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In praise of the ancestors : names, identity, and memory in Africa and the Americas

Title: In praise of the ancestors : names, identity, and memory in Africa and the Americas / Susan Elizabeth Ramírez.
Author: Ramírez, Susan E., 1946-
Publication: Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, [2022]

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Request for On-site Use Request Scan Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schomburg Center to submit a request in person.	Text	Use in library	Sc E 22-1382	Schomburg Center - Research & Reference

Details

Description

227 pages : illustrations, maps; 24 cm.

Summary

"In Praise of the Ancestors is a revisionist interpretation of early colonial accounts and sources that reveal incongruities in accepted knowledge among the Indigenous peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, the North American Great Lakes regions, and the Andes"--
"Apart from collective memories of lived experiences, much of the modern world's historical sense comes from written sources stored in the archives of the world, and some scholars in the not-so-distant past have described unlettered civilizations as "peoples without history." In Praise of the Ancestors is a revisionist interpretation of early colonial accounts that reveal incongruities in accepted knowledge about three Native groups. Susan Elizabeth Ramírez reevaluates three case studies of oral traditions using positional inheritance-a system in which names and titles are inherited from one generation by another and thereby contribute to the formation of collective memories and a group identity. Ramírez begins by examining positional inheritance and perpetual kinship among the Kazembes in central Africa from the eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Next, her analysis moves to the Native groups of the Iroquois Confederation and their practice of using names to memorialize remarkable leaders in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Finally, Ramírez surveys naming practices of the Andeans, based on sixteenth-century manuscript sources and later testimonies found in Spanish and Andean archives, questioning colonial narratives by documenting the use of this alternative system of memory perpetuation, which was initially unrecognized by the Spaniards. In the process of reexamining the histories of Native peoples on three continents, Ramírez broaches a wider issue: namely, understanding of the nature of knowledge as fundamental to understanding and evaluating the knowledge itself. "--

Series Statement

Borderlands and Transcultural Studies

Alternative Title

Names, identity, and memory in Africa and the Americas

Subject

Genre/Form

Case studies.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 177-215) and index.
Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Alternative Ways of Remembering and Knowing -- "Positional Inheritance" in Africa -- The Narration of Ho-De'-No-Sau-Nee (Iroquois) History -- The Making of Andean Ancestral Traditions -- Reflections on Oral Traditions as History.

Call Number

Sc E 22-1382

ISBN

9781496230256
1496230256
9781496231475
1496231473

LCCN

2021058268

OCLC

1261877326

Author

Ramírez, Susan E., 1946- author.

Title

In praise of the ancestors : names, identity, and memory in Africa and the Americas / Susan Elizabeth Ramírez.

Publisher

Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, [2022]

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Borderlands and Transcultural Studies

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 177-215) and index.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Research Call Number

Sc E 22-1382

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