An Environmental History of Canada - UBC Press

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by LS MacDowell - ‎Cited by 57 - ‎Related articles

Canadian environmental history was perhaps sparked by Ramsay Cook's comment in 1990 that early Canadian historians such as W.L. Morton and Arthur Lower 

UBC PRESS SAMPLE WITH INTRODUCTION, CHAPTER I 

Five Things You Might Not Have Known About Canadian Environmental History

   January 22, 2015    on Five Things You Might Not Have Known About Canadian Environmental History

“Dynamic Serenity” by Andrew E. Larsen

By  Sean Kheraj

Canadian environmental history is a burgeoning sub-field of Canadian history, but it is not very well known outside of academia. This is my own research speciality. On many occasions, I have had to answer the question: what is environmental history? Periodically, this is a question that environmental historians ask themselves. There have been several reflective articles about Canadian environmental history, including a recently published forum in Canadian Historical Review, edited by Alan MacEachern. You can actually read MacEachern’s full introduction to that forum here.

In short, environmental history is the historical study of the changing relationships between people and the rest of nature. It is an alternative way of thinking about the past that can offer new insights into understanding Canadian history. To help illustrate this point, I thought I would share five open-access journal articles that reveal things about Canadian environmental history that you might not have known about.

1. In 1815, the Tambora volcano on the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia erupted and spewed a global “dust veil” into the atmosphere, causing a sudden cooling of the Earth’s climate. The following year, this resulted in what was known as the “year without a summer” in colonial New Brunswick. Both agriculture and forestry were affected as farmers in the British North American colony struggled with hunger and economic insecurity caused by the global cooling.

Source: Piper, Liza. “Backward Seasons and Remarkable Cold: the Weather over Long Reach,
New Brunswick, 1812-1821″ Acadiensis 34, no. 1 (Autumn 2004): 31-55.

2. Between 1890 and 1920, the development of Banff National Park in Alberta resulted in the exclusion of the Nakoda First Nation from its traditional hunting and resource-gathering territories. The federal government and the Parks Branch sought to exclude the Nakoda from the park in the interests of game conservation, tourism, sport hunting, and Aboriginal assimilation policies.

Source: Binnema, Ted and Melanie Niemi. “‘Let the line be drawn now’: Wilderness, Conservation, and the Exclusion of Aboriginal People from Banff National Park in Canada” Environmental History 11, no. 4 (October 2006): 724-750.

3. One of the biggest challenges for early twentieth-century prairie farmers in Manitoba was not a lack of water but an abundance. Drainage was central to the establishment of agriculture in southern Manitoba, an area best characterized as a “wet prairie.”

Source: Stunden Bower, Shannon. “Watersheds: Conceptualizing Manitoba’s Drained Landscape, 1895–1950” Environmental History 12, no. 4 (October 2007): 796-819.

4. Before the re-development of it sewage infrastructure, Vancouver’s English Bay was often closed to public swimming due to sewage contamination.

Source: Keeling, Arn. “Sink or Swim: Water Pollution and Environmental Politics in Vancouver, 1889-1975” BC Studies No. 142/143 (Summer/Autumn 2004): 69-104.

5. During the Second World War, the federal government implemented energy conservation programs targeted mainly at female consumers in an effort to control Canadian energy use. The purpose, however, was not to reduce the overall consumption of energy in the country but to divert energy resources away from ordinary consumers toward industrial manufacturing for wartime purposes.

Source: Evenden, Matthew. “Lights Out: Conserving Electricity for War in the Canadian City, 1939-1945” Urban History Review 34, no. 1 (Fall 2005): 88-99

Sean Kheraj is an assistant professor of Canadian and environmental History at York University. He is the co-editor of http://niche-canada.org and producer of Nature’s Past: Canadian Environmental History Podcast.

  Orisha Journeys: the Role of Travel in the Birth of Yorùbá-Atlantic Religions
Peter F. Cohen

Archives de sciences sociales des religions117 | janvier - mars 2002
Les religions afro-américaines : genèse etdéveloppement dans la modernité

Electronic versionURL: http://journals.openedition.org/assr/2474 

DOI: 10.4000/assr.2474ISSN: 1777-5825PublisherÉditions de l’EHESSPrin


EXCERPT 

1830 the «Yorùbá» did not exist. Or put less dramatically, the peoples no
known by that name considered themselves neither a political nor a cultural unity;
but identified with the city-states into which the region was organized. Yet by
1895, a British-educated Christian Yorùbá intellectual could confidently state: “It is
beyond doubt that the Egbas, Ketus, Oyos, with their subdivisions etc., are of one
stock; their manners and customs agree; what is held sacred in one town is held
sacred by all of them without exception” 4.

