Senegal
Senegal the Republic of Senegal, is a country in West Africa. Senegal is bordered by Mauritania in the north, Mali to the east, Guinea to the southeast, Guinea-Bissau to the southwest. Senegal borders The Gambia, a country occupying a narrow sliver of land along the banks of the Gambia River, which separates Senegal's southern region of Casamance from the rest of the country. Senegal shares a maritime border with Cape Verde. Senegal's economic and political capital is Dakar; the unitary semi-presidential republic is the westernmost country in the mainland of the Old World, or Afro-Eurasia, owes its name to the Senegal River, which borders it to the east and north. Senegal covers a land area of 197,000 square kilometres and has an estimated population of about 15 million; the climate is Sahelian, though there is a rainy season. From a Portuguese transliteration of the name of the Zenaga known as the Sanhaja, or a combination of the supreme deity in Serer religion and o gal meaning body of water in the Serer language.
Alternatively, the name could derive from the Wolof phrase "Sunuu Gaal," which means "our boat." The territory of modern Senegal has been inhabited by various ethnic groups since prehistory. Organized kingdoms emerged around the seventh century, parts of the country were ruled by prominent regional empires such as the Jolof Empire; the present state of Senegal has its roots in European colonialism, which began during the mid-15th century, when various European powers began competing for trade in the area. The establishment of coastal trading posts led to control of the mainland, culminating in French rule of the area by the 19th century, albeit amid much local resistance. Senegal peacefully attained independence from France in 1960, has since been among the more politically stable countries in Africa. Senegal's economy is centered on commodities and natural resources. Major industries are fish processing, phosphate mining, fertilizer production, petroleum refining, construction materials, ship construction and repair.
As in most African nations, agriculture is a major sector, with Senegal producing several important cash crops, including peanuts, cotton, green beans, tomatoes and mangoes. Owing to its relative stability and hospitality are burgeoning sectors. With it being a multiethnic and secular nation, Senegal is predominantly Sunni Muslim with Sufi and animist influences. French is the official language, although many native languages are recognized. Since April 2012, Senegal's president has been Macky Sall. Senegal has been a member of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie since 1970. Archaeological findings throughout the area indicate that Senegal was inhabited in prehistoric times and has been continuously occupied by various ethnic groups; some kingdoms were created around the 7th century: Takrur in the 9th century and the Jolof Empire during the 13th and 14th centuries. Eastern Senegal was once part of the Ghana Empire. Islam was introduced through Toucouleur and Soninke contact with the Almoravid dynasty of the Maghreb, who in turn propagated it with the help of the Almoravids, Toucouleur allies.
This movement faced resistance from ethnicities of the Serers in particular. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the area came under the influence of the empires to the east. In the Senegambia region, between 1300 and 1900, close to one-third of the population was enslaved as a result of captives taken in warfare. In the 14th century the Jolof Empire grew more powerful, having united Cayor and the kingdoms of Baol, Saloum, Futa Tooro and Bambouk, or much of present-day West Africa; the empire was a voluntary confederacy of various states rather than an empire built on military conquest. The empire was founded by Ndiadiane Ndiaye, a part Serer and part Toucouleur, able to form a coalition with many ethnicities, but collapsed around 1549 with the defeat and killing of Lele Fouli Fak by Amari Ngone Sobel Fall. In the mid-15th century, the Portuguese landed on the Senegal coastline, followed by traders representing other countries, including the French. Various European powers—Portugal, the Netherlands, Great Britain—competed for trade in the area from the 15th century onward.
In 1677, France gained control of what had become a minor departure point in the Atlantic slave trade—the island of Gorée next to modern Dakar, used as a base to purchase slaves from the warring chiefdoms on the mainland. European missionaries introduced Christianity to the Casamance in the 19th century, it was only in the 1850s that the French began to expand onto the Senegalese mainland after they abolished slavery and began promoting an abolitionist doctrine, adding native kingdoms like the Waalo, Cayor and Jolof Empire. French colonists progressively invaded and took over all the kingdoms except Sine and Saloum under Governor Louis Faidherbe. Yoro Dyao was in command of the canton of Foss-Galodjina and was set over Wâlo by Louis Faidherbe, where he served as a chief from 1861 to 1914. Senegalese resistance to the French expansion and curtailing of their lucrative slave trade was led in part by Lat-Dior, Damel of Cayor, Maad a Sinig Kumba Ndoffene Famak Joof, the Maad a Sinig of Sine, resulting in the Battle of Logandème.
