85 p., This thesis examines the practice of Obeah--an Afro-Caribbean system of healing, harming, and divination through the use of spiritual powers--within two slave communities in Berbice and Demerara (British Guiana). This study is based primarily on legal documents--including testimony from more than a dozen slaves--generated during the criminal trials of two men accused of practicing Obeah in 1819 and 1821-22. In contrast to most previous studies of Obeah, which have been based largely on descriptions provided by British observers, this project takes advantage of this complex, overlapping body of evidence to explore the social dynamics of Obeah as experienced by enslaved men and women themselves, including Obeah practitioners, their clients, and other witnesses. This study reveals that Obeah rituals could be extremely violent, that Obeah practitioners were feared as well as respected among their contemporaries, that the authority of Obeah practitioners was based on demonstrable success, and that slave communities in general were complex social worlds characterized by conflict and division as well as by support and unity--conclusions that combine to produce a fresh, humane vision of Afro-diasporan culture and community under slavery.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
385 p., The study is not a work about religion but rather of black African identity. Leaning on three black African societies (Yoruba of Benin and Nigeria, Agni-Akan and Senufo Ivory Coast), the author investigates the notion of person. Faced with the question of death, passing moment of earthly existence of man to his condition.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
270 p., Contents: 1. El arribo -- 2. De oficios, ocupaciones y formas de subsistencia -- 3. Los afroporteños propietarios -- 4. El proceso abolicionista -- 5. Las manifestaciones religiosas -- 6. Las cofradías religiosas -- Conclusiones.
251 p., Analysis of characteristic traits of Afrodescendants in the Atabaque and the Conférence Haïtienne des Religieux et Religieuses research work. These publications are used to bring to light the Afro-Brazilian and Haitian theological reflection as an expression of their commitment to multicultural and mestizo Brazil as well as black Haiti. Based on the comparative study of the content of these theologies developed in Brazil and in Haiti, highlights two separate currents from 1986 to 2004 in theological databases. This delimitation corresponds to the phase of publication of results of three consultations about black theologies in Brazil in 1986, in 1995 and 2004. The CHR's works date from 1991 to 1999. This study aims to trace their practice of the Christian faith, as well as their development and their evolution.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
383 p, Black Atlantic Religion illuminates the mutual transformation of African and African-American cultures, highlighting the example of the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé religion. This book contests both the recent conviction that transnationalism is new and the long-held supposition that African culture endures in the Americas only among the poorest and most isolated of black populations. In fact, African culture in the Americas has most flourished among the urban and the prosperous, who, through travel, commerce, and literacy, were well exposed to other cultures.
Not rooted or identified as a Brazilian martial art, Capoiera Angola is the foundation of which African-Brazilians adapted the rhythmic form of self-defense and offense called Capoiera. The indigineous Capoiera Angola is the mother/father of Brazil's Capoeira, which was formed when Africans from Central Africa were brought to South America in bondage. Capoeira Angola goes further.
