scholarly journals Modernity and Burial Rituals in Igbo Land: A Paranormal Communication Approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-38
Author(s):  
Ndukwe U.E. ◽  
Ihechu I.P. ◽  
Ralph-Nwachukwu O.
Keyword(s):  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Oral Literature ◽  
Theoretical Underpinning ◽  
Igbo People ◽  
Living Dead ◽  
Igbo Culture ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Communication Approach ◽  
Burial Rituals

The Igbo people believe that a well done burial ritual would determine the well-being of the deceased in the land of the “living-dead”. It is therefore expected that their loved ones perform proper burial rituals to ensure the peaceful rest of the deceased and to avert the wrath of the dead. This study examined modernity and burial rituals in Igbo land from a paranormal communication perspective. The Functionalism approach as propounded by Smith, Burner and White in 1956 was used as the theoretical underpinning for this study. This study adopted textual analysis of historical and oral literature. The findings of this study revealed that modernity has affected the Igbo culture, and also showed that there are socio-religious consequences of not meeting up with the burial ritual demands. As a result, the researchers recommend amongst others that stakeholders in the community and the society at large come together to revive the Igbo culture. They also recommend that families do the needful to ensure that their 'dead' is properly buried to avoid certain misfortunes.

scholarly journals Contextual Expositions of Igbo Proverbs in Selected Mike Ejeagha’s Folk Songs

2021 ◽  
pp. 11-18
Author(s):  
Akuneziri Peace Amara ◽  
Oripeloye A. Henry ◽  
G. Ugochukwu Ngozi
Keyword(s):  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Folk Songs ◽  
Cultural Environment ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
Igbo People ◽  
Igbo Culture

This paper explores the use of Igbo proverbs in selected folklorist Mike Ejeagah’s folk songs-Omekagụ (one who behaves like a lion) and Ụwa Mgbede Ka Mma (life of serenity is beautiful). Mike Ejeagha, the folk artist is known for his ingenuity in fusing tales rich in proverbs within his folk songs. This paper argues that the contextual meanings of the exemplary proverbs in the selected songs are derived from the content of the tales in the selected songs. The researcher will do a textual analysis of the proverbs in the songs while asserting that the meanings of the proverbs are embodied in the storyline. In analyzing the meanings of the proverbs in the songs, this research affirms the place of proverbs in the socio cultural environment of the Igbo people of South Eastern Nigeria and it finally shows that Mike Ejeagaha’s folk songs can be an agent of cultural and historical storage of the Igbo culture.

Fight the Dead, Fear the Living

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias Clasen
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Highly Effective ◽  
Living Dead ◽  
The Dead

George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) depicts the futile attempts of a group of people to survive a zombie outbreak by barricading themselves in a farm house. Romero’s film introduced the modern horror zombie, a reanimated, rotting corpse that feeds on the living, travels in hordes, and is contagious. This chapter argues that Romero’s implausible monster is highly effective because it triggers defensive adaptations in human evolutionary psychology, especially adaptations to predators and contagious substances. The zombie’s counterintuitive aspect, its undeath, makes it especially salient. Romero used the figure to probe human reactions to disaster and to paint a vivid picture of the inevitability of conflict and defeat, especially in terms of social, psychological, and organic breakdown. It resonated especially with disillusioned moviegoers at the time of its release, but the film’s monsters and themes continue to engage people because of their evolutionary salience.

Spirits and Healing in West and Central Africa: A New Synthesis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wyatt MacGaffey
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Regulation ◽  
Effect Change ◽  
African Religion ◽  
Cognitive Framework ◽  
Living Dead ◽  
History Of ◽  
West And Central Africa

Though seemingly innocent, descriptive, and even commendatory, both “spirits” and “healing” are problematic terms in the history of African studies. Rather than identifying well-bounded domains of African life, both of them have evolved from the history of European attitudes toward Africa. “Spirits” often give rise to problems of well-being that “healing” is called upon to solve. Despite this close connection, spirits have been the primary subject matter of religious studies, whereas healing is among the concerns of anthropology. The study of African religion has thus come to be divided between two disciplines embodying the distinction between “belief” and “knowledge,” the irrational and the rational, developed in Europe during the Enlightenment. Anthropology itself has long divided social life into the separate domains of religion, politics, and economics, assigning the study of each to a different discipline with its own preoccupations and specialized vocabulary. This ethnocentric template misrepresented African societies whose institutions were unlike those of Europe. In the forest zones of West and Central Africa a particular set of beliefs and practices regulated the use of power for personal and collective well-being. Power, or the ability to effect change for good or ill, was and is still thought to be derived from forces called “spirits,” which are in fact as much material as spiritual. Following special procedures, gifted persons obtain power from an otherworld that is simultaneously the earth itself and the land of “the living dead,” who are buried in it. The uses of such power to kill or to cure, for collective or private benefit, define a contrast set of four roles—called for convenience chief, priest, witch, and magician—whose functions are simultaneously moral, political, economic, and therapeutic. This system is open to novel revelations within a stable cognitive framework, and adapts to new conditions. Different ideologies and practices of social regulation are found in other parts of Africa.

