by June McDaniel (2004)
The Indian state of West Bengal is home to one of the world's most vibrant traditions of goddess worship. The year's biggest holidays are devoted to the goddesses Durga and Kali, with lavish rituals, decorated statues, fireworks, and parades. In Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls, June McDaniel provides a broad, accessibly written overview of Bengali goddess worship. McDaniel identifies three major forms of goddess worship, and examines each through its myths, folklore, songs, rituals, sacred texts, and practitioners. In the folk/tribal strand, which is found in rural areas, local tribal goddesses are worshipped alongside Hindu goddesses, with an emphasis on possession, healing, and animism. The tantric/yogic strand focuses on ritual, meditation, and visualization as ways of experiencing the power of the goddess directly. The devotional or bhakti strand, which is the most popular form, involves the intense love and worship of a particular form of the goddess. McDaniel traces these strands through Bengali culture and explores how they are interwoven with each other as well as with other forms of Hinduism. She also discusses how these practices have been reinterpreted in the West, where goddess worship has gained the values of sexual freedom and psychological healing, but lost its emphases on devotion and asceticism. Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls takes the reader inside the lives of practicing Shaktas, including holy women, hymn singers, philosophers, visionaries, gurus, ascetics, healers, musicians, and businessmen, and offers vivid descriptions of their rituals, practices, and daily lives. Drawing on years of fieldwork and extensive research, McDaniel paints a rich, expansive portrait of this fascinating religious tradition.
Anibal Faundes, Jose Barzelatto
Deeply touched by the tragedies of botched abortions that they witnessed as medical students and young physicians in Chile in the 1970s and later around the world, the authors have attempted in this book, to establish a framework for dialogue to replace the polarization that exists today.
Margaret L. Baker and Charles O. Baker
Dendrobium packs a tremendous amount of information in a simple-to-use format. It combines weather records and habitat reports with information from successful growers as the basis for cultural recommendations for all of the more than 1,200 dendrobium species. The book includes a general introduction to orchid culture, plus a detailed appendix on plant nutrients and orchid pests and diseases. Dendrobium growers around the world can continue to rely on the climate tables that provide specific information on the seasonal climate in each plant's native habitat. Numerous commercial growers have found that slight modifications in their growing conditions have dramatically improved the health and growth rates of their plants. By adjusting the length of the rest period, temperatures, humidity, or amount and timing of water and fertilizer, growers are able to solve growth problems and prevent disease.
Shoko Doode M., Emma Paulina Pérez, compiladoras
"Multidisciplinary collection consists of 20 articles divided into seven sections. Themes include impact of internationalization of agriculture on subsistence; national food policies; case studies in Sonora; relationship between food, nutrition, and health; historical analyses of food; culture and food; and an evaluation of Plan Sierra, an attempt at eco-development in the Dominican Republic"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 57.
Linda Whiteford and Scott Whiteford
"This book is about crime and passion, life and death, lofty goals and squalid realities. It is a book about water. Global disparities in health and access to water are two major threats to world stability. As international contracts and corporate agreements divert water from small communities to provide for larger cities, from households to supply agribusiness, conflicts sharpen among local communities, national governments, and international agencies such as the World Bank and the International Development Bank over the basic resources to support human life. In this book, leading anthropologists illuminate the global political inequities and resource management techniques that cause children to die and adults to sicken. Drawing on expertise in medical and ecological anthropology, the contributors challenge and deepen our understanding of the management, sale, and conceptualization of water as it affects human health. Designed for use by policymakers as well as researchers and students, the essays present complex realities in clear, accessible terms."--Jacket.