Fragments Of Bone

by Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick

• ISBN13: 9780252072055
• ISBN10: 0252072057
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-07-12
• Publisher: Univ of Illinois Pr

Summary

The bones of Pierre Toussaint, the first proposed African-American Catholic saint, were disinterred and spread around in the New World. In his introduction, Patrick Bellegarde-Smith suggests the same is true of the religious practices that peoples of African descent and victims of the Atlantic slave trade brought with them. Fragments of Bone examines the evolution of these religions as they have been adapted and re-contextualized in various New World environments. The essays in Fragments of Bone discuss African religions as forms of resistance and survival in the face of Western cultural hegemony and imperialism. The collection is unique in presenting the voices of scholars primarily outside of the Western tradition, speaking on the issues they, as practitioners, regard as important. Bellegarde-Smith, himself a priest in the Haitian Vodou religion, brings together thirteen contributors from different disciplines, genders, and nationalities. The authors address the creolized African religions beginning with their evolution from Nigeria and Benin to New Orleans, Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, Brazil, and Guyana. The more familiar neo-African religions of Vodou and Santeria are also discussed, as are the less well-known religious practices of Kongo-Angolan martial arts, Candomble, Lukumi, and Palomonte.Fragments of Bone draws on an impressive range of sources including research, fieldwork, personal interviews, and spiritual introspection. Examining the theology, cosmology, rituals and their sociopolitical contexts, the authors demonstrate that the African ethos behind these religions remains true to the original theological beliefs of the ancestral practices. Bellegarde-Smith's provocative thesis claims that fragments of the ancestral traditions are fluidly interwoven in the New World African religions as creolized rituals, symbolic systems, and cultural identities. Today, African diasporic religions have become embedded in key social and political institutions.Fragments of Bone is an indispensable resource for scholars of the African and Afro-Caribbean diaspora, or anyone interested in religion, anthropology or African-American studies.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(186)
PATRICK BELLEGARDE-SMITH
1. Magique Marasa: The Ritual Cosmos of the Twins and Other Sacred Children	13	(19)
MARILYN HOULBERG
2. Out of Africa? Umbanda and the "Ordering" of the Modern Brazilian Space	32	(20)
DENISE FERREIRA DA SILVA
3. The Spirit of the Thing: Religious Thought and Social/Historical Memory	52	(18)
PATRICK BELLEGARDE-SMITH
4. Deadly Dances: The Spiritual Dimensions of Kongo-Angolan Martial Art Traditions in the New World	70	(20)
T.J. DESCH-OBI
5. Dancing to the Beat of Babalu Aye: Santeria and Cuban Popular Culture	90	(18)
RAFAEL OCASIO
6. Axé: Invocation of Candomble and Afro-Brazilian Gods in Brazilian Cultural Production	108	(16)
NIYI AFOLABI
7. Out of the Same Bowl: Religious Beliefs and Practices in Akan Communities in Ghana and Jamaica	124	(19)
OSEI-MENSAH ABORAMPAH
8. Rainbow's Children: Diversity of Gender and Sexuality in African-Diasporic Spiritual Traditions	143	(24)
RANDY P. CONNER
9. Let the Power Flow: Ebó as a Healing Mechanism in Lukumi Orisha Worship	167	(20)
ROBERTO NODAL AND MIGUEL "WILLIE" RAMOS
10. Defiant African Sisterhoods: The Voodoo Arrests of the 1850's and 1860's in New Orleans	187	(21)
INA JOHANNA FANDRICH
11. Guyana Comfa and Cultural Identity	208	(16)
KEAN GIBSON
12. Homage to Eva Fernandez Bravo, Espiritista Cruzado	224	(19)
NANCY B. MIKELSONS
Appendix	243	(2)
Selected Bibliography	245	(6)
Contributors	251	(2)
Index	253