scholarly journals Procesy i egzekucje „żywych trupów” przed sądami miejskimi i wiejskimi w XVI–XVIII wieku – przyczynek do wierzeń w magia posthuma na Śląsku

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4 (1)) ◽  
pp. 77-92
Author(s):  
Daniel Wojtucki
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Expert Witnesses ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Living Dead ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Middle Ages

There are references reaching back to the Middle Ages, regarding the fear of the “undead” or “living dead” who would rise from their graves in a local cemetery to haunt and harm the community. The fear of the “undead” was extremely strong, and the entailing hysteria often affected entire communities. In the 16th to the 18th century, in Silesia, effective forms of coping with the harmful deceased were developed. Analysing the preserved source material, we are able to determine that the basic actions involved finding the grave of the “undead” in the cemetery, exhuming the corpse and destroying it. However, this did not always mean the total annihilation of the poor man’s corpse. The trial and execution of the corpse of a person suspected of the harmful activity against the living took place observing almost the same rules as in the case of the living. Apart from the authorities, who usually commissioned local jurors to handle the situation, opinions and advice were also sought from the clergy as well as gravediggers and executioners. The last were considered to be experts of sorts and were often called upon to see corpses of the suspected dead. In the analysed cases of posthumous magic (magia posthuma) in Silesia, we deal with two directions of handling the corpse accused of a harmful posthumous activity. In both cases, the main decision was made to remove such corpses from the cemetery’s area. Costs of the trial and execution of the “undead” were considerable. They included expenses incurred due to rather frequent court hearings at which sometimes dozens of witnesses were heard, payments to expert witnesses, payments to guards watching graves, costs of legal instructions, services of gravediggers who would dig up suspicious graves, and, finally, the remuneration of executioners and their people. In the second half of the 18th century, despite relevant decrees issued by supreme authorities, trials and executions of the dead were not completely abandoned.

scholarly journals Reading Discourses of Power and Violence in Emerging Kashmiri Literature in English: The Collaborator and Curfewed Night

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-49
Author(s):  
Amrita Ghosh
Keyword(s):  
Literary Texts ◽  
Bare Life ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Conflict Zone ◽  
Living Dead ◽  
Dead Bodies ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Forms Of Violence

This essay studies two literary texts on Kashmir, The Collaborator (2011) by Mirza Waheed and Curfewed Night (2010) by Basharat Peer and analyzes the discourses of power, overt forms of violence that the works present. It first contextualizes events from the last three years that have occurred in Kashmir to present forms of violence Kashmiri subjects undergo in the quotidian of life. The essay, thus, argues that the selected literary works represent Kashmir as a unique postcolonial conflict zone that defies an easy terminology to understand the onslaught of violence, and the varied forms of power. As analyzed in the article, one finds a curious merging of biopolitics and necropolitics that constructs the characters as “living dead” within this emergency zone. For this, the theoretical trajectory of the essay is mapped out to show the transition from Foucault and Agamben’s idea of biopolitics to Mbembe’s concept of necropolitics. Thereafter, essay concludes how the two texts illustrate Agamben’s notion of the bare life is not enough to understand subjects living in this unique postcoloniality. The presence of death and the dead bodies go beyond bare life and shows how that bodies become significant signifiers that construct a varied notion of agency.

scholarly journals A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Gender Differentiation in Yoruba Burial Rites

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 102
Author(s):  
Opoola Bolanle Tajudeen
Keyword(s):  
Technological Advancement ◽  
Oral Literature ◽  
Funeral Rites ◽  
Gender Differentiation ◽  
The World ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Language Attitude ◽  
Burial Rites ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Burial Rite

