Some notions of ‘purity’ and ‘impurity’ among the Zulu

Africa ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harriet Ngubane
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Mystical Experiences ◽  
The One ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Purity And Impurity

Opening ParagraphAmong the traditional patrilineal Zulu of South Africa, women are more often associated with mystical experiences than men. While on the one hand, as daughters or sisters, women may be associated with the positive mystical forces as diviners, on the other hand, as mothers or wives, women are often related to the negative polluting mystical forces. It is the logic behind these notions that I want to examine in this article.

Early Bantu Ethnography from a Philological Point of View

Africa ◽  
1930 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. J. v. Warmelo
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Compact Body ◽  
The One ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphFew of the secrets that Africa still holds from us to-day have, I think, such an absorbing interest as the problem of Bantu in its relation to the neighbouring families and types of speech. Taking the continent of Africa as a whole, we find on the one hand the huge, yet marvellously homogeneous and compact body of the Bantu languages, clear-cut in structure, simple and transparent in phonology, and, at the back of much apparent diversity, exceptionally uniform in vocabulary. On the other hand there are in Africa numerous other languages of various type, which differ so much amongst each other that they have not yet been brought under any but the very broadest of classifications. The essential points of these are as follows.

Statecraft, Witchcraft, God’s Craft: Religious Diversity and the Forces of Law in South Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-284
Author(s):  
Marian Burchardt
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
Power Struggles ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Law ◽  
The One

AbstractLegal anthropologists and sociologists of religion increasingly recognize the importance of law in current controversies over religious diversity. Drawing on the case of South Africa, this article explores how such controversies are shaped by contestations over what counts as ‘religion’. Analyzing the historical context and emergent forms of institutional secularity from which contemporary contestations over religious diversity draw, the article explores debates and practices of classification around religion, tradition, and culture, and the ways in which these domains are co-constituted through their claims on the law: on the one hand through an analysis of religion-related jurisprudence; on the other hand through an examination of the debates on witchcraft, law, and religion. I argue that the production of judicial knowledge of ‘religion’, ‘culture’, and ‘tradition’ is tied up with contestations over the power to define the meaning of the domains. In fact, contrary to notions of constitutionality in which rights seem to exist prior to the claims made on their basis, in a fundamental sense rights struggles help to constitute the contemporary human rights dispensation. Against the Comaroffs’ claim that judicialization depoliticizes power struggles, I show that legal claims making remains vibrantly political.

The Photographic Presentation of South Africa, 1874 and 1923

Itinerario ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 25 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 143-153
Author(s):  
Robert Ross
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Single Person ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The One ◽  
White Minority

What is, and was, South Africa? This is clearly not a question which has a single answer, nor has it ever had one. On the one hand, there is a constitutional answer. In these terms, South Africa did not exist before the creation of the Union in 1910 and since then has been the state created then, transformed into the Republic of South Africa in 1961 and transformed once again with the ending of white minority rule in 1994. On the other hand, there are innumerable answers, effectively those to be found in the minds of all South Africans, and indeed all those foreigners who have an opinion about the country. Nevertheless, these opinions are not random. Clearly, there are regularities to be found within them, such that it is possible, in principle, to describe at the very least the range of answers to this question which were held within particular groups of the population, either within the country or outside it, and also to use specific sources, emanating from a single person, or group of individuals, as exemplary of the visions held by a far wider group.

scholarly journals Handelinge in die erediens: Die verryking van die liturgie deur musiek

2005 ◽  
Vol 61 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elsabé Kloppers
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
World Wide ◽  
The Other ◽  
Worship Service ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Reformed Churches ◽  
The One

Actions in the worship service: Enriching liturgy through musicThe worship service in the Reformed Churches in South Africa has of late come under pressure. On the one hand it is experienced as too rigid and “traditional”. On the other hand superficial forms of renewal create tension. In this article the worship service and the meaning of the liturgical actions in the worship service of the Afrikaans Reformed Churches are discussed, and related to world-wide ecumenical tendencies. It is argued that certain liturgical actions are a necessary part of the ritual of the worship service. The structure needs inner logic, although there should also be some degree of flexibility. Hymns and music offer the means for a more creative presentation of liturgical actions and traditional forms. Suggestions to enrich the liturgy through the use of hymns and liturgical forms in the Liedboek van die Kerk (2001) are offered.

scholarly journals 'Preaching from the pews': A case study in vulnerable theological leadership

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian A. Nell
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Professional Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Faith Communities ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Lay People ◽  
Vulnerable People ◽  
The One

When explaining vulnerability as a theme for the conference of the Societas Homiletica, the organisers referred to two ways in which the concept can be interpreted. On the one hand, it can refer to preachers themselves as vulnerable people, subjected and accountable to other people. On the other hand, it can refer to the fact that preachers are often called to preach about difficult and challenging aspects of life and faith. In this sense, preachers speak on behalf of those who are vulnerable and in need of attention. In this contribution, both understandings are at play when the researcher takes a closer look at the sermons that were preached as part of a project known as the �The sermon of the layperson� in Stellenbosch, South Africa, during September and October 2013. An analysis of the contents of these sermons, as an exercise in �preaching from the pews�, shows that they were preached on behalf of vulnerable people. In the process of analysis, it also became apparent that the preachers were themselves examples of vulnerable theological leadership in the sense that they were �lay people� and therefore not in positions of official authority within faith communities. All of the preachers were however quite influential in their own areas of specialisation and professional life, and therefore, their sermons also communicated hope amidst situations of vulnerability.

