A North American Indigenous Narrative-based Inquiry of Culture and Land

This research uses a narrative cultural inquiry study to address the need to save the land our Mother Earth (Aki) and the relationship with Indigenous Spirituality through the topics/themes of Spirit Houses, Sa'be (Sasquatch) and Sacred landscape features such as Spiritual Sites, Ceremony and Pictographs within the geography of Turtle Island, North America in Northern Ontario, Canada. The rationale of this study was to address the larger inaadiziwin (philosophy) of Indigenous character and way of life with nature or “All My Relations” for the author.

The Impact of Cezanne in Early Cubism

The 1907 Salon d’Automne included a Cézanne retrospective. Comprising fifty-six of his works, most of them oils, it featured a group of late paintings, among them some nominally “unfinished.” It had not been until his final years that the painter had begun to have wider public appeal. Now he had become the focus of attention of the avant-garde. Leo Stein recounted this transformation: “Hitherto Cézanne had been important only for the few; he was about to become important for everybody. At the Salon d’Automne of 1905 people laughed themselves into hysterics before his pictures, in 1906 they were respectful, and in 1907 they were reverent. Cézanne had become the man of the moment.” And Picasso would say: “For us, Cézanne was like a mother who protects her children ... He was my one and only master ... I’ve spent years studying his pictures ... Cézanne! He was as you might say a father to us all. It was he who protected us.” The article explores the influence the Master of Aix had on both the Spaniard and his French colleague Georges Braque as they developed the ideas of what would become Cubism.

Sectoral Allocation of Foreign Aids and Poverty Alleviation in Nigeria, 2010-2020

The study was necessitated by the high rate of poverty in Nigeria regardless of the foreign aids inflow into the country from 2010 to 2020. Whereas the country received foreign aids which could have resulted in poverty alleviation within the period of this study, she antithetically witnessed increase in poverty rate to the extent that the World Bank in May 2018 reported that Nigeria had emerged poverty capital of the world. According to the National Bureau of Statistics’ report, over 82.9 million persons, representing about 40.1 percent of the total population, were considered poor by national standards as at 2019. The poverty challenge inspite of the foreign aids inflow into Nigeria therefore necessitated the question on how sectoral allocation of foreign aids contributed to poverty alleviation in Nigeria from 2010 to 2020. Anchored on the Big Push Theory, the study adopted ex-post facto research design and documentary method for data collection. Qualitative descriptive method was used for data analysis. Among other things, the study found out that sectoral allocation of foreign aid resources did not contribute to poverty alleviation in Nigeria from 2010 to 2020 as those sectors critical for poverty alleviation did not receive massive investments. On the contrary, the foreign aids were split among numerous (consumption) sub-heads which rendered the aids incapable of contributing to poverty alleviation in the country. In view of the findings, the study therefore recommended the need to channel future foreign aids inflow into projects with high capital returns or the productive sectors of the economy in order to achieve a positive outcome on poverty alleviation.

The Technology Revolution of The Criminal Jurisdiction Process Without Paper

The technological revolution for the Paperless Criminal Court Process is that in the development of evidence as regulated in the Criminal Procedure Code, it can no longer accommodate developments in information technology; this creates new problems. This problem causes the form of printed media to be shifted to digital media (paperless). This shift makes a significant change in crime using computers because evidence of a crime that will lead to a criminal event is in electronic data. Either on the computer itself (hard disk/floppy disc) or printed out or in another form in the form of a trace (path) of a computer user activity. The judge is not related to the correctness of conformity embodied on the instructions as evidence because electronic evidence cannot stand alone to prove the defendant's guilt. Therefore, it needs to be supported by other evidence.

Vodun Continuum in Black America: Communication with the Dead and the Invisible World in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing Unburied Sing

The spread of Western rationalism through armed conquest, with the global dominance of Judeo-Christian and Islamic creeds, has almost obliterated the existence of the alternative ontological perceptions rooted in the dominated people’s cultures. This essay studies how Ward’s Sing Unburied Sing reaches back to African ancestral beliefs, vodun practices and rituals, and brings to life characters who strive to counteract exclusion with the conception of the world as a Whole, a continuum whose survival is premised on the respect of, and fusional union with, each element of that Whole. This conception partakes in the search for meaning to existence in a society that has erected individualism and the exclusion of black people into creed. The paper uses the theoretical approach of vodun ontology and, in an Afrocentric perspective, reads through Ward’s novel this cultural trait thriving centuries after the enslaved people’s departure from Africa. It purports to voice African traditional values and to celebrate cultural difference.

Unexpected Exposures to Multilingualism in the Late Middle Ages: A Global Perspective by Travelogue Authors: Der Niederrheinische Orientbericht, Georgius of Hungary, and Johann Schiltberger

Whereas previous scholars interested in multilingualism have tried to identify specific textual sources for evidence confirming that phenomenon, this article takes a different approach and examines three late medieval texts (in Latin and German) where the narrator travels around many countries in the Middle East, either enjoying the freedom to do so, or forced because he had been captured by the Ottomans and sold into slavery. Even though the authors do not reveal much at all about the linguistic situation for them personally, the textual framework clearly signals that they spent a long time in complex and difficult language conditions. Although we are not told much at all about multilingualism here, the indirect conclusions allow us to confirm the extensive presence of numerous multilingual speakers, including the three authors.