The concept of a single “Yorùbá” people and its baptism with the Hausa term
for the inhabitants of Òyó was largely the work of liberated captives and their 
children returning from Sierra Leone, particularly as Protestant missionaries. 

The terms by which the descendants of Yorùbá-speakers are known today in the New World –
“Nagô” in Brazil, “Nago” in Haiti and Jamaica, “Lucumí” in Cuba, “Akú” in Sierra
Leone, and “Yorùbá” in Trinidad – emerged as meaningful categories in the con-
text of enslavement and exile 5. The “Yorùbá” can in this sense be seen as a product
of displacement and dispersion. 6

The emergence of Orisha religious traditions in several distinct localities
around the Atlantic basin is correlated with similar and interrelated historical 
processes involving people from a particular region of Africa. Enough work has now
been done on the local level to justify an attempt at synthesizing of the various 
histories and an exploration of their similarities and differences, as well as of their
 historical interrelationships.

Such a synthetic approach has precedents. Verger’s (1968) monumental history
of the «flux and reflux» between Bahia and the Bight of Benin, presented under the
sponsorship of Braudel, was the first study to give a sense of the richness and
complexity of cultural interaction between the “Old” and “New” sides of what
Thompson (1968) would term the “Black Atlantic World”. Thornton’s (1992)
definition of an “Afro-Atlantic” region along Braudelian lines identifies an emergent
“Afro-Atlantic culture”. Matory’s more specific formulation of a «Yorùbá-Atlantic
complex» emphasizes the dialogue between the historically “coeval” Yoruba

 

 

Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation

Karl Jacoby
University of California Press, Feb. 23, 2001 - History - 324 pages
Crimes against Nature reveals the hidden history behind three of the nation's first parklands: the Adirondacks, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon. Focusing on conservation's impact on local inhabitants, Karl Jacoby traces the effect of criminalizing such traditional practices as hunting, fishing, foraging, and timber cutting in the newly created parks. Jacoby reassesses the nature of these "crimes" and provides a rich portrait of rural people and their relationship with the natural world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

https://books.google.ca/books?id=1EWkFMBuMiwC&dq=Karl+Jacoby%E2%80%99s+seminal+Crimes+against+Nature

Moral Ecologies

Histories of Conservation, Dispossession and Resistance

Editors: Griffin, Carl, Jones, Roy, Robertson, Iain (Eds.)

https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030061111

Extends the concept of “moral ecology” developed by Karl Jacoby to case studies across Europe, Africa, Australia, Asia and the Americas

Examines how conservation efforts dispossess local populations, particularly poor Indigenous peoples and settlers

Features an afterword by Karl Jacoby

This book offers the first systematic study of how elite conservation schemes and policies define once customary and vernacular forms of managing common resources as banditry—and how the ‘bandits’ fight back. Drawing inspiration from Karl Jacoby’s seminal Crimes against Nature, this book takes Jacoby’s moral ecology and extends the concept beyond the founding of American national parks. From eighteenth-century Europe, through settler colonialism in Africa, Australia and the Americas, to postcolonial Asia and Australia, Moral Ecologies takes a global stance and a deep temporal perspective, examining how the language and practices of conservation often dispossess Indigenous peoples and settlers, and how those groups resist in everyday ways. Drawing together archaeologists, anthropologists, geographers and historians, this is a methodologically diverse and conceptually innovative study that will appeal to anyone interested in the politics of conservation, protest and environmental history.

WORLD ASH WONDER TREE
Life Cycle, Tu Bishvat, the environment …and the contested phosphate quarry near Arad


Rabbi Prof. David Golinkin
January, 2019

The below article was first published in Jpost Magazine

Tu Bishvat is mentioned in the Mishna as Rosh Hashanah L’Ilan, the New Year of the Tree. It gained in popularity when the 16th-century Kabbalists in Safed began to hold a Seder Tu Bishvat and eat up to 30 types of fruits, while the Zionists in the 20th century began to plant trees on Tu Bishvat.