On 4 April 1959 Senegal and the French Sudan merged to form the Mali Federation, which became independent on 20 June 1960, as a result of a transfer of power agreement signed with France on 4 April 1960. Due to internal political difficulties, the Federation broke up on 20 August, when
Mauritania
Mauritania is a country in Northwest Africa. It is the eleventh largest sovereign state in Africa and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to the north and northwest, Algeria to the northeast, Mali to the east and southeast, Senegal to the southwest; the country derives its name from the ancient Berber kingdom of Mauretania, which existed from the 3rd century BCE into the 7th century CE in the far north of modern-day Morocco and Algeria. 90% of Mauritania's land is within the Sahara. The capital and largest city is Nouakchott, located on the Atlantic coast, home to around one-third of the country's 4.3 million people. The government was overthrown on 6 August 2008, in a military coup d'état led by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. On 16 April 2009, Aziz resigned from the military to run for president in the 19 July elections, which he won. Mauritania (. In other languages, it is known variously as Agawej or Cengiṭ, Gànnaar and Moritani; the ancient tribes of Mauritania were Berber people.
The Bafours were agricultural, among the first Saharan people to abandon their nomadic lifestyle. With the gradual desiccation of the Sahara, they headed south. Many of the Berber tribes claimed Yemeni origins. There is little evidence to support such claims, but a 2000 DNA study of Yemeni people suggested there might be some ancient connection between the peoples. Other peoples migrated south past the Sahara to West Africa. In 1076, Moorish Islamic warrior monks attacked and conquered the large area of the ancient Ghana Empire; the Char Bouba war was the unsuccessful final effort of the peoples to repel the Yemeni Maqil Arab invaders. The invaders were led by the Beni Hassan tribe; the descendants of the Beni Hassan warriors became the upper stratum of Moorish society. Hassaniya, a bedouin Arabic dialect that derives its name from the Beni Hassan, became the dominant language among the nomadic population. Berbers retained a niche influence by producing the majority of the region's marabouts: those who preserve and teach Islamic tradition.
Imperial France absorbed the territories of present-day Mauritania from the Senegal River area and northwards, starting in the late 19th century. In 1901, Xavier Coppolani took charge of the imperial mission. Through a combination of strategic alliances with Zawaya tribes, military pressure on the Hassane warrior nomads, he managed to extend French rule over the Mauritanian emirates. Trarza and Tagant were occupied by the French armies in 1903–04, but the northern emirate of Adrar held out longer, aided by the anti-colonial rebellion of shaykh Maa al-Aynayn, as well by insurgents from Tagant and the other regions. Adrar was defeated militarily in 1912, incorporated into the territory of Mauritania, drawn up and planned in 1904. Mauritania was part of French West Africa from 1920, as a protectorate and a colony. French rule brought legal prohibitions against an end to inter-clan warfare. During the colonial period, 90% of the population remained nomadic. Many sedentary peoples, whose ancestors had been expelled centuries earlier, began to trickle back into Mauritania.
The previous capital of the country under the French rule, Saint-Louis, was located in Senegal, so when the country gained independence in 1960, Nouakchott, at the time little more than a fortified village, was chosen as the site of the new capital of Mauritania. After gaining independence, larger numbers of indigenous Sub-Saharan African peoples entered Mauritania, moving into the area north of the Senegal River. Educated in French language and customs, many of these recent arrivals became clerks and administrators in the new state; this occurred. This changed the former balance of power, new conflicts arose between the southern populations and Moors. Between these groups stood African origins, part of the Arab society, integrated into a low-caste social position. Modern-day slavery still exists in different forms in Mauritania. According to some estimates, thousands of Mauritanians are still enslaved. A 2012 CNN report, "Slavery's Last Stronghold," by John D. Sutter and documents the ongoing slave-owning cultures.
