Dances With Ancestors

In this tender picture book, Sara Florence Davidson transports readers to the excitement of a potlatch in Hydaburg, Alaska—her last memory of dancing with her late brother. It feels like my brother and I have always known how to sing the songs and dance the dances of our Haida ancestors. Unlike our father, we were born after the laws that banned our cultural practices were changed. The potlatch ban did not exist during our time, so we grew up dancing and singing side by side. The invitations have been sent. The food has been prepared. The decorations have been hung. And now the day of the potlatch has finally arrived! Guests from all over come to witness this bittersweet but joyful celebration of Haida culture and community. Written by the creators of Potlatch as Pedagogy, this book brings the Sk'ad'a Principles to life through the art of Janine Gibbons.

Ancestry is big business these days, but mere biological genealogy fails to tap into our spiritual roots. The shamans of indigenous cultures have known for millennia how to do this. In this comprehensive cross-cultural survey, Dr. David Kowalewski, scholar and practicing shaman, offers several techniques for engaging the Old Ones the old-fashioned way. Although modern people have largely lost this tradition, the ancestors are coming back strong, along with the shamans—a welcome happening that may reverse our ancestor-deficit disorder. Drawing on a global survey of ethnographic reports, direct teachings from shamans of many continents, and experiences from his own shamanic practice, the author presents a wealth of useful ways that shamans have developed, around the world and across the ages, to connect with ancestors in both our realm and theirs. These include spirit-plates; effigies; pilgrimages; walkabouts; and trips with plant-spirits. Using these ancient techniques, indigenous peoples receive a variety of gifts from their Old Ones, including destiny guidance, healing, protection, and wisdom teachings. Yet some ancestors may behave like hooligans, causing psychological distress and physical woes, and even curses against a whole lineage. But these maladies are both prevented and countered by shamanic methods such as home cleansing, disposal of the deceased’s property, severance ceremonies, and the like. The author ends with practical takeaways—lessons from the lineages so to speak—showing how you and your ancestors, through concerted spiritual action, can co-evolve to higher spiritual planes. As a team.

Ancestry is big business these days, but mere biological genealogy fails to tap into our spiritual roots. The shamans of indigenous cultures have known for millennia how to do this. In this comprehensive cross-cultural survey, Dr. David Kowalewski, scholar and practicing shaman, offers several techniques for engaging the Old Ones the old-fashioned way. Although modern people have largely lost this tradition, the ancestors are coming back strong, along with the shamans--a welcome happening that may reverse our ancestor-deficit disorder.Drawing on a global survey of ethnographic reports, direct teachings from shamans of many continents, and experiences from his own shamanic practice, the author presents a wealth of useful ways that shamans have developed, around the world and across the ages, to connect with ancestors in both our realm and theirs. These include spirit-plates; effigies; pilgrimages; walkabouts; and trips with plant-spirits.Using these ancient techniques, indigenous peoples receive a variety of gifts from their Old Ones, including destiny guidance, healing, protection, and wisdom teachings. Yet some ancestors may behave like hooligans, causing psychological distress and physical woes, and even curses against a whole lineage. But these maladies are both prevented and countered by shamanic methods such as home cleansing, disposal of the deceased's property, severance ceremonies, and the like.The author ends with practical takeaways--lessons from the lineages so to speak--showing how you and your ancestors, through concerted spiritual action, can co-evolve to higher spiritual planes. As a team.

"Ancestors, Kings, and the Dao outlines the evolution of musical performance in early China, first within and then ultimately away from the socio-religious context of ancestor worship. Examining newly discovered bamboo texts from the Warring States period, Constance A. Cook compares the rhetoric of Western Zhou (1046–771 BCE) and Spring and Autumn (770–481 BCE) bronze inscriptions with later occurrences of similar terms in which ritual music began to be used as a form of self-cultivation and education. Cook’s analysis links the creation of such classics as the Book of Odes with the ascendance of the individual practitioner, further connecting the social actors in three types of ritual: boys coming of age, heirs promoted into ancestral government positions, and the philosophical stages of transcendence experienced in self-cultivation.The focus of this study is on excavated texts; it is the first to use both bronze and bamboo narratives to show the evolution of a single ritual practice. By viewing the ancient inscribed materials and the transmitted classics from this new perspective, Cook uncovers new linkages in terms of how the materials were shaped and reshaped over time and illuminates the development of eulogy and song in changing ritual contexts."

The Grasp That Reaches beyond the Grave investigates the treatment of the ancestor figure in Toni Cade Bambara's The Salt Eaters, Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow, Phyllis Alesia Perry's Stigmata and A Sunday in June, Toni Morrison's Beloved, Tananarive Due's The Between, and Julie Dash's film, Daughters of the Dust in order to understand how they draw on African cosmology and the interrelationship of ancestors, elders, and children to promote healing within the African American community. Venetria K. Patton suggests that the experience of slavery with its concomitant view of black women as "natally dead" has impacted African American women writers' emphasis on elders and ancestors as they seek means to counteract notions of black women as somehow disconnected from the progeny of their wombs. This misperception is in part addressed via a rich kinship system, which includes the living and the dead. Patton notes an uncanny connection between depictions of elder, ancestor, and child figures in these texts and Kongo cosmology. These references suggest that these works are examples of Africanisms or African retentions, which continue to impact African American culture.

People involve their ancestors in every aspect of culture. Individuals and societies worldwide and throughout history have incorporated ancestors into rituals public and private, religious and secular. Societies often organize their aristocracies, tribes, and other kinship groups around ancestral constructions which are defined through laws and customs governing marriage, naming, guardianship, inheritance, and other social practices. Medical professionals consider ancestral information important to a patient’s diagnosis and to the study of disease; many psychiatrists consider one’s relationship to ancestors important in understanding the mental and emotional disposition of subjects. Ancestry and perceptions of ancestry frequently function as a determinant of personal, ethnic, racial, and national identity. For all its larger philosophical, medical, psychological, and religious implications, one fascinating aspect of ancestry is how passionately many people hold to ‘their own’ ancestry, and to their own perceptions of the same. In Ancestors, David Hertzel offers an introductory foray into the nature of relationships people today have with their ancestors, and explores the significance of ancestry and ancestral belief in our modern world. Guided by two questions—“who are your ancestors?” and “what is your relationship to your ancestors?”—Hertzel interviewed thirty-five elders and people of prominence within particular social or intellectual communities. Interviewees were accomplished in an area related to ancestry, its nature or its meaning, and included genealogists, geneticists, tribal chiefs and elders, researchers in some aspect of family or ancestry, family elders, and experienced practitioners or supervisors of particular ancestral rituals. Interviewees were selected from a variety of cultural backgrounds for purposes of contrast, comparison, and breadth—but they are not spokespeople and were not asked to ‘represent’ particular belief systems, doctrines, or Peoples. Rather, the interviewees describe their own personal experiences and beliefs involving ancestors. From these interviews, Hertzel identifies common themes to ancestral practices and beliefs, such as the way we sanctify our ancestors, how we create a living narrative of our ancestry, and how experiences like suffering and love are shared across generations and appear to transcend death. Excerpts from interviews serve as examples throughout his narrative exploration of the concept of ancestry; a selection of full interviews are embedded throughout the text and offer glimpses into the diversity of ways that people think about who they are and where they come from.