In more recent years, it has become a day when Jews throughout the world learn about the environment and sustainability.

Therefore, as we approach Tu Bishvat, it is worth informing the Israeli public about a major ongoing environmental issue that has slipped under the radar, and what Jewish law has to say on the subject.

What are the facts?

Since 2004, the Rotem Amfert Negev company has wanted to open a phosphate quarry at Sde Brir near Arad. It is 3.5 km. Southwest of Arad (population 27,000), right next to the 2,500 Bedouin of Al-Fura’a, and 3 km. From the Bedouin town of Kuseifa (population 10,000). Sde Brir contains 65 million tons of phosphate, which is enough to be mined for 35 years.

In that same year, 5,800 residents of Arad signed a petition against this quarry. The mayor of Arad then commissioned a telephone poll of Arad, which determined that 88% of the residents opposed the quarry. In May 2005, the Arad City Council decided unanimously to oppose the quarry. Even so, in 2007 Rotem Amfert Negev renewed its request to open the quarry. Despite all of the opposition to the plan, it was approved by the housing cabinet in January 2018.

Most of the residents of Arad object to this quarry for the following reasons:
According to an official letter of the district engineer from February 2008, quoting a health impact study of two public health experts, exposure to dust and radon will lead to an increase of 4.25% in the general mortality rate in Arad, which means seven more people will die every year. An unknown number of people will also contract lung cancer as a result of exposure to radon gas. It is clear that the effect will be even greater on the Bedouin who live in Al-Fura’a and Kuseifa.
The residents do not trust the Environmental Protection Ministry to have the power to stop Rotem Amfert Negev, if need be, in light of failure to do so in similar cases around the country.
Arad has a reputation for clean air. This open quarry will ruin the air and destroy Arad’s tourism industry for generations.
If this quarry is opened, 2,500 Bedouin will need to be expelled from Al-Fura’a.
This quarry is unnecessary. The area of Mount Nishpe in the Arava, which is far from any city, has 320 million tons of phosphates, according to a report of the Geological Institute. It might cost more to mine, but that pales in comparison to opening a quarry near Arad, which would kill people, cause cancer, destroy Arad as a center of tourism and expel 2,500 people from their homes. In any case, Rotem Amfert Negev would not lose money, since the break-even price for phosphates is $40 per ton, while the current price is $92 per ton.

Finally, on February 8, 2018, an unusual demonstration took place at the entrance to Arad – 3,000 haredim, secular Jews and Bedouin demonstrated together with Deputy Health Minister Litzman against the plan to dig the mine. Indeed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his capacity as health minister, has submitted an appeal against the decision.

What does the Jewish law have to say about this issue?

The Tosefta, edited in Israel 1,800 years ago, ruled (Bava Batra 1:10) that “large furnaces must be built at least 50 amot [25 meters] from the city.” This law was codified by Rabbeinu Asher in 14th-century Spain (Bava Batra, chap. 2, parag. 25); by his son Rabbeinu Ya’acov ben Asher in the Tur (Hoshen Mishpat 155) and by the Shulhan Aruch in the 16th century (Hoshen Mishpat 155:23). Indeed, there was an ancient rabbinic enactment not to build furnaces in Jerusalem in the Second Temple period (Bava Kamma 82b). The Talmud explained (ibid.), “because of kutra (smoke).” Rabbi Reuven Bulka interpreted this passage in modern terms: “This is because the pollutants which are emitted by furnaces harm the inhabitants of the city, who need to breathe fresh air.” Therefore, digging an open-air quarry in close proximity to 40,000 people is forbidden because it pollutes the air.

Such a quarry is also forbidden according to the halachic principle of “geirei dilei (his arrows).” In other words, it is forbidden for a person to stand in his domain and to shoot arrows elsewhere claiming that he did not intend to cause damage (Bava Batra 22b; Maimonides, Laws of Neighbors 10:5-6).