scholarly journals La experiencia (y contemplación) de lo sagrado en la obra poética de Andrés Sánchez Robayna

2018 ◽  
pp. 59-77
Author(s):  
Juan José Rastrollo Torres
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Mystical Experiences ◽  
The One ◽  
Poetic Work ◽  
Form Of Expression

¿Es lo sagrado algo sobrenatural o, más bien, se halla en el territorio del misterio y de lo oculto en este mundo? ¿Es lo poético la forma más alta de expresión de lo sagrado? Estas cuestiones y otras en torno a la naturaleza de las experiencias místicas y la esencia sagrada de la poesía se las formula Andrés Sánchez Robayna en su reseña a La mística salvaje de Michel Hulin. El propósito de este trabajo es, por una parte, precisar el alcance semántico de «lo sagrado» en su obra poética, trazando un recorrido por las modulaciones, entidades y espacios convergentes de la sacralidad; y, por otra, localizar las señales o momentos de su presencia, para formular una posible exégesis de la manifestación de sus variaciones.                                                                                                                                                                              Is sacredness something supernatural or, rather, is it in the space of the mysterious and the unseen of this world? Is poetry the highest form of expression of the sacredness? These questions and others about the nature of mystical experiences, and the sacred essence of poetry, are formulated by Andrés Sánchez Robayna in his review of The Wild Mystique by Michel Hulin. The aim of this article is, on the one hand, to specify semantic nuances of “sacredness”, journeying through the modulations, entities and convergent spaces of sacredness in his poetic work; and, on the other hand, to locate the signs or moments of its presence in order to formulate a possible exegesis of the manifestation of their variations.

scholarly journals Challenges experienced by debt counsellors in Gauteng

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 102-109
Author(s):  
Kgomotso Masilo
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
The Other ◽  
Counselling Service ◽  
Gauteng Province ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

Gauteng, Province of South Africa is experiencing a decreasing number of registered and practising debt counsellors. This paper investigates and assesses the challenges that debt counsellors in Gauteng experiences. Fifteen debt counsellors from three municipalities of Gauteng were interviewed. Data was analysed using ATLAS ti. The paper concluded that though debt counsellors are complying with the regulations in rendering debt counselling service, they still had challenges regarding backlogs in debt review. The paper recommends that debt counsellors should be adequately trained and should restructure their rehabilitation methods on the one hand and the National Credit Regulator should monitor debt counsellors’ practices and assist them with their queries on the other hand.

scholarly journals Facing our whiteness in doing Ubuntu research. Finding spatial justice for the researcher

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Müller ◽  
Sheila Trahar
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Research Finding ◽  
World Country ◽  
The Other ◽  
Spatial Justice ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
African Context ◽  
The One ◽  
First World

In this article, the two authors, academics from different contexts and both aware of their whiteness, focus on their own vulnerable selves. The aim is to reflect on their specific agency in this project and to create awareness for subjectivity in research. What are the challenges of two white academics – the one from a first world country with a baggage of colonialism, and the other from South Africa with the apartheid baggage? On the one hand, they are not ‘vulnerable’ selves but indeed very privileged selves. On the other hand, there is an awareness of the fact that this very privilege puts researchers in a vulnerable situation, especially in doing research on Ubuntu in an African context.

A Philosophy of Hindu Rank from Rural West Bengal

1976 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marvin Davis
Keyword(s):  
West Bengal ◽  
Physical Nature ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Values ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Purity And Impurity

Hindus regard all humans as fundamentally unequal. Hindu society is organized around groupings of people into ranked castes. On this there is general agreement, as Dumont's apt characterization, Homo hierarchies, affirms and attests. No similar agreement exists, however, as to the criterion of caste rank. On the one hand, attributional theorists such as H.N.C. Stevenson emphasize the physical nature of a caste and its placement on a continuum of purity and impurity, with the more pure castes held to rank above the less pure. On the other hand, interactional theorists like McKim Marriott emphasize the coded exchange between castes of culturally valued foods and services, with the givers of food held to rank above the receivers, and the receivers of service above the givers; here it is not the religious values of purity and impurity, but behavioral dominance that seems to be at issue.

Mysticism, history of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Payne
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Historical Survey ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mystical Experiences ◽  
The One

Contemporary authors generally associate mysticism with a form of consciousness involving an apparent encounter or union with an ultimate order of reality, however this is understood. Mysticism in this sense, it is argued, can be found in virtually all cultures and religious traditions, and is perhaps as old as humanity itself. None the less, there is no agreement on the identifying characteristics of mystical states; the term ‘mysticism’ and its cognates have undergone long evolution and been used in a bewildering variety of ways. Such ongoing disputes about the nature and significance of mysticism only underscore both the challenge and the importance of studying its history. On the one hand, without consensus on a definition, scholars disagree on which texts and figures merit inclusion in a historical survey of mysticism. On the other hand, arguments about whether mystical experiences are ‘everywhere the same’ can hardly be settled apart from attention to the historical evidence.

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