This paper focuses on socio-hermeneutic study of gender differentiation in Yoruba burial rites. There are many types of oral genres in Yoruba society. These genres have different functions for different occasion. In essence, Ìrèmọ̀jé eré ìṣípà ọdẹ (hunters funeral dirge) and ìsàà ró (women funeral dirge) are used during men and women funeral rites respectively in Yoruba land. Ogun deity is the founder of Ìrèmọ̀jé chant. Ogun was the first hunter with many adherents who were hunters too. Before the death of Ogun, he ordered his adherents to chant Ìrèmọ̀jé during his funeral rites. He also instructed them to do the same during the funeral rites of fellow great hunters, that is, the hunters that were succeeded by viable children. Ìrèmọ̀jé ìsipaọdẹ is specifically for men and not for women. Ìsàà ró is the final burial rite for the aged women in Yoruba land. This burial rite marks the exit of the aged women from this world to the world beyond. In essence, ìsàà ró is a traditional send-forth for the dead. This type of burial rite was popular in Yoruba land in those days but it was more popular among the Oyo-Yoruba than other Yoruba ethnic groups. Ìsàà ró burial rite is often performed by the Alágbaà (chief head of masquerade) from Ọ̀jẹ̀ family (family of masquerades). It is mandatory for the children of the dead to perform this final burial rite for their dead mother because if they fail to do it, things may not be moving well for either the dead in the world beyond or for the children she left behind in this world. The emergence of western civilization has made great changes both negatively and positively on the popularity of Ìrèmọ̀jé and Ìsàà ró burial rites respectively. This paper discovered that there is that of valuable documentation of Iremoje/Isipa (Hunting chants and funeral rites for Men) and Isaaro (The final funeral rites for Women) in spite of the existence of enormous works on Yoruba Verbal arts and oral literature. The implication of this finding reveal that if a study of this type is not promoted, Yoruba traditions and valuable oral renditions would be endangered. This could further prompt Yoruba journeys to extinction as many studies have shown that English dominance of Yoruba is changing the language attitude of Yoruba native speakers oral and written discusses. The Yoruba natives have flair for us of English than the use of Yoruba because of the inherent values of English in Nigeria and the world at large. This paper concludes that, despite the negative effect of western education and foreign religions in the foregoing, the technological advancement on Ìrèmọ̀jé and Ìsàà ró has shown that the future of both genres are bright as long as the Yoruba race exists.

Living Dead: Fearful Attractions of Film

2010 ◽  
Vol 110 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Lowenstein
Keyword(s):  
Historical Trauma ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Horror Films ◽  
Temporal Relations ◽  
Historical Understanding ◽  
Living Dead ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Relationship

This essay analyzes the relationship between fear and film by exploring the theoretical concept of "attractions" and its value for a historical understanding of three seminal American horror films directed by George A. Romero: Night of the Living Dead (1968), Land of the Dead (2005), and Diary of the Dead (2008). All three films belong to the same "Living Dead" series, so the essay focuses especially on their shared temporal relations to historical trauma through issues of deferral, belatedness, and retranscription.

Sowing the Dead

Massacres ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 135-154
Author(s):  
Tricia Redeker Hepner ◽  
Dawnie Wolfe Steadman ◽  
Julia R. Hanebrink
Keyword(s):  
Social Impacts ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
The Social ◽  
Community Healing ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Victims Of Violence ◽  
Burial Rituals

Chapter 9 discusses the social impacts of war in Uganda and, in particular, the interactions between the survivors and the victims of violence who are seeking proper burial. It shows how the bones of the Acholi massacre victims continue to assert their agency and hamper community healing. It also illustrates the persistent suffering experienced by those who survived the massacres and the dilemma they face in placating the unknown dead. The ability to solve this dilemma is complicated by a number of factors including the often-unknown identities of the deceased and the lack of resources required to perform the necessary burial rituals.

Bargaining with Jesus: Irony in Mark 5:1-20

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-251
Author(s):  
Andrew Burrow
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
New Host ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Selection Of

This study analyzes Mark 5:1-20 from the perspective of verbal and situational irony. 
I argue that three elements of irony in Mark 5:1-20 align with distinctive features of exorcisms in the ancient world: (1) the demons act as an exorcist against Jesus, who in turn will exorcise them; (2) the demons ask Jesus to consider their well-being when they have shown no concern for their host; (3) the demons believe that their selection of the swine as a new host will allow them to remain in the country of the Gerasenes, but it results in the destruction of the pigs. Additionally, using other ancient accounts of exorcism as comparative examples (those found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, Lucian, Philostratus, the Papyri Graecae Magicae, and the Testament of Solomon), I show that Mark 5:1-20 differs in many ways and that those differences both elucidate and intensify its elements of irony.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document