This social discrimination is applied chiefly against the "black Moors" in the northern part of the country, where tribal elites among "white Moors" hold sway. Slavery practices exist within the sub-Saharan African ethnic groups of the south; the great Sahel droughts of the early 1970s caused massive devastation in Mauritania, exacerbating problems of poverty and conflict. The Arabized dominant elites reacted to changing circumstances, to Arab nationalist calls from abroad, by increasing pressure to Arabize many aspects of Mauritanian life, such as law and the education system; this was a reaction to the consequences of the French domination under the colonial rule. Various models for maintaining the country's cultural diversity have been suggested, but none were implemented; this ethnic discord was evident during inter-communal violence that broke out in April 1989, but has since subsided. Mauritania expelled some 70,000 sub-Saharan African Mauritanians in the late 1980s. Ethnic tensions and the sensitive issue of
Assyrian people
Assyrian people, or Syriacs, are an ethnic group indigenous to Western Asia. Some of them self-identify as Chaldeans. Speakers of modern Aramaic and as well as the primary languages in their countries of residence, modern Assyrians are Syriac Christians who claim descent from Assyria, one of the oldest civilizations in the world, dating back to 2500 BC in ancient Mesopotamia; the tribal areas that form the Assyrian homeland are parts of present-day northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran and, more northeastern Syria. The majority have migrated to other regions of the world, including North America, the Levant, Europe and the Caucasus during the past century. Emigration was triggered by events such as the Massacres of Diyarbakır, the Assyrian Genocide during World War I by the Ottoman Empire and allied Kurdish tribes, the Simele Massacre in Iraq in 1933, the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Arab Nationalist Ba'athist policies in Iraq and Syria, the rise of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and its takeover of most of the Nineveh plains.
Assyrians are predominantly Christian adhering to the East and West Syrian liturgical rites of Christianity. The churches that constitute the East Syrian rite include the Assyrian Church of the East, Ancient Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, whereas the churches of the West Syrian rite are the Syriac Orthodox Church and Syriac Catholic Church. Both rites use Classical Syriac as their liturgical language. Most the post-2003 Iraq War and the Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011, have displaced much of the remaining Assyrian community from their homeland as a result of ethnic and religious persecution at the hands of Islamic extremists. Of the one million or more Iraqis reported by the United Nations to have fled Iraq since the occupation, nearly 40% were Assyrians though Assyrians accounted for only around 3% of the pre-war Iraqi demography. According to a 2013 report by a Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council official, it is estimated that only 300,000 Assyrians remain in Iraq.
Because of the emergence of ISIL and the taking over of much of the Assyrian homeland by the terror group, another major wave of Assyrian displacement has taken place. ISIL was driven out from the Assyrian villages in the Khabour River Valley and the areas surrounding the city of Al-Hasakah in Syria by 2015, from the Nineveh plains in Iraq by 2017. Since the expulsion of ISIL, the Nineveh plains have been divided into Iraqi and Kurdish-controlled zones, with Assyrian militias on both sides. In northern Syria, Assyrian groups have been taking part both politically and militarily in the Kurdish-dominated but multiethnic Syrian Democratic Forces and Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. Assyria is the homeland of the Assyrian people. In prehistoric times, the region, to become known as Assyria was home to Neanderthals such as the remains of those which have been found at the Shanidar Cave; the earliest Neolithic sites in Assyria belonged to the Jarmo culture c. 7100 BC and Tell Hassuna, the centre of the Hassuna culture, c. 6000 BC.
The history of Assyria begins with the formation of the city of Assur as early as the 25th century BC. The Assyrian king list records kings dating from the 25th century BC onwards, the earliest being Tudiya, a contemporary of Ibrium of Ebla. However, many of these early kings would have been local rulers, from the late 24th century BC to the early 22nd century BC, they were subjects of the Akkadian Empire. During the early Bronze Age period, Sargon of Akkad united all the native Semitic-speaking peoples and the Sumerians of Mesopotamia under the Akkadian Empire; the cities of Assur and Nineveh, the oldest and largest city of the ancient Assyrian empire, together with a number of other towns and cities, existed as early as the 25th century BC, although they appear to have been Sumerian-ruled administrative centres at this time, rather than independent states. The Sumerians were absorbed into the Akkadian population. In the traditions of the Assyrian Church of the East, they are descended from Abraham's grandson, progenitor of the ancient Assyrians.
However, there is no historical basis for the biblical assertion whatsoever. Ashur-uballit I overthrew the Mitanni c. 1365 BC, the Assyrians benefited from this development by taking control of the eastern portion of Mitanni territory, also annexing Hittite, Babylonian and Hurrian territories. The Assyrian people, after the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 609 BC were under the control of the Neo-Babylonian and the Persian Empire, which consumed the entire Neo-Babylonian or "Chaldean" Empire in 539 BC. Assyrians became front line soldiers for the Persian Empire under Xerxes I, playing a major role in the Battle of Marathon under Darius I in 490 BC. Herodotus, whose Histories are the main source of information about that battle, makes no mention of Assyrians in connection with it. Despite the influx of foreign elements, the presence of Assyrians is confirmed by the worship of the god Ashur; the Greeks and Romans had a rather low-level of integration with the local population in Mesopotamia, which allowed their cultures to survive.
