Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Cet ouvrage présente la religion et la mythologie des Sioux Oglala comme le modèle fondateur de leur organisation sociale et tribale. Ainsi la population Oglala se désigne encore sous le vocable d'Oceti Sakowin que l'on traduit par les "Sept Feux du Conseil". Powers démontre à partir de cette appellation commune à beaucoup de bandes sioux que la société Oglala contemporaine s'accorde avec les données de la mythologie. À l'inverse de la plupart des ethnologues qui posent comme acquis le processus d'acculturation et de déculturation des Indiens, l'auteur recherche dans les structures sociales les éléments qui rappellent la culture traditionnelle. Si, sur les plans économique et technologique, l'attraction du monde blanc , est indéniable, on sera en revanche surpris de constater que l'indianité lakota perdure à travers les cérémonies, le travail et la vie quotidienne. Plus étonnant, elle a investi les institutions politiques de la réserve et la pratique religieuse des églises qui pourtant leur ont été imposées par les Blancs. En dépit des adaptations indispensables et inévitables au mode de vie américain, tous les Sioux n'en acceptent donc pas les valeurs. Dans ce livre, Powers dresse également un bilan de la politique indienne du gouvernement des États-Unis : des statistiques accablantes sur la misère sociale et morale dont sont victimes les Sioux.William K. Powers est professeur d'anthropologie au Livingston College, Ruteers University. Il est un spécialiste des Sioux chez qui il séjourne fréquemment et dont il étudie la culture depuis plus de trente ans. Il reste l'un des rares ethnologues américains dont les travaux se réclament explicitement de Claude Lévi-Strauss.

Oglala (Indiens) --- Chamanisme --- Sioux (Indiens) --- Indiens d'Amérique --- Mythologie indienne d'Amérique. --- Religion --- Mœurs et coutumes --- Mythologie indienne d'Amérique --- Religion. --- Mœurs et coutumes.

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

The search for transcendence is by no means limited to the Faustian West or the major world religions. Indeed, tribal peoples around the globe practice diverse but related forms of the spiritual quest. In this wide-ranging interdisciplinary study, Torrance argues that the quest is rooted in our biological, psychological, linguistic, and social nature. The human being is as much animal quaerens - the questing animal - in scientific inquiry as in shamanistic flight. The quest, for Torrance, is the effort to transcend our given limits in pursuit of a goal that cannot be wholly known in advance. It is a search for visionary truths, which are then transmitted in narratives that provide metaphors for individual and social transformation. Drawing on thinkers as diverse as Bergson and Piaget, van Gennep and Turner, Peirce and Popper, Freud and Darwin, Torrance concludes that the spiritual quest is not a rare mystical experience but an expression of human impulses. In first exploring the foundations of the spiritual quest, Torrance demonstrates that human culture is not a static affirmation of an immutable past but a perpetually transitional process. He then examines variations of this activity in the myths and religious practices of tribal peoples throughout the world, from Oceania to India, Africa, Siberia, and the Americas. Torrance finds that, even in the seemingly fixed rituals of agricultural and ancestral rites, change and futurity find a place. The role of the unknown greatly expands in spirit possession through communication with the beyond. Yet nowhere, Torrance shows, is the creative tension between communal ceremony and individual aspiration more striking than in the native cultures of North and South America, and nowhere does the drive for transcendence attain fuller expression than in the vision quests of the Northeastern Woodlands and of the Great Plains. In concluding his richly varied study of the quest, Torrance theorizes that this fundamental human activity must be understood as a ternary relation, outside the binary oppositions of structuralist thought. Through this inherently transitional activity, humanity transcends the continual impasse of the given in search of what lies forever beyond. Shaman and scientist, medium and poet, prophet and philosopher, all venture forth in quest of visionary truths to transform and renew the world to which they must always return.

Indian mythology --- Indians --- Spiritual life --- Vision quests --- Vie spirituelle --- Mythologie indienne d'Amérique --- Indiens --- Indiens d'Amérique --- Religion --- Cross-cultural studies --- Rites and ceremonies --- Etudes transculturelles --- Rites et cérémonies --- Indian mythology. --- Social & Cultural Anthropology --- Anthropology --- Social Sciences --- Mythology, Indian --- Mythology --- Quests, Vision --- Indians of North America --- Life, Spiritual --- Religious life --- Spirituality --- Cross-cultural studies. --- Religion. --- Religion and mythology --- affirmation. --- animal quaerens. --- communal ritual. --- communication with the beyond. --- comparative religion. --- ecstasy. --- ethnic religious practices. --- faust. --- folklore. --- human being. --- human experience. --- human impulses. --- humanity. --- individual transformation. --- interdisciplinary. --- major world religions. --- mobility. --- mythology. --- questing animal. --- ritual and myth. --- shaman. --- shamanism. --- social transformation. --- spirit possession. --- spiritual quest. --- spirituality. --- transcendence. --- transformation. --- tribal peoples. --- tribal religious practices. --- visionary truth.