Maimonides ruled (ibid. 11:1, cf. Hoshen Mishpat 155:34): “A person who made a threshing floor on his own property or established a latrine or a type of labor that makes dust and dirt and the like, must distance the [source of pollution] so that the dirt or smell of the latrine or the dust should not reach another person, so that it should not harm him. Even if the wind [was responsible for bringing the dust or the smell in the direction of another person, the polluter] is required to distance [the source of pollution] so that they should not reach [other people] and cause damage…. For all these are like a person who damages by shooting his arrows.” If this was true for a private laborer in Talmudic times, how much the more so is it true for a phosphate quarry, which would pollute three towns with dangerous, life-threatening air pollution. As the Tosafists said (Bava Kamma 23a): “From this we can derive that a person should be more careful not to harm others than not to be harmed by others.”

Finally, what happens if Reuven built a furnace or other source of pollution near Shimon and Shimon did not protest – can Shimon protest a few years after the pollution began?

The classic reply is found in Bava Batra (23a): “Rav Nahman said in the name of Rabba bar Abuha: There is no ḥazaka for damages. Rav Mari said: The reference is to smoke. Rav Zvid said: The reference is to the bad smell from latrines.” “Ḥazaka” means the acquisition of a right by a person causing damage to continue causing that damage in the future, because no one has protested. This Talmudic passage said that if Reuven produced smoke pollution or a bad smell for three years and Shimon did not protest, there is still no ḥazaka, and Shimon can protest at any time.

A good example of the application of this law is found in the Responsa of Rabbi Abraham son of Maimonides (No 101). Reuven complained that Shimon was ruining his life because he had built a cloth-dyeing pit and built a fire and caused smoke in Reuven’s direction. Shimon replied: I bought the house and turned it into a dye shop 15 years before you bought your house, so I have a ḥazaka to run my dye shop. Rabbi Abraham ruled: “About smoke and the like, the rabbis said that there is no hazaka for these damages…. Reuven’s argument is therefore upheld and Shimon must do away with this damage.”

In conclusion, digging a huge phosphate quarry near three towns inhabited by 40,000 people is absolutely forbidden by Jewish law before the fact and can also be stopped after the fact. I hope and pray that Netanyahu, Litzman and other Israeli leaders will succeed in stopping this dangerous and unnecessary project.

The  Orisha   Changó   and   Other  African   Deities   In  Cuban  Drama 
Robert  Lima 
LATIN AMERICAN THEATRE REVIEW 1990
https://core.ac.uk/reader/235876410

 The   body   of   Cuban   drama   contains   many   accretions   from   African   sources.  Among the most  important  of these is the presence  of ancient  deities  from the Yoruba pantheon, a vast hierarchy of spiritual entities termed  Orishas  who  range   from   the  aloof  Maker   (variously  Olofi,  Olorum,  Olodumare),  through  the  hermaphroditic  creative  force  (Obatalá)  and  the  Mother  of  the  gods  (Yemayá),  to  those  associated  with  specific  aspects  of  Nature  (Changó,  for  one).1  These are the traditional  deities still worshipped  in what  is present-day  Nigeria  and  its  environs.    Many  of  the  Orishas  figure  prominently  in  modern  Cuban  life  and  are  manifest  in  the  drama  of  the  Caribbean  island  because  they  have  had  a  long  history  there.  Religio-mythological  beliefs  from  many  sectors  of  Africa  came  to  the  "New  World"  between   1517  and   1873  with  the   enslaved   peoples   of   the   continent.   These  cultural  elements  survived  the  shock  of  transplantation  and  the subsequent break  in continuity, first through the preservation  of the deeply-rooted  indigenous  oral  tradition  by the  slaves themselves,  and,  in  due  course,  through the  adoption  of written  expression  for  lyrical and narrative  literature,  old  and  new,  both  by  educated  slaves  or  freemen  and  white  folklorists.   All   kinds  of African  and Afro-Cuban  folklore  came to the fore  in the process  and,  having been  collected  in written  form,  survived  alongside  Hispanic  traditions.  Despite  the  adversities  suffered  by  the  Africans  through  their  diaspora  and  the  oppressiveness  of  those  who  enslaved  them,  particularly  in  regard  to  their  religious practices, their  culture persevered.  Today, many  of the  creative  works  of  the  Caribbean  basin  and  Brazil  are  founded  on  African  traditions  extant  in  the  Americas,  if  often  in  syncretic  form.2  Nowhere is this more  evident than in Cuba.  The  island nation's  literature  is  replete  with  plays,  poems,  stories,  and  novels  whose  focus  is  Afro-Cuban,  that  is, whose  themes  and  motifs  manifest  how  integral  to  Cuban  life  is  the  religio-mythological  system  of  belief  brought  to  the  island  by  the  Yoruba-Lucumi peoples  of western Africa,  as well as by those from  the Gulf  of Guinea 