The kingdoms of Osrhoene, Adiabene and Assur, which were under Parthian overlordship, had an Assyrian identity. Emerging in Sumer c. 3500 BC, cuneiform writing began a
Modern Paganism
Modern Paganism known as Contemporary Paganism and Neopaganism, is a collective term for new religious movements influenced by or derived from the various historical pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe, North Africa and the Near East. Although they do share similarities, contemporary Pagan religious movements are diverse, no single set of beliefs, practices or texts are shared by them all. Most academics studying the phenomenon have treated it as a movement of different religions, whereas a minority instead characterise it as a single religion into which different Pagan faiths fit as denominations. Not all members of faiths or beliefs regarded as Neopagan self-identify as "Pagan". Adherents rely on pre-Christian and ethnographic sources to a variety of degrees. Academic research has placed the Pagan movement along a spectrum, with Eclecticism on one end and Polytheistic Reconstructionism on the other. Polytheism and pantheism are common features in Pagan theology. Rituals take place in private domestic settings.
The Pagan relationship with Christianity is strained. Contemporary Paganism has sometimes been associated with the New Age movement, with scholars highlighting both similarities and differences. From the 1990s onwards, scholars studying the modern Pagan movement have established the academic field of Pagan studies. There is "considerable disagreement as to the precise definition and proper usage" of the term "modern Paganism". Within the academic field of Pagan studies, there is no consensus regarding how contemporary Paganism can best be defined. Most scholars describe modern Paganism as a broad array of different religions rather than a singular religion in itself; the category of modern Paganism could be compared to the categories of Abrahamic religion and Dharmic religion in its structure. A second, less common definition found within Pagan studies – where it has been promoted by the religious studies scholars Michael F. Strmiska and Graham Harvey – characterises modern Paganism as a singular religion, into which groups like Wicca and Heathenry fit as denominations.
This perspective has been critiqued, given the lack of core commonalities in issues such as theology, ethics, holy days, or ritual practices within the Pagan movement. Contemporary Paganism has been defined as "a collection of modern religious and magical traditions that are self-consciously inspired by the pre-Judaic, pre-Christian, pre-Islamic belief systems of Europe, North Africa, the Near East." Thus, the view has been expressed that although "a diverse phenomenon", there is "an identifiable common element" running through the Pagan movement. Strmiska described Paganism as a movement "dedicated to reviving the polytheistic, nature-worshipping pagan religions of pre-Christian Europe and adapting them for the use of people in modern societies." The religious studies scholar Wouter Hanegraaff charactised Paganism as encompassing "all those modern movements which are, based on the conviction that what Christianity has traditionally denounced as idolatry and superstition represents/represented a profound and meaningful religious worldview and, that a religious practice based on this worldview can and should be revitalized in our modern world."Discussing the relationship between the different Pagan religions, religious studies scholars Kaarina Aitamurto and Scott Simpson stated that they were "like siblings who have taken different paths in life but still retain many visible similarities".
However, while viewing different forms of Paganism as distinct religions in their own right, there has been much "cross-fertilization" between these different faiths. Accordingly, many groups have exerted an influence on, in turn have been influenced by, other Pagan religions, thus making clear-cut distinctions between them more difficult for religious studies scholars to make; the various Pagan religions have been academically classified as new religious movements, with the anthropologist Kathryn Rountree describing Paganism as a whole as a "new religious phenomenon". A number of academics in North America, have considered modern Paganism to be a form of nature religion; some practitioners eschew the term "Pagan" altogether, choosing not to define themselves as such, but rather under the more specific name of their religion, like Heathen or Wiccan. This is because the term "Pagan" has its origins in Christian terminology, which the Pagans wish to avoid; some favor the term "ethnic religion" over "Paganism" – for instance the World Pagan Congress, founded in 1998, soon renamed itself the European Congress of Ethnic Religions – enjoying that term's association with the Greek ethnos and the academic field of ethnology.
