Divining the Past

The Linguistic Reconstruction of 'African' Roots in Diasporic Ritual Registers and Songs

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3931963
AutoresK Wirtz (0000-0002-7342-4619, Western Michigan University, autor correspondente)
Ano2007
Volume37
Fascículo2
Páginas242-274
Data de publicação2007-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Religion in Africa (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0022-4200 • E-ISSN: 1570-0666
EditoraWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/157006607x166645
OpenAlexW2005627463
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas8
Referências citadas10

I examine the assumptions underlying scholars' use of etymological reconstruction to connect ritual registers in African diasporic religions with African 'sources', and to thereby reclaim African diasporic history by recovering 'lost' or hidden meanings. I compare these efforts to the interpretive practices of practitioners of Cuban Santería, who engage in textual and performative 'divinations' of hidden or lost meanings in Lucumí and in ritual modes of 'temporal telescoping' through which an African past becomes transcendent and ritually immanent. I suggest that religiously informed modes of historical subjectivity can illuminate the efforts of linguists and other scholars of the African diaspora who are engaged in seeking 'lost' or hidden memories and meanings and in 'temporal telescoping'. I argue that scholars of African diasporic religion and language must attend more carefully to issues of time, historical consciousness and historicity, especially as they are embedded in our own language ideologies and historiographic interpretive practices

Aesthetics · Anthropology of religion · Art · Consciousness · Diaspora · Epistemology · Historicity (philosophy) · Historiography · History of religions · Ideology · Linguistics · Literature · Performative utterance · Politics · Sociology · Subjectivity · Anthropology · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Cuban History and Society · Gender Studies · History · Philosophy