Honoring Elders

Aging, Authority, and Ojibwe Religion
Erscheinungsjahr 2009
ISBN: 978-0-231-14503-9
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 408 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 237 mm x 163 mm, Gewicht: 724 g

Reihe: Religion and American Culture

Like many Native Americans, Ojibwe people esteem the wisdom, authority, and religious significance of old age, but this respect does not come easily or naturally. It is the fruit of hard work, rooted in narrative traditions, moral vision, and ritualized practices of decorum that are comparable in sophistication to those of Confucianism. Even as the dispossession and policies of assimilation have threatened Ojibwe peoplehood and have targeted the traditions and the elders who embody it, Ojibwe and other Anishinaabe communities have been resolute and resourceful in their disciplined respect for elders. Indeed, the challenges of colonization have served to accentuate eldership in new ways.Using archival and ethnographic research, Michael D. McNally follows the making of Ojibwe eldership, showing that deference to older women and men is part of a fuller moral, aesthetic, and cosmological vision connected to the ongoing circle of life& mdash;a tradition of authority that has been crucial to surviving colonization. McNally argues that the tradition of authority and the authority of tradition frame a decidedly indigenous dialectic, eluding analytic frameworks of invented tradition and naïve continuity. Demonstrating the rich possibilities of treating age as a category of analysis, McNally provocatively asserts that the elder belongs alongside the priest, prophet, sage, and other key figures in the study of religion.

Autoren/Hrsg.

McNally, Michael D.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Sonstige Religionen Religiöse Institutionen & Gemeinschaften, Klerus, Mönchstum
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Philosophische Anthropologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of IllustrationsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Aging and the Life Cycle Imagined in Ojibwe Tradition and Lived in History2. Eldership, Respect, and the Sacred Community3. Elders as Grandparents and Teachers4. Elders Articulating Tradition5. The Sacralization of Eldership6. The Shape of WisdomNotesBibliographyIndex

Über Autor(innen)

Michael D. McNally is associate professor of religion at Carleton College. He is the author of Ojibwe Singers: Hymns, Grief, and a Native Culture in Motion and Art of Tradition: Sacred Music, Dance, and Myth of Michigan's Anishinaabe 1946-1955.