Within linguistically Slavic areas of Europe, the term "Native Faith" is favored as a synonym for Paganism, being rendered as Ridnovirstvo in Ukrainian, Rodnoverie in Russian, Rodzimowierstwo in Polish. Alternately, many practitioners within these regions view "Native Faith" as a category that exists within modern Paganism but which does not encompass all Pagan religions. Other terms sometimes favored by Pagans are "traditional religion", "indigenous religion", "nativist religion", "reconstructionism". Various Pagans – including those like Michael York and Prudence Jones who are active in Pagan studies – have argued that, due to similarities in their respective spiritual world-views, the modern Pagan movement can be treated as part of the same global phenomenon as both pre-Christian religion, living indigenou
Fushimi Inari-taisha
Fushimi Inari Taisha is the head shrine of the god Inari, located in Fushimi Ward in Kyoto, Japan. The shrine sits at the base of a mountain named Inari, 233 metres above sea level, includes trails up the mountain to many smaller shrines which span 4 kilometres and take 2 hours to walk up. First and foremost, Inari is the god of rice, but merchants and manufacturers have traditionally worshiped Inari as the patron of business; each of the torii at Fushimi Inari Taisha has been donated by a Japanese business. This popular shrine is said to have as many as 32,000 sub-shrines throughout Japan; the shrine became the object of imperial patronage during the early Heian period. In 965, Emperor Murakami decreed that messengers carry written accounts of important events to the guardian kami of Japan; these heihaku were presented to 16 shrines, including the Inari Shrine. From 1871 through 1946, Fushimi Inari-taisha was designated one of the Kanpei-taisha, meaning that it stood in the first rank of government supported shrines.
The earliest structures were built in 711 on the Inariyama hill in southwestern Kyoto, but the shrine was re-located in 816 on the request of the monk Kūkai. The main shrine structure was built in 1499. At the bottom of the hill are the main gate and the main shrine. Behind them, in the middle of the mountain, the inner shrine is reachable by a path lined with thousands of torii. To the top of the mountain are tens of thousands of mounds for private worship; the highlight of the shrine is the rows of torii gates, known as Senbon torii. The custom to donate a torii started to spread since the Edo period to get a wish to become true or to thank for a wish that became true. Along the main path there are around 1,000 torii gates. Foxes, regarded as the messengers, are found in Inari shrines. One attribute is a key in their mouths. Unlike most Shinto shrines, Fushimi Inari Taisha, in keeping with typical Inari shrines, has an open view of the main idol object. A drawing in Kiyoshi Nozaki's Kitsune: Japan's Fox of Mystery and Humor in 1786 depicting the shrine says that its two-story entry gate was built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
The shrine draws several million worshipers over the Japanese New Year, 2.69 million for 3 days in 2006 reported by the police, the most in western Japan. The shrine is just outside the Inari Station on the Nara Line of the West Japan Railway Company, a five-minute ride from Kyoto Station, it is a short walk from Fushimi-Inari Station on the Main Line of the Keihan Electric Railway. The shrine is open 24 hours with both the approach to the shrine and the Honden itself illuminated all night. There is no entrance fee. In the approach to the shrine are a number of sweet shops selling tsujiura senbei, a form of fortune cookie dating at least to the 19th century, which are believed by some to be the origin of the Chinese-American fortune cookie. Memoirs of a Geisha Aria the Natural ep. 5 Inari, Koi Iroha Rurouni Kenshin, site of Makoto Shishio's base Kamen Rider Fourze ep. 33 Samsara O-Inari JK Tamamo Chan! - Shown only as Inari Okami's house where she can manifest her form. And Tamamo and Osaki's house.
