equally of the range of disciplines and topics contained in the book, one can say that the contributors have developed a shared concern about the role of African Indigenous Religious Traditions in the processes of development and the context within which it (development) had or is taking place. The book guides us to a deep understanding and appreciation of how Africans in their varied situations grapple with existential problems through philosophical ruminations, complex ritual processes, cultivated memory and organized coping strategies.

Culture and Development in Africa and the Diaspora

Culture and Development in Africa and the Diaspora PDF Author: Ahmad Shehu Abdussalam
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000203204
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
This book examines the intersection between cultural identities and development in African and the Diaspora from multidisciplinary perspectives. Starting with the premise that culture is one of the most significant factors in development, the book examines diverse topics such as the migrations of musical forms, social media, bilingualism and religion. Foregrounding the work of Africa based scholars, the book presents strategies for identifying solutions to the challenges facing African culture and development. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of African Studies and African Culture and Society.

Politics of Religious Freedom

Politics of Religious Freedom PDF Author: Winnifred Fallers Sullivan
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022624864X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
In a remarkably short period of time, the realization of religious freedom has achieved broad consensus as an indispensable condition for peace. Faced with widespread reports of religious persecution, public and private actors around the world have responded with laws and policies designed to promote freedom of religion. But what precisely is being promoted? What are the cultural and epistemological assumptions underlying this response, and what forms of politics are enabled in the process? The fruits of the three-year Politics of Religious Freedom research project, the contributions to this volume unsettle the assumption—ubiquitous in policy circles—that religious freedom is a singular achievement, an easily understood state of affairs, and that the problem lies in its incomplete accomplishment. Taking a global perspective, the more than two dozen contributors delineate the different conceptions of religious freedom predominant in the world today, as well as their histories and social and political contexts. Together, the contributions make clear that the reasons for persecution are more varied and complex than is widely acknowledged, and that the indiscriminate promotion of a single legal and cultural tool meant to address conflict across a wide variety of cultures can have the perverse effect of exacerbating the problems that plague the communities cited as falling short.