247 p., Discusses the diasporic origins of Palo Mayombe, a Kongo-Cuban religious tradition, while seeking to analyze how it fulfills, in a new transplanted setting, the spiritual needs of a given segment of the Cuban immigrant population in the United States—designated here as the “strangers in a new land”—“serving not only as a healing mechanism but also a vehicle towards the preservation of ethnic and cultural identity.”
Review also covers Whither Thou Goest -- Creoles of Color in the Bayou Country by Carl A. Brasseaux and others; and 'Who Set You Flowin'?' by Farah Jasmine Griffin
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
310 p., "The idea baianidade is very much a model, a source of inspiration, the translation of concrete reality. All cultural identities are just that: ideas. ...They unite people, facilitate dialogue, summarize important, beautiful values. As can also serve to alienate us from other people, to justify to ourselves, our faults and mistakes." --The Author, "Agnes Mariano e a "Invenção da Baianidade" (www.passieweb.com).
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.
