War of Canudos

The War of Canudos was fought in the northeastern desert-like backlands (sertão) of Brazil at the end of the 19th century between the community of Belo Monte/Canudos and Brazil’s recently established republican government. The leader of Canudos, a charismatic man known as Antônio Conselheiro, was considered a holy man by his followers and exemplified many of the beliefs and practices of folk Catholicism in the region. While he wandered the backlands for many years, rebuilding churches, pronouncing sermons, and living a deeply ascetic life, he entered into conflict with authorities following the passage from monarchy to republic in 1889, a secular form of government that lacked authority in his eyes. Once Conselheiro settled in a hamlet in 1893, baptizing it Belo Monte, the settlement became a center of attraction and grew quickly, draining labor and threatening the power of neighboring landowners. After two small Bahian expeditions sent to fight with the inhabitants of Belo Monte (called Canudos by outsiders) were routed, news of the community and its leader spread like wildfire in both the Bahian press as well as newspapers in the country’s center of power in the southeast. The failure of a third and larger military expedition sent by the federal government turned Canudos into a media event, leading to songs, caricatures, conspiracy theories, and even carnival costumes. While the community did not arguably pose any real threat to the still nascent republic, it became symbolized as such in the media. A fourth and much larger military expedition finally destroyed the community after months of siege. While the war continued to exert an outsized presence in a variety of media, including poems, memoirs, novelizations, and testimonials, its status as a singular and epic event in Brazilian history was cemented with the publication of Euclides da Cunha’s Os Sertões four years after the end of the conflict, a book based on the author’s experience as a war correspondent for a São Paulo newspaper. The consecration of Os Sertões as one of the foundational texts of Brazilian nationality, however, poses a challenge for understanding the War of Canudos outside the optics and intelligibility established by da Cunha’s text.

Stone Zoya: From Orthodox Legend to City Brand

Сюжет об окаменевшем святотатце-плясуне, известный в России как минимум с конца XIX в., актуализируется в 1956 г. «Зоино стояние» оказывается наиболее устойчивой текстуализацией этого сюжета, поддерживающегося в 1960-1990-х гг. популярной нарративной схемой о наказании святотатцев за осквернение святынь. На текстовое и сюжетное оформление, популярность и тиражирование этого сюжета в фольклорной среде оказывают влияние религиозные фольклорные нарративы; грешница получает конкретное имя: Зоя. В околоцерковной литературе и СМИ чудо начинает рассматриваться как реальное событие. В Самаре в мае 2012 г. открывается памятник Николаю Чудотворцу. Бронзовая фигура святого под золоченым куполом поставлена в память о чудесном событии, получившем название «стояние Зои». В самарском храме во имя Иоанна Воина находится большая житийная икона Николая Чудотворца с клеймами, нижний ряд которых посвящен чуду стояния Зои в Куйбышеве. Многочисленные упоминания в СМИ, тиражирование истории в религиозных текстах и медийном официальном и неофициальном дискурсах, паломнические поездки в Самару к памятнику св. Николаю сделали из локальной легенды не только похожий на исторический нарратив, но и своего рода фольклорный бренд, благодаря которому Самара получает место на туристической карте России. Дом, где якобы произошло известное событие, хотят музеефицировать. Именно этим процессам - как фольклорный текст превращается в бренд, используемый разными акторами, - посвящена данная работа. The story about a girl who was turned to stone after she blasphemed by dancing with an icon, known in Russia at least since the late 19th century, reappeared in the text of “Zoya’s Standing” of 1956 (the protagonist allegedly stood petrified for 128 days until freed by a holy man). This version proved to be the most stable textualization of the story, which was reinforced in the 1960s-1990s by a popular narrative scheme about the punishment of blasphemers for desecration of the sacred. Regional folklore narratives influenced its textual presentation and plot, as well as its popularity in the folk milieu; in addition, the sinner was given a concrete name - Zoya. New details were added to the plot and it entered the catalogue of St. Nicholas’ deeds. Moreover, oral versions came to be influenced by the written text, by the movies on the topic (2004 and 2009), and by popular TV programs. As a result, the miracle described in the story began to be seen as a real event. A monument to Nicholas the Wonderworker was unveiled in Samara in May 2012 and the bronze figure of the saint under a gilded dome was erected in memory of the miracle of Zoya’s Standing. In the Church of John the Warrior in Samara there is a large hagiographic icon of Nicholas the Wonderworker with scenes (kleimy), the bottom row of which is dedicated to the miracle of Zoya’s Standing in Kuibyshev. Numerous mentions in the media; repetition of the story in religious texts and in official and unofficial media discourses; and pilgrimages to Samara to the monument of St. Nicholas not only made this local legend appear to be a historical narrative, but also turned it into a kind of folklore “brand” thanks to which Samara could earn a place on Russia’s tourist map. Locals want to turn the house where the famous event allegedly took place into a museum. It is to these processes - how a folklore text turned into a brand used by various players - that this article is dedicated.

Cosmic Dance of Dialogue!

