The Serpent and the Rainbow
The Serpent and the Rainbow

Author: Wade Davis

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2010-10-05

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 1451628366

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A scientific investigation and personal adventure story about zombis and the voudoun culture of Haiti by a Harvard scientist. In April 1982, ethnobotanist Wade Davis arrived in Haiti to investigate two documented cases of zombis—people who had reappeared in Haitian society years after they had been officially declared dead and had been buried. Drawn into a netherworld of rituals and celebrations, Davis penetrated the vodoun mystique deeply enough to place zombification in its proper context within vodoun culture. In the course of his investigation, Davis came to realize that the story of vodoun is the history of Haiti—from the African origins of its people to the successful Haitian independence movement, down to the present day, where vodoun culture is, in effect, the government of Haiti’s countryside. The Serpent and the Rainbow combines anthropological investigation with a remarkable personal adventure to illuminate and finally explain a phenomenon that has long fascinated Americans.

Voodoo Rainbow
Voodoo Rainbow

Author: Henning Christoph

Publisher: Koenemann

Published: 2020-03

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 9783741924781

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In this volume, the well-known ethnologist and photographer Henning Christoph presents spectacular photographs of a culture that has been unjustly discredited for centuries - Voodoo. Its West African homeland Benin is the scene of beliefs that revolve around the protection, healing and defence of man, who sees himself as part of a universe defined by countless gods, the Vodun.

Passage of Darkness
Passage of Darkness

Author: Wade Davis

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2000-11-09

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 0807887587

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In 1982, Harvard-trained ethnobotanist Wade Davis traveled into the Haitian countryside to research reports of zombies--the infamous living dead of Haitian folklore. A report by a team of physicians of a verifiable case of zombification led him to try to obtain the poison associated with the process and examine it for potential medical use. Interdisciplinary in nature, this study reveals a network of power relations reaching all levels of Haitian political life. It sheds light on recent Haitian political history, including the meteoric rise under Duvalier of the Tonton Macoute. By explaining zombification as a rational process within the context of traditional Vodoun society, Davis demystifies one of the most exploited of folk beliefs, one that has been used to denigrate an entire people and their religion.

Voodoo
Voodoo

Author: Henning Christoph

Publisher: Taschen America Llc

Published: 1996-01

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 9783822886496

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Black Metal Rainbows
Black Metal Rainbows

Author: Daniel Lukes

Publisher: PM Press

Published: 2022-10-25

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 1629639230

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Black metal is a paradox. A noisy underground metal genre brimming with violence and virulence, it has captured the world’s imagination for its harsh yet flamboyant style and infamous history involving arson, blasphemy, and murder. Today black metal is nothing less than a cultural battleground between those who claim it for nationalist and racist ends, and those who say: Nazi black metal fvck off! Black Metal Rainbows is a radical collection of writers, artists, activists, and visionaries, including Drew Daniel, Kim Kelly, Laina Dawes, Espi Kvlt, Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, Svein Egil Hatlevik, Eugene S. Robinson, Margaret Killjoy, and many more. Across essays and theory-fictions, artworks and comics, we say out loud: Long live black metal’s trve rainbow! This unique volume envisions black metal as always already open, inclusive, and unlimited: a musical genre whose vital spirit of total antagonism rebels against the forces of political conservatism. Beyond its clichés of grimness, nihilism, reaction, and signature black/white corpse-paint sneer, black metal today is a vibrant and revolutionary paradigm. This book reveals its ludic, carnival worlds animated by spirits of joy and celebration, community and care, queerness and camp, LGBTQI+ identities and antifascist, antiracist, and left-wing politics, not to mention endless aesthetic experimentation and fabulousness. From the crypt to the cloud, Black Metal Rainbows unearths black metal’s sparkling core and illuminates its prismatic spectrum: deep within the black, far beyond grimness, and over a darkly glittering rainbow!

Voodoo and Afro-Caribbean Paganism
Voodoo and Afro-Caribbean Paganism

Author: Lilith Dorsey

Publisher: Citadel Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9780806527147

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Few religions are as misunderstood as Afro-Caribbean traditions like Voodoo, Yoruba, Candomble, Shango, Santeria, and Obeah. Even the most wide-ranging books about Paganism rarely include a discussion of the African earth religions.

Secrets of Voodoo
Secrets of Voodoo

Author: Milo Rigaud

Publisher: City Lights Books

Published: 1985-06

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 9780872861718

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Secrets of Voodoo traces the development of this complex religion (in Haiti and the Americas) from its sources in the brilliant civilizations of ancient Africa. This book presents a straightforward account of the gods or loas and their function, the symbols and signs, rituals, the ceremonial calendar of Voodoo, and the procedures for performing magical rites are given. "Voodoo," derived from words meaning "introspection" and "mystery," is a system of belief about the formation of the world and human destiny with clear correspondences in other world religions. Rigaud makes these connections and discloses the esoteric meaning underlying Voodoo's outward manifestations, which are often misinterpreted. Translated from the French by Robert B. Cross. Drawings and photographs by Odette Mennesson-Rigaud. Milo Rigaud was born in Port au Prince, Haiti, in 1903, where he spent the greater part of his life studying the Voodoo tradition. In Haiti he studied law, and in France ethnology, psychology, and theology. The involvement of Voodoo in the political struggle of Haitian blacks for independence was one of his main concerns.

Devoted to Death
Devoted to Death

Author: R. Andrew Chesnut

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 0190633328

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R. Andrew Chesnut offers a fascinating portrayal of Santa Muerte, a skeleton saint whose cult has attracted millions of devotees over the past decade. Although condemned by mainstream churches, this folk saint's supernatural powers appeal to millions of Latin Americans and immigrants in the U.S. Devotees believe the Bony Lady (as she is affectionately called) to be the fastest and most effective miracle worker, and as such, her statuettes and paraphernalia now outsell those of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Saint Jude, two other giants of Mexican religiosity. In particular, Chesnut shows Santa Muerte has become the patron saint of drug traffickers, playing an important role as protector of peddlers of crystal meth and marijuana; DEA agents and Mexican police often find her altars in the safe houses of drug smugglers. Yet Saint Death plays other important roles: she is a supernatural healer, love doctor, money-maker, lawyer, and angel of death. She has become without doubt one of the most popular and powerful saints on both the Mexican and American religious landscapes.

Giants Monsters and Dragons
Giants Monsters and Dragons

Author: Carol Rose

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2001-12-04

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13: 9780393322118

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Contains alphabetically arranged entries that describe the imaginary creatures found in legends, religions, folklore, oral history, and theologies around the world.