A part of the Noh play. List of Shinto shrines Twenty-Two Shrines Modern system of ranked Shinto Shrines Breen and Mark Teeuwen.. Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-2363-4 Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth.. Japan encyclopedia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5 Ponsonby-Fane, Richard.. Studies in Shinto and Shrines. Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society. OCLC 399449 Ponsonby-Fane, Richard; the Imperial House of Japan. Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society. OCLC 194887 Smyers, Karen A.. Inari pilgrimage: Following one’s path on the mountain, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 24, 427-452 Official Site Official Site Photographs of Fushimi Inari-taisha Accessibility information 96291583 Fushimi Inari-taisha on OpenStreetMap
Gavari
Gavari is a 40-day ecstatic dance drama tradition dedicated to the Shakti avatar Gavari, the principal deity of Mewar's Bhil tribe in Rajasthan, India. The Mewari Bhils honor Gavari as the creative protective spirit animating all life; this centuries-old ceremonial cycle employs austere discipline, enraptured trance, wild theatrics to convey ancient myths, historic events, tribal lore, satiric political commentary. Among all the world's folk performance traditions, it is quite unique with respect to its epiphanous energy, duration, ascetic rigour and inspirational messaging as well as its still mysterious provenance and genesis; each year, bhopa shamans from Mewar's Bhil communities petition the Goddess to permit their villagers to perform the Gavari ritual and to accompany them for the weeks of touring. The average wait time for her consent is about 4–5 years, once the ritual cycle begins, she must be invoked before each daily ceremony. Only when she visibly possesses one or more troupe members can the dance dramas begin and the ritual proceed.
Each of the 25-25 participating communities forms and dispatches its own Gavari company of 20-80 members. The troupes crisscross Mewar performing more than 600 day-long village ceremonies in all. In total, Gavari troupes in total can play to over a quarter of a million people annually. During the 40-day Gavari season, all players practice strict austerities to maintain reverent contact with the living earth and the immanent spirit, they avoid not only sex and meat, but shoes, beds and eating greens. They eat only a single meal each day during the season. In the final days, each troupe returns to its home village for a last performance and closing ceremonies; the cycle ends with an immersion rite to return the Goddess's fertility to their waters and all night raucous celebrations. A Gavari troupe repertoire may include 10-15 classic traditional tales and new ones are still evolving, but the overarching themes are the sacredness of the natural world, radical human equality, the feminine nature of the divine.
These values are reflected in traditional Bhil society where the environment is revered, hierarchy is abhorred, women enjoy greater rights and status than in communities outside. Among Gavari's many mythic dramas, two of the most popular and repeated are Badalya Hindawa and Bhilurana. Badalya Hindawa recounts how the Goddess re-greened the Earth after a life-erasing flood and fiercely defends it thereafter from greed and harm; the playlet features a powerful guru who loses his disciples beneath a sacred banyan tree and demands that the local king destroy it as an illicit source of power. The unnerved king has the tree cut down; the Goddess and her devi sisters are outraged at this desecration and slip into his court disguised as acrobatic dancers to exact revenge. They lure the king close with their artistry, reveal their true nature, indict him for cowardice and sacrilege, mortally terminate his reign. Bhilurana is the tale of a composite leader representing five centuries of Bhil resistance to intrusions of all kinds.
The play compresses and conflates the armed might of Turkic and British invaders and depicts Goddess-inspired Bhil warriors driving them all away with daring ambushes and shrewd guerrilla tactics. Both plays end with celebration, salutations to the Goddess, clear warnings to interlopers to never violate Nature or their sovereignty again. Gavari drama emphasis inspired improvisation over memorisation; the beginnings and ends of Gavari dramas are known, but how things transpire in between is mutable. There are no scripts and many players are illiterate farmers and labourers. Individual plays can continue for hours, contain long soliloquies and dialogues, are only performed by a particular troupe once on four or five years; this intuitive improvisational approach fosters great creative diversity and different villages may present the same stories in many different ways. Players strive to perform in a receptive trance known as bhava, which resembles the fluid creative state that musicians and athletes call "flow" or "the zone".
Depending on the day and the plays selected a single Gavari troupe can present dozens of different characters - goddess avatars, demons, historical figures, sacred animals, corrupt officials, etc. The only constant roles, which exist outside the dramas, are the Budia figure, his twin Rai devi consorts and Kutkadia, the master of ceremonies. Women are not allowed to tour as actors with the troupe due to the 4-5 day menstrual isolation Bhil women observe each month. All female characters are portrayed by men. Budia embodies a powerful fusion of Shaivite and demonic energies and is a vital protective Gavari figure, he is distinguished by sacred staff and twin Rai consorts. In each day's Gavari ceremony the Budia character has three main duties: circling the arena during opening invocations in the opposite direction as the dancers to seal in and protect the energy field they are generating; every Gavari village has its own iconic Budia mask, treated as a sacred object and handed down for generations.
