Monday, March 23, 2026 · 天火 · tianmu.org
Americas
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Texts
BarquinhaAn ethnographic introduction to the Barquinha — the Little Boat — the smallest and most mysterious of Brazil's three ayahuasca religions, founded in 1945 near Rio Branco, Acre, by former sailor and converted alcoholic Daniel Pereira de Mattos (Frei Daniel), a disciple of Santo Daime's Mestre Irineu. Of the three, Barquinha is the most Catholic in form and the most Afro-Brazilian in practice, the most syncretic and the least studied, and the only one in which the spirits are not merely glimpsed but arrive.CandombléAn ethnographic introduction to Candomblé — the Afro-Brazilian religion that emerged from the crucible of Atlantic slavery, survived three centuries of persecution through the fierce custodianship of Black women, and preserved one of the richest spiritual cosmologies in the Americas.Diné Religion — The Way of HózhóAn ethnographic introduction to the religion of the Diné (Navajo) people — the theology of hózhó as beauty, harmony, and sacred order; the emergence through the underworlds; the Holy People and Changing Woman; the Four Sacred Mountains that define the homeland; and the elaborate chantway tradition through which hataalii singers restore the world to balance.Espiritismo KardecistaAn ethnographic introduction to Espiritismo Kardecista — the reincarnationist, mediumistic, and charitable religion codified in nineteenth-century France by Allan Kardec and transformed by Brazil into one of the largest and most distinctively national religious movements in the modern world.Haitian VodouAn ethnographic introduction to Haitian Vodou — the Afro-Caribbean religion that emerged from West African traditions in the crucible of slavery, gave spiritual force to the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804, and became one of the most globally significant and most globally misrepresented living traditions of the modern world.Haudenosaunee — The Longhouse WayAn ethnographic introduction to the religion of the Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse) — the Sky Woman creation narrative, the Great Law of Peace, the Thanksgiving Address as daily covenant with creation, the ceremonial calendar and medicine societies, and the revitalization movement of Handsome Lake, whose Code of Gaiwiio is still recited in full at Tonawanda every year.Lakota Religion — The Way of the Sacred HoopAn ethnographic introduction to the religion of the Lakota people — the theology of Wakan Tanka the Great Mystery, the gift of the sacred pipe, the seven sacred rites, the vision of the flowering tree at the center of all nations, and the survival of a living tradition through colonization, massacre, and forced assimilation.Lucumí — La Regla de OchaAn ethnographic introduction to Lucumí — La Regla de Ocha — the Cuban expression of Yoruba orixá religion that survived the Middle Passage, slavery, colonial suppression, and Marxist atheism to become one of the most dynamic religious movements of the twentieth-century Americas.RastafariAn ethnographic introduction to Rastafari — the Jamaican religious movement born from the 1930 coronation of Haile Selassie I, whose theology of Black liberation, divine immanence, and repatriation to Africa spread across the world on the back of reggae music.Santo DaimeAn ethnographic introduction to Santo Daime, the syncretic Christian-Amazonian religion founded in the 1930s by Raimundo Irineu Serra in the Brazilian state of Acre — the Forest Doctrine, which centers on the sacramental brew Daime (ayahuasca), a body of revealed hymns, and a decolonial synthesis of folk Catholicism, Afro-Brazilian tradition, and indigenous Amazonian spirituality.The Holy PibyThe foundational scripture of the Afro Athlican Constructive Church, written by Robert Athlyi Rogers of Anguilla in 1924 — the first proto-Rastafarian text to identify Marcus Garvey as a divine apostle and to frame the liberation of Ethiopia's African diaspora as the central act of the twentieth century.The Promised KeyProto-Rastafarian tract by Leonard Percival Howell (G.G. Maragh), published c. 1935 in Jamaica. One of the foundational documents of the early Rastafari movement, identifying Emperor Haile Selassie I as King Alpha and Earth's Rightful Ruler.The Royal Parchment Scroll of Black SupremacyThe 1926 proto-Rastafarian text of Fitz Balintine Pettersburg — a visionary Jamaican preacher who proclaimed the coming of a Black divine sovereignty and whose work directly influenced Leonard Howell, the First Rasta.UmbandaAn ethnographic introduction to Umbanda — the Afro-Brazilian religion of spirit mediumship that emerged from the collision of African tradition, Kardecist Spiritism, and the Catholic-indigenous world of twentieth-century Rio de Janeiro, carrying millions through the century and remaining one of the most widely practiced religions in the Americas.Uniao do VegetalAn ethnographic introduction to the União do Vegetal (UDV) — the Brazilian Christian Spiritist religion founded in 1961 by José Gabriel da Costa (Mestre Gabriel) in the Amazon rainforest, whose sacramental use of Hoasca (ayahuasca) and Solomonic-Amazonian cosmology produced both a 24,000-member global institution and a landmark United States Supreme Court ruling on religious freedom.