Description
Book SynopsisThe Samburu of northern Kenya struggle to maintain their pastoral way of life as drought and the side effects of globalization threaten both their livestock and their livelihood. Mirroring this divide between survival and ruin are the lines between the self and the other, the living and the dead, this side and inia bata, that side. Cultural anthropologist Bilinda Straight, who has lived with the Samburu for extended periods since the 1990s, bears witness to Samburu life and death in Miracles and Extraordinary Experience in Northern Kenya.
Written mostly in the field, Miracles and Extraordinary Experience in Northern Kenya is the first book-length ethnography completely devoted to Samburu divinity and belief. Here, child prophets recount their travels to heaven and back. Others report transformations between persons and inanimate objects. Spirit turns into action and back again. The miraculous is interwoven with the mundane as the Samburu continue their day
Trade Review
"An engaging, provocative intervention in cultural theory." * Journal of the American Academy of Religion *
"Straight's . . . work reminds the reader of the important ways that theory and ethnography can mutually inform and illuminate, and the book is an important contribution to the existing literature for both area specialist and the theoretically inclined." * American Anthropologist *
Table of Contents
List of Figures
Author's Note
Chapter One: Experience
Chapter Two: Signs
Chapter Three: Nkai
Chapter Four: Latukuny
Chapter Five: N'goki
Chapter Six: Death
Chapter Seven: Resurrection
Chapter Eight: Loip
Chapter Nine: Conclusion
Glossary
Notes
Appendices
Bibliography
Index