One of India's oldest and largest tribes, the Bhil people have lived in the b
Shamanism
Shamanism is a practice that involves a practitioner reaching altered states of consciousness in order to perceive and interact with what they believe to be a spirit world and channel these transcendental energies into this world. A shaman is someone, regarded as having access to, influence in, the world of benevolent and malevolent spirits, who enters into a trance state during a ritual, practices divination and healing; the word "shaman" originates from the Tungusic Evenki language of North Asia. According to ethnolinguist Juha Janhunen, "the word is attested in all of the Tungusic idioms" such as Negidal, Udehe/Orochi, Ilcha, Orok and Ulcha, "nothing seems to contradict the assumption that the meaning'shaman' derives from Proto-Tungusic" and may have roots that extend back in time at least two millennia; the term was introduced to the west after Russian forces conquered the shamanistic Khanate of Kazan in 1552. The term "shamanism" was first applied by Western anthropologists as outside observers of the ancient religion of the Turks and Mongols, as well as those of the neighbouring Tungusic- and Samoyedic-speaking peoples.
Upon observing more religious traditions across the world, some Western anthropologists began to use the term in a broad sense. The term was used to describe unrelated magico-religious practices found within the ethnic religions of other parts of Asia, Africa and completely unrelated parts of the Americas, as they believed these practices to be similar to one another. Mircea Eliade writes, "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, the least hazardous, will be: shamanism ='technique of religious ecstasy'." Shamanism encompasses the premise that shamans are intermediaries or messengers between the human world and the spirit worlds. Shamans are said to treat ailments/illness by mending the soul. Alleviating traumas affecting the soul/spirit restores the physical body of the individual to balance and wholeness; the shaman enters supernatural realms or dimensions to obtain solutions to problems afflicting the community. Shamans may visit other worlds/dimensions to bring guidance to misguided souls and to ameliorate illnesses of the human soul caused by foreign elements.
The shaman operates within the spiritual world, which in turn affects the human world. The restoration of balance results in the elimination of the ailment. Beliefs and practices that have been categorized this way as "shamanic" have attracted the interest of scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, including anthropologists, historians, religious studies scholars and psychologists. Hundreds of books and academic papers on the subject have been produced, with a peer-reviewed academic journal being devoted to the study of shamanism. In the 20th century, many Westerners involved in the counter-cultural movement have created modern magico-religious practices influenced by their ideas of indigenous religions from across the world, creating what has been termed neoshamanism or the neoshamanic movement, it has affected the development of many neopagan practices, as well as faced a backlash and accusations of cultural appropriation and misrepresentation when outside observers have tried to represent cultures to which they do not belong.
The word shamanism derives from the Manchu-Tungus word šaman, meaning'one who knows'. The word "shaman" may have originated from the Evenki word šamán, most from the southwestern dialect spoken by the Sym Evenki peoples; the Tungusic term was subsequently adopted by Russians interacting with the indigenous peoples in Siberia. It is found in the memoirs of the exiled Russian churchman Avvakum; the word was brought to Western Europe in the late 17th century by the Dutch traveler Nicolaes Witsen, who reported his stay and journeys among the Tungusic- and Samoyedic-speaking indigenous peoples of Siberia in his book Noord en Oost Tataryen. Adam Brand, a merchant from Lübeck, published in 1698 his account of a Russian embassy to China; the etymology of the Evenki word is sometimes connected to a Tungus root ša- "to know". This has been questioned on linguistic grounds: "The possibility cannot be rejected, but neither should it be accepted without reservation since the assumed derivational relationship is phonologically irregular."
Other scholars assert that the word comes directly from the Manchu language, as such would be the only used English word, a loan from this language. However, Mircea Eliade noted that the Sanskrit word śramaṇa, designating a wandering monastic or holy figure, has spread to many Central Asian languages along with Buddhism and could be the ultimate origin of the Tungusic word; this proposal has been critiqued since 1917. Ethnolinguist Juha Janhunen regards it as an "anachronism" and an "impossibility", nothing more than a "far-fetched etymology."21st-century anthropologist and archeologist Silvia Tomaskova argues that by the mid-1600s, many Europeans applied the Arabic term shaitan to the non-Christian practices and beliefs of indigenous peoples beyond the Ural Mountains. She suggests that shaman may have entered the various Tungus dialects as a corruption of this term, been told to Christian missionaries, explorers and colonial administrators with whom the people had increasing contact for centuries.
Ethnolinguists did not develop as a discipline nor achieve contact with these communities until the late 19th century, may have mistakenly "read backward" in time for the origin of this word. A shamaness is somet