A visual history of pandemics 

• Even in the modern era, outbreaks are nearly constant, though not every outbreak reaches pandemic level as the coronavirus has.
• This visualization outlines some of history’s most deadly pandemics, from the Antonine Plague to COVID-19.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/a-visual-history-of-pandemics

Image: Visual Capitalist

The History of Pandemics

Pan·dem·ic /panˈdemik/ (of a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world.

As humans have spread across the world, so have infectious diseases. Even in this modern era, outbreaks are nearly constant, though not every outbreak reaches pandemic level as the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) has.

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Today’s visualization outlines some of history’s most deadly pandemics, from the Antonine Plague to the current COVID-19 event.

A Timeline of Historical Pandemics

Disease and illnesses have plagued humanity since the earliest days, our mortal flaw. However, it was not until the marked shift to agrarian communities that the scale and spread of these diseases increased dramatically.

Widespread trade created new opportunities for human and animal interactions that sped up such epidemics. Malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy, influenza, smallpox, and others first appeared during these early years.

The more civilized humans became – with larger cities, more exotic trade routes, and increased contact with different populations of people, animals, and ecosystems – the more likely pandemics would occur.

Here are some of the major pandemics that have occurred over time:

Note: Many of the death toll numbers listed above are best estimates based on available research. Some, such as the Plague of Justinian, are subject to debate based on new evidence.

Despite the persistence of disease and pandemics throughout history, there’s one consistent trend over time – a gradual reduction in the death rate. Healthcare improvements and understanding the factors that incubate pandemics have been powerful tools in mitigating their impact.

Wrath of the Gods

In many ancient societies, people believed that spirits and gods inflicted disease and destruction upon those that deserved their wrath. This unscientific perception often led to disastrous responses that resulted in the deaths of thousands, if not millions.

In the case of Justinian’s plague, the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea traced the origins of the plague (the Yersinia pestis bacteria) to China and northeast India, via land and sea trade routes to Egypt where it entered the Byzantine Empire through Mediterranean ports.

Despite his apparent knowledge of the role geography and trade played in this spread, Procopius laid blame for the outbreak on the Emperor Justinian, declaring him to be either a devil, or invoking God’s punishment for his evil ways. Some historians found that this event could have dashed Emperor Justinian’s efforts to reunite the Western and Eastern remnants of the Roman Empire, and marked the beginning of the Dark Ages.

Luckily, humanity’s understanding of the causes of disease has improved, and this is resulting in a drastic improvement in the response to modern pandemics, albeit slow and incomplete.

Importing Disease

The practice of quarantine began during the 14th century, in an effort to protect coastal cities from plague epidemics. Cautious port authorities required ships arriving in Venice from infected ports to sit at anchor for 40 days before landing — the origin of the word quarantine from the Italian “quaranta giorni”, or 40 days.

One of the first instances of relying on geography and statistical analysis was in mid-19th century London, during a cholera outbreak. In 1854, Dr. John Snow came to the conclusion that cholera was spreading via tainted water and decided to display neighborhood mortality data directly on a map. This method revealed a cluster of cases around a specific pump from which people were drawing their water from.

While the interactions created through trade and urban life play a pivotal role, it is also the virulent nature of particular diseases that indicate the trajectory of a pandemic.

Tracking Infectiousness

Scientists use a basic measure to track the infectiousness of a disease called the reproduction number — also known as R0 or “R naught.” This number tells us how many susceptible people, on average, each sick person will in turn infect.

Measles tops the list, being the most contagious with a R0 range of 12-18. This means a single person can infect, on average, 12 to 18 people in an unvaccinated population.

While measles may be the most virulent, vaccination efforts and herd immunity can curb its spread. The more people are immune to a disease, the less likely it is to proliferate, making vaccinations critical to prevent the resurgence of known and treatable diseases.

It’s hard to calculate and forecast the true impact of COVID-19, as the outbreak is still ongoing and researchers are still learning about this new form of coronavirus.