The author starts from the obvious statement that no one knows everything about everything and that we can have only partial knowledge of any limited study of reality, although, when it comes to religion, many still claim to know everything they need to know. Since people cannot know everything, dialogue is necessary, because through a conversation with another, a person learns what he cannot notice from his place and with his personal lenses of knowledge. Dialogue is not just a way to get more information: Dialogue is a whole new way of thinking! Dialogue in its broadest sense is at the very heart of the cosmos, that is, the very essence of the cosmos and our humanity is dialogical, and fulfilled human life is the highest expression of the Cosmic Dance of Dialogue. Therefore, the author emphasizes, we humans today have an obvious choice: dialogue or death! The text points out that there are three main dimensions of dialogue, which correspond to the structure of humanity: The dialogue of the head, hands and heart in the holistic harmony of the holy man. In the dialogue of the head we reach out to those who think differently from us to understand how they see the world and the reason for their behavior. The world is too complicated for anyone to figure it out on their own. In hand dialogue, we team up with others to make the world a better place where we all need to live together. In the dialogue of the heart we open ourselves to perceive/receive the beauty of the other. The author concludes that people cannot live divided. If they want to survive, and even flourish, they must not only dance individually the dialogues of head, hand, and heart but also bring together the various parts in harmony.

GAGURITAN DANGHYANG NIRARTHA KAJIAN NILAI-NILAI SOSIAL-RELIGIUS

This paper is a study about a literary work, Gaguritan Danghyang Nirartha (GDN), which is taken up from the book Sedjarah Danghyang Nirartha, wrote by Ida Bagus Putu Bek, printed by Pustaka Balimas (1961). This literary work is written in Balinese, in the form of a song (tembang). GDN told about a historical event of Danghyang Nirartha, who well known as a spiritualist in the Hindu religion. In about of his historical event, it told particularly when he was in Bali, where he had well come in the society. He met with Bendesa Mas in Mas village, and there Danghyang Nirartha purified two persons who became bhagawan (holy man), namely: I Bendesa Mas and Kiyayi Dauh Panulisan. And then he invited by the King to come to Gelgel palace, met the King of Gelgel. There Danghyang Nirartha got big honor from the King and appointed as a priest (bhagawanta) of the Kingdom. The purpose of this paper is to examine the literary work GDN, by looking at values: social-religious values, sociological, and moral values. In the sense of the theoretical approach, the content analysis model is used in this study, which is taken from Suwardi Endraswara (2003). As a result, in this study can be found some values: Hindu religion values, sociological values, and moral etic values, which are very useful to become better in the living of the society. Keywords: Bendesa Mas; Danghyang Nirartha; Waturenggong

Queering Delilah with Critical Theory and Gendered Bible Hermeneutics

Close your eyes and think of Delilah. Whom do you see? What does she look like? More often than not, this biblical character is visualized in both interpretive traditions and cultural retellings of Judges 16 as a femme fatale par excellence—a fatal woman whose exotic feminine allure and lethal sexuality ultimately destroyed Samson, that most heroic Hebrew holy man. In this chapter, I use gender-queer theory to interrogate the very “straight” ways in which these retellings make sense of the multiple ambiguities surrounding Delilah’s character within the biblical narrative. I take an intersectional approach, interpreting Delilah’s sexuality, gender, and ethnicity through a queer lens to conjuring up a myriad of alternative performances that her persona may inhabit. By so doing, I invite readers into delightfully queer spaces in the text that challenge essentialist reading habits and bring to light critical theoretical insights about Delilah’s interpretive and cultural afterlives.

Epilogue

SITTING BULL, THE Hunkpapa Lakota leader and holy man, once said: “It is through … mysterious power that we too have our being, and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even to our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves to inhabit this vast land.” Very few people live their lives according to Sitting Bull’s belief that we must respect and protect our animal family’s right to live and thrive on planet Earth....

stylite (esṭūnōrō) et sa ṣawmaʿa face aux milieux cléricaux islamiques et miaphysites (i er–iie /viie –viiie siècles)

Stylites (esṭūnōrē) represented a major form of eremitism in late antique and early Islamic Syria and Mesopotamia. As archetypes of the Holy Man described by Peter Brown, they were in close contact with rural populations (pagani) and therefore promoted the Christianization of such marginal, non-civic spaces. In doing so, they quickly became authorities competing with urban bishoprics. Many Syriac sources (such as synodical canons) attest to preaching, teaching, arbitration, judgments, and even administrative sentences carried out by these ascetics on columns for faithful crowds (ʿamē) in villages. Consequently, the churches, and especially the Syrian Orthodox Church, tried to use them for local anchorage during the seventh and eighth centuries while, at the same time, seeking to integrate them into stable and enclosed monastic structures. These solitary monks also fascinated Arab populations since St. Simeon both invented this asceticism and converted local Bedouins. Indeed, the Muslim tradition contains important evidence of the influence exerted by the so-called ahl alṣawāmiʿ on Muslims. In this article I demonstrate that during the first two centuries of the hijra, the concept of ṣawmaʿ(a) exactly matches the Syriac understanding of esṭūnō as a retreat on top of a high construction, whether a square tower or a proper column. I rely on poetry, early lexicography, bilingual hagiography and historiography, and especially the Syriac and Arabic versions of Abū Bakr’s waṣiyya, which expressly refers to these monks. I then show how the developing Islamic authorities tried to divert Arab Muslims from these initially privileged and valued figures. To this end, they used the same kinds of arguments as did the canonical anathemas against stylites, who were also often seen as competitors and threats by the official ecclesiasticalauthorities. Scholars of ḥadīṯ, fiqh, and tafsīr developed their own rhetoric, distinguishing, for instance, between good stylites and bad “tonsured” ones, while jurists gradually restricted their initial tax privileges. Finally, the latter, at the end of the second/eighth century, they required Muslims to completely avoid them, completing the process of excommunicating both Christianity and its most revered figure.