A Critical Review: A Significant Role of Women in the Development of the Society

Women are equal to men in Pakistan and contribute with some effort to economic development, democratic stability, and social quality. It is fact that Pakistani society is male-dominated and male constitutes a major part of the population of the country. In this regard, women face many problems to progress and obtain due status. In spite of all hurdles, Pakistani women are being an important contribution to the development of society in both rural and urban areas of all provinces. This paper discusses different roles of women from an Islamic point of view, roles of women in the Labour Force, and roles of women in the politics of Pakistan. The explanatory method has been for data collection from the secondary sources data collection like research articles, research journal and books. The finding of the article indicates that women despite numerous difficulties they are motivated, industrious and ready to work for the progress of the society of Pakistan. Consequently, the government and competent authorities should focus on the education, health, nutrition, training, safety and freedom of Pakistani women so that they can play their roles in the development of the country without any fear and discrimination.

The Igbo-African Conceptualization of Death as a Journey and Not a Destination

The issue of death has engaged many thinkers in almost every epoch or era. More so, different philosophers of various cultures have varied conceptions of death as well as rendering differing definitions and interpretations of the concept. Heidegger, for instance, sees man as a being destined to die and, therefore, man lives towards death. Death, simply put in that line of thought, therefore, is the primary purpose or destination of man on earth. This idea renders everything man does on earth as a venture in futility. Nevertheless, man is a being unto immortality. Death from the Igbo-African ontological point of view is but only a vehicle with which man is conveyed to immortality. It is an unavoidable path which every single individual person must unavoidably pass through if one is to be translated and transformed into immortality. The writer in the work resorted simply to the methodological approach of expository and philosophical reflection to accomplish the goal of the study. Invariably, the conclusion that death is, therefore, not a destination but a journey is drawn.

Contrasting Warlpiri and English Language Features

If you were to think that the English language and the Australian Aboriginal Warlpiri language are poles apart in character and nature, you could be correct, at least in principle. There are differences, of course, but the intriguing question must be whether those language differences are sufficient enough to form a strong contrast between the languages. This paper proposes the thesis that a demonstration of just a small number of differences, each of which is critical in nature, would ensure that Warlpiri will be seen, not just as apart from English, but as worlds apart from English; that is, the Warlpiri language has cleaved loyally to its heritage of complexity, while English has cleaved far away from its now distant origins and could be described as simplistic when viewed against the complex richness of Warlpiri. The methodology used in this essay is to provide Warlpiri language exemplars across a small number of the diverse differences which make Warlpiri unique in its own ways, while listing a small number of differences that make English unique. This discussion should make understandable Warlpiri youth’s recent drive to creating a parallel and successful version of their language.

Ator A Zan Adua (Christian Traditional Rulers) and Tiv Culture in the 21st Century

The chieftaincy and traditional rulership institution is dynamic and one of the most enduring legacies from traditional African societies. Until the coming of the colonialists, the traditional institution led by chiefs, emirs, obas, Ezes, etc performed legislative and judicial functions as well as political, religious, social and economic roles etc. The chieftaincy and traditional rulership institution among the Tiv was not organised in a systematic manner until the creation of the Tor Tiv stool in 1946. With several reformations, the chieftaincy institution has taken a definite stage in Tiv society. However, the problem of the study has to do with the fact that there has arisen in the Tiv chieftaincy scene; the ator a zan adua (Christian traditional rulers) who rather than protect and preserve Tiv cultural heritage are in the vanguard of the corrosion of a culture they had taken an oath to protect and preserve. If prompt action is not taken by the Tiv, their culture would soon disappear as these ator a zan adua have “churchmentised” and Christianised Tiv culture. As scholars of Tiv History, Religion and Culture, the researchers are alarmed at this cultural imperialism being perpetrated by Tiv traditional rulers. The study adopts the historical, descriptive and evaluative methods. In data collection, the primary and secondary methods have been adopted. In the primary source, oral interviews and the observation methods have been used; whereas in the secondary sources of data collection, documented sources from books, journal articles, newspapers and e-sources have been employed. The study established that by the orientation of ator a zan a dua as Christians, they are on the verge of completely supplanting Tiv culture with a foreign one. The study noted that culture gives an identity to a group of people and without it, they cannot be defined. In view of this challenge, the study made various suggestions as means of preserving and sustaining Tiv cultural heritage for generations yet unborn. One of these suggestions is that traditional rulers in Tiv be made to take their oath of office by Swem (the Tiv symbol of justice) so that when they renege on their oath, they would immediately bear the consequences (death by swollen stomach, limbs and severe headache). The study concluded that Tiv culture must not be sacrificed on the altar of Christianity by anybody not even the ator (traditional rulers).