Urbanization and the Spread of Disease

We arrive at where we began, with rising global connections and interactions as a driving force behind pandemics. From small hunting and gathering tribes to the metropolis, humanity’s reliance on one another has also sparked opportunities for disease to spread.

Urbanization in the developing world is bringing more and more rural residents into denser neighborhoods, while population increases are putting greater pressure on the environment. At the same time, passenger air traffic nearly doubled in the past decade. These macro trends are having a profound impact on the spread of infectious disease.

As organizations and governments around the world ask for citizens to practice social distancing to help reduce the rate of infection, the digital world is allowing people to maintain connections and commerce like never before.

Editor’s Note: The COVID-19 pandemic is in its early stages and it is obviously impossible to predict its future impact. This post and infographic are meant to provide historical context, and we will continue to update it as time goes on to maintain its accuracy.

“Alternative Medicine, Santería and the Biomedical System in Cuba”
Marina Gold
https://www.academia.edu/20909711/_Alternative_Medicine_Santer%C3%ADa_and_the_Biomedical_System_in_Cuba_

Healing Practices and Revolution in Socialist Cuba
Marina Gold
2014, Social Analysis
18 Pages
ABSTRACT 

More than a state ideology, the concept of 'Revolution' holds multiple meanings for Cubans. A historic moment, the government, the country, the people—Revolution is any one of these and all of them at once. How, then, do people experience a permanent Revolution in their daily lives? The interactions between biomedicine, alternative health practices, and the syncretic system of beliefs known as Santería have important implications for the socialist project of the Revolution. As a central concern of Revolution, health provides a particularly clear example of the interaction between revolutionary ideology and practice. This distinction elucidates the epistemological and experiential complexity of Revolution, providing the Cuban state with a powerful signifier that allows it to adapt to situations of crisis, continuously reinvent itself, and be in a permanent state of Revolution.

THE CLASSIC
Powers of the Orishas: Santeria and the Worship of Saints PDF
by Migene Gonzalez-Wippler :
Powers of the Orishas: Santeriaand the Worship of Saints
ISBN : #0942272250 | Date : 1992-06-01

Description :PDF
https://www.academia.edu/39014866/Powers_of_the_Orishas_Santeria_and_the_Worship_of_Saints_PDF

 During the slave trade, the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria who were brought to Cuba were forbidden the practice of their religion by their Spanish masters. In order to continue their magical and religious observances safely the slaves opted for the identification and disguise of the Orishas with some of the Catholic Saints worshipped by the Spainiards. In this manner they were able to worship their gods.

“I Worship Black Gods”:
Formation of an African American Lucumi Religious Subjectivity

A dissertation presented
by
Lisanne C. Norman
to
The Department of African and African American Studies
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in the subject of African American Studies
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
April 2015
https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/17467218/NORMAN-DISSERTATION-2015.pdf?sequence=6&isAllowed=y

Abstract

In 1959, Christopher Oliana and Walter “Serge” King took a historic journey to
pre-revolutionary Cuba that would change the religious trajectory of numerous African
Americans, particularly in New York City. They became the first African American
initiates into the Afro-Cuban Lucumi orisha tradition opening the way for generations of
African Americans who would comprehensively transform their way of life. This
dissertation examines the inter-diasporic exchanges between African Americans and their
Cuban teachers to highlight issues of African diasporic dissonance and differing notions
of “blackness” and “African.” I argue that these African Americans create a particular
African American Lucumi religious subjectivity within the geographical space of an
urban cosmopolitan city as they carve out space and place in the midst of religious
intolerance and hostility. The intimate study of these devotees’ lives contributes new
understandings about the challenges of religious diversity within contemporary urban
settings. These African Americans cultivated a new religious subjectivity formed through
dialogical mediation with spiritual entities made present through material religious
technologies, such as divination, spiritual masses, and possession. Through the lens of
lived religion, I examine the experiences of African American Lucumi devotees to better
understand how their everyday lives reflect the mediation between a private religious life,
defined and structured by spiritual entities, and their public lives in the contemporary
sociocultural, economic and political context of urban American society. Based on more
than 8 years of intense participant observation and semi-structured interviews and
discussions, I analyze how religious subjectivities and religious bodies are cultivated as
these African Americans leave their mark on this religious tradition, their geographical
surroundings, and African American religious history

