Lono and Kū are two Hawaiian gods that were most often represented through feathered basketry and wooden sculptures. Lono is known as the god of agriculture, plants, rain, pigs, peace, and most often connected to the idea of genealogy; while Kū is well known as the god of war, forests, canoes, houses, and crafts. These are two opposing gods in Hawaiian culture and are dependent on each other because of their juxtaposition to one another. They complete a sort of higher balance between each other and are two of the main gods in Hawaii. This essay will explore and discuss how Lono and Kū are represented in Hawaiian art, through style, usage, and historical context.…
Exam 1 In this essay I will be referring to the article, The Negro Church in America written by E. Franklin Frazier. I will be comparing the evolution and function of the Black Church in America with Emile Durkheim’s and Marx’s Theories of religion. I will do this by first providing the background of the African slaves that led to their loss of cultural identity. I will also describe both Emile Durkheim’s and Karl Marx’s theories of religion individually.…
When being taken away from their country to become slaves, the growing need for connection is what brought the shared Roman Catholic Religion to dissolve the barrier of Empire to Slave relationship in the Angolan mindset. With language, feeling as if the Spanish had already provided them their language, they felt indebted, but then equal once the action of killing those who only took without giving was completed. Therefore, due to the familiarity with religion and language with the Spanish, the Angolan slaves felt as if the superiority complex amongst them and slave masters was broken, thus equating to equality in their…
Bound by the chains of “King Cotton,” African slaves brought to America faced imprisonment and oppression, and yet they were able to keep distinct parts of their unique African culture alive. Over time these facets of their African identities melded with aspects of American culture to form a distinctive African American culture in slavery. While family dynamics and religious expression remained fairly continuous, the religious beliefs of many slaves changed to reflect typical white beliefs. This adaptation helped to create an evolved culture different from that of both white Americans and Africans. To begin, the family dynamics of many slaves remained extremely similar to that of families in free Africa.…
Religious Experience of Native Americans The Native American religious experience from before the European presence to the 20th century underwent many transformations throughout its evolution. In the beginning, the Olmec and Mayan hierarchical civilizations believed their kings, who were also their religious leaders, were able to communicate with the Gods and ancestors. This demonstrated how the early Native Americans believed that supernatural forces existed. This belief in the supernatural led to the Native Americans developing a cultural relationship between themselves and nature, with the intent to maintain a harmonic balance between the spiritual and living world (Unit 1, Lecture 1).…
African Americans are a remarkably religious ethnic group. According to the Pew Forum in 2008, 88 percent of African Americans believe in God. Compared to this statistic, there are only 1.6 percent of the total black population that identify with atheism, according to Pew. Black atheists are extremely rare and unheard of in the black community. So much so that African Americans find it incredibly difficult to “come out” to their families and friends because they’re afraid of being isolated or excluded.…
To gain a better understanding of the African American family, one must study the African philosophy and cosmology. By learning about the philosophies origins and its five themes, the black family will be able to harmonize itself and begin to see what is wrong with research done by people like E. Franklin Frazier and Daniel Moynihan. Once this is accomplished the black family can free itself from western conceptual incarceration. There are five central themes in African philosophy and cosmology that are outlined by T’Shaka. These themes are harmonious twin-ness, unicity, Maat, Nommo or the word, and transformation and change from the lower self to higher through spiral motion (T’Shaka 90).…
The Role Religion has on Social Structure The Sacred Canopy by Peter Berger offers a way to gain new perspectives on how we construct different realities in society for ourselves. Berger didn’t seem to be interested in convincing us that religion is a spiritual phenomenon, but rather he offered a perspective on how religion plays a role in our social life. This is because we live in a world that places value on cultural aspects.…
Reading one Question: 1) Why was the social classification of race invented? Race being the social classification in which we distinguish one another by our ethnic and or regional background, enables us to not only create, but uphold systematic social status throughout the world. As proven through scientific research, race is not a substantive concept, but rather an unfounded concept that has been used to separate the human race overtime. This being the case, race was invented to create social class ranks; which sanctioned the appalling treatment of non-whites throughout the past couple of centuries. Is Afrocentrism a response to racism?…
In his article entitled, "National Culture and Liberation" Amilcar Cabral discusses the vital role the development of a collective cultural identity possesses in regard to national liberation, especially during the decolonization process of African countries. First, the author begins noting that colonialism requires the foreigners to "...practically liquidate the entire population of the dominated country, thus eliminating all possibility of that kind of cultural resistance; or to succeed in imposing itself without adversely affecting the culture of the dominated people, that is to say, harmonizing the economic and political domination of these people with its cultural personality" (Cabral 12). This quote exhibits the threatening nature of…
When a culture full of not only ties to the Earth and the past, but also strong bonds between people, what force could possibly tear that culture apart? Chinua Achebe, in his novel Things Fall Apart, answers this question by bringing Christianity into the Ibo tribe in Africa, and shows the reader the changes and disruptions that occur. Achebe teaches the reader many lessons throughout the story of the Ibo tribe’s destruction from the infiltration of British Christianity. His lessons, however, can be summarized into one main sentence. Bringing new religion into a culture can help guide a society into better ways of life, showing the people kinder and more open traditions, but it can also pull families apart and break down a previously established…
ADW 111 PROF. HALEY Critical Essay Original Title Toni Spencer tspence9@scmail.spelman.edu November 7, 2017 The African diaspora is made up of individuals that share the common ancestry of African descent. According to Professor Tiffany Ruby Patterson and Dr. Robin D.G. Kelley, the african diaspora is the “experiences of african peoples dispersed by the slave trade and [it is] also an analytic term that enabled scholars to talk about black communities across national boundaries. Much of this scholarship examined the dispersal of people of African descent, their role in transformation and creation of new cultures, institutions and ideas outside of Africa” (par. 5).…
Achebe masterfully refutes age-old stereotypes of indigenous African culture in Things Fall Apart through the presence of Igbo law, customs, and ceremonies. The negative stereotypes that have arisen from the flawed perspective of early European colonists in Africa still has prominent influence in many more developed countries today. The cultures of indigenous African societies are not inferior to those in western countries, they are simply different and peculiar to foreign…
In order for others to understand our intended actions, our opinions and reasons must be acknowledged. A story told with only one point of view, a single story, can result in a conflict or possible confusion, as seen in Things Fall Apart written by Chinua Achebe. Inspired to write a book from the point of view of a true African, Achebe follows the Umuofia tribe as the evangelists seeking to convert others to Christianity threaten their much-cherished Igbo culture. Throughout the book, Achebe follows the point of view of the Igbo people. It is not until the last chapter that we begin to see a shift in the point of view.…
Killings became more rampant, things to emotionally break a man down where done, whippings for not agree with the new church. The African’s did not initially dismiss the European religion just because of its difference like what was done to them, the locals noticed its influence on their followers even though they did not understand how any of it worked they went along with it, but the Europeans looked at the native’s culture and religion as delusions rather than just an alternate religion. In Things Fall Apart, the religious practices of Okonkwo 's tribe are very important to him and his tribe, there are different ranks and gods who oversee everything. When the colonist religion is introduced the natives see it as crazy and their god…