SPEAKING WITH THE ORISHAS: DIVINATION AND PROPITIATION IN THE LUCUMI RELIGION
by
KRISTI MARRERO
B.A. University of Central Florida, 2008
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Master of Arts
in the Department of Anthropology
in the College of Sciences
at the University of Central Florida
Orlando, Florida
 Fall Term
 2014 
https://sciences.ucf.edu/anthropology/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2014/07/Marrero_K.pdf

ABSTRACT

 The Lucumí religion was born in Cuba from African and European religious systems.
The enslaved Yoruba were brought to the New World through the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

They were taken from their homes, family, language, and religion and brought to countries like Cuba to provide free labor to growing agricultural markets that benefited European colonizers of the Americas. The Yoruba would hold on to their religion, but in order to keep it alive, they would have to make it into a new religion. This new religion would become the religion known as Lucumí.

In Cuba, Lucumí practitioners would hide their religion beneath the façade of Catholicism. The orishas were associated with Catholic saints with similar attributes. The orisha
Changó, who governs war and presides over lightning, became associated with Saint Barbara who is the patron saint of artillerymen and is linked to lightning. The Yoruba could be seen praying to a saint but were actually praying to an orisha. This practice became ingrained as a part of Lucumí tradition.

Divination and propitiation are at the center of the Lucumí religion. Divination
determines the course of a practitioner’s life and can reveal whether practitioners are in a good or bad position in their lives. Propitiation will ensure that good fortune will remain or that bad omens will disappear.

Citizenship Construction and the Afterlife: Funeral rituals among Orisha devotees in
Trinidad
…
Mortuary Rituals, Mourning, and the Concept of Afterlife: Differences and cohesion
among sub-groups of Orisha devotees in Trinidad

htts://www.mecon.nomadit.co.uk/pub/conference_epaper_download.php5?PaperID=14933&MIMEType=application/pdfp

Josiah O. Olubowale
(Cultural Studies Unit)
Dept. of Literary, Cultural & Communication Studies, Faculty of Humanities &
Education,
University of the West Indies,
St. Augustine.

dada_jo@yahoo.com

5th European Conference on African Studies
African Dynamics in a Multipolar World
June 26 – 29, Lisbon, Portugal

Panel P171: Multipolar Religious Production: Old and new trends

Introduction

This paper discusses the interplay between three concepts: religion, citizenship and afterlife.
This research utilizes rich ethnographic data of funeral rituals as conceived and practiced by
different groups of Orisha practitioners in Trinidad. Although the ethnography that this paper
relies on was conducted among Orisha devotees in Trinidad between 2009-2012. The
analysis, however, serves as a template on which the understanding of the interplay between race, perception and interpretation of history by different groups on the one hand, and on the other hand, the use of religion in individual and group agency in Trinidad and Tobago. The paper also discusses the context of agency that religion serves within a diverse society, in a post-colonial state. While Orisha as a religious entity can be broadly grouped together as one within a national space, I argue that such a general description needs to be peeled off in order to reveal the individualistic and sub-group specifics that agency is constructed to address through religion.

The substance of the discourse on identity formation is often constructed to pointedly
address the condition of individuals while alive. In this paper, I suggest that death, which
might seem to signify the end of the whole identity argument for the deceased, extends the
discussion through funerals. Funeral rites and rituals have thus become instrumental in
performing or asserting group preferences of identity definition and in fact, rejection of
practices that might be preferred by other group or groups.

Two pitfalls that beset description and analysis of Orisha practices as a minority
group culture, and thus need to be avoided are at the two ends of the same plane: the first is the assumption of unity in form and structure of religion as well as coherence necessary to assert group identity. This unravels with inherent contradictions that are usually left
unmentioned. The single unifying designation, Orisha, that is broadly applied in referring to
the practices and ways of lives of devotees, is challenged by the fractured, contradictory but
permissible practices. One unifying factor that joins all these practices is the life conditions
and realities that these practices jointly address. The expected implication of unified doctrine, dogma and beliefs in defining the religion is thus disappointed. On the other side of the plane is the attempt to explain away the complexities inherent in the practices, as well as the absence of a coherent simple narrative by grouping the whole set of practices under the same designation as syncretic form. I point to the insufficiency of syncretism both as a theoretical instrument in describing practices such as Orisha in the New World or as an excuse for the advent of the structure of these practices.