Until now few people have been aware of the prevalence of belief in some form of rebirth or reincarnation among North American native peoples. This collection of essays by anthropologists and one psychiatrist examines this concept among native American societies, from near the time of contact until the present day. Amerindian Rebirth opens with a foreword by Gananath Obeyesekere that contrasts North American and Hindu/Buddhist/Jain beliefs. The introduction gives an overview, and the first chapter summarizes the context, distribution, and variety of recorded belief. All the papers chronicle some aspect of rebirth belief in a number of different cultures. Essays cover such topics as seventeenth-century Huron eschatology, Winnebago ideology, varying forms of Inuit belief, and concepts of rebirth found among subarctic natives and Northwest Coast peoples. The closing chapters address the genesis and anthropological study of Amerindian reincarnation. In addition, the possibility of evidence for the actuality of rebirth is addressed. Amerindian Rebirth will further our understanding of concepts of self-identity, kinship, religion, cosmology, resiliency, and change among native North American peoples

With Karma and Rebirth: A Cross Cultural Study on the very first comparison of rebirth concepts across a wide range of cultures. Exploring in rich detail the beliefs of small scale indigenous societies of West Africa, Melanesia, and North America, Obeyesekere compares their ideas with those of the ancient and modern Indic civilizations and with the Greek rebirth theories of Pythagoras, Empedocles, Pindar and Plato. His groundbreaking and authoritiative discussion decenters the popular notion that India was the origin and locus of ideas of rebirth.

With 'Imagining Karma', Gananath Obeyesekere embarks on the comparison of rebirth concepts across a wide range of cultures. The book makes a case for disciplined comparison, a humane view of human nature, and a theoretical understanding of 'family resemblances' and differences across great cultural divides.

Reincarnation in America: An Esoteric History surveys the complex history of reincarnation theories across multiple fields of discourse in a pre-American context, ranging from early Greek traditions to Medieval Christian theories, Renaissance esotericism, and European Kabbalah, all of which had adherents that brought those theories to America. Rebirth theories are shown in all these groups to be highly complex and often disjunctive with mainstream religions even though members of conventional religions frequently affirm the possibility of rebirth. As a history of an idea, reincarnation theory is a current, vital belief pattern that cuts across a wide spectrum of social, cultural, and scientific domains in a long, complex history not reducible to any specific religious or theoretical explanation. This book is cross-disciplinary and multicultural, linking religious studies perspectives with science based research; it draws upon many distinct disciplines and avoids reduction of reincarnation to any specific theory. The underlying thesis is to demonstrate the complexity of reincarnation theories; what is unique is the historical overview and the gradual shift away from religious theories of rebirth to new theories that are therapeutic and trans-traditional.

"Everything you know about Indians is wrong." As the provocative title of Paul Chaat Smith's 2009 book proclaims, everyone knows about Native Americans, but most of what they know is the fruit of stereotypes and vague images. The real people, real communities, and real events of indigenous America continue to elude most people. The Oxford Handbook of American Indian History confronts this erroneous view by presenting an accurate and comprehensive history of the indigenous peoples who lived-and live-in the territory that became the United States. Thirty-two leading experts, both Native and non-Native, describe the historical developments of the past 500 years in American Indian history, focusing on significant moments of upheaval and change, histories of indigenous occupation, and overviews of Indian community life. The first section of the book charts Indian history from before 1492 to European invasions and settlement, analyzing US expansion and its consequences for Indian survival up to the twenty-first century. A second group of essays consists of regional and tribal histories. The final section illuminates distinctive themes of Indian life, including gender, sexuality and family, spirituality, art, intellectual history, education, public welfare, legal issues, and urban experiences. A much-needed and eye-opening account of American Indians, this Handbook unveils the real history often hidden behind wrong assumptions, offering stimulating ideas and resources for new generations to pursue research on this topic.

A Kindly Scrutiny of Human Nature is a collection of essays honouring Richard (Dick) Slobodin, one of the great anthropologists of the Canadian North. A short biography is followed by essays describing his formative thinking about human nature and human identities, his humanizing force in his example of living a moral, intellectual life, his discernment of people’s ability to make informed choices and actions, his freedom from ideological fashions, his writings about the Mackenzie District Métis, his determination to take peoples experience seriously, not metaphorically, and his thinking about social organization and kinship. An unpublished paper about a 1930s caribou hunt in which he participated finishes the collection, giving Dick the last word.

Here is an in-depth look at spiritual experiences about which very little has been written. Belief in reincarnation exists not only in India but in most small tribal societies throughout the world, including many Indian groups in North America. The reader is offered a rich tapestry of stories from a number of North American tribes about death, dying, and returning to this life. Included are stories from the Inuit of the polar regions; the Northwest Coast people, such as the Kwakiutl, the Gitxsan, the Tlingit, and the Suquamish; the Hopi and the Cochiti of the Southwest; the Winnebago of the Great Lakes region; the Cherokee of the Southeast,; and the Sioux people of the Plains area. Readers will learn about a Winnebago shaman's initiation, the Cherokee's Orpheus myth, the Hopi story of A Journey to the Skeleton House, the Inuit man who lived the lives of all animals, the Ghost Dance, and other extraordinary accounts. The ethnological record indicates reincarnation beliefs are found among the indigenous peoples on all continents of this earth as well as in most of the world's major religions. This book makes a valuable contribution towards having a deeper understanding of North American Indian spiritual beliefs.

Recent debates about the health of First Nations peoples have drawn a flurry of public attention and controversy, and have placed the relationship between Aboriginal well-being and reserve locations and allotments in the spotlight. Aboriginal access to medical care and the transfer of funds and responsibility for health from the federal government to individual bands and tribal councils are also bones of contention. Comprehensive discussion of such issues, however, has often been hampered by a lack of historical analysis. Colonizing Bodies examines the impact of colonization on Aboriginal health in British Columbia during the first half of the twentieth century. Mary-Ellen Kelm explores how Aboriginal bodies were materially affected by Canadian Indian policy, which placed restrictions on fishing and hunting, allocated inadequate reserves, forced children into unhealthy residential schools, and criminalized Indigenous healing. She goes on to consider how humanitarianism and colonial medicine were used to pathologize Aboriginal bodies and institute a regime of doctors, hospitals, and field matrons, all working to encourage assimilation. Finally, Kelm reveals how Aboriginal people were able to resist and alter these forces in order to preserve their own cultural understanding of their bodies, disease, and medicine.

Rebirth and the Stream of Life explores the diversity as well as the ethical and religious significance of rebirth beliefs, focusing especially on Hindu and Buddhist traditions but also discussing indigenous religions and ancient Greek thought. Utilizing resources from religious studies, anthropology and theology, an expanded conception of philosophy of religion is exemplified, which takes seriously lived experience rather than treating religious beliefs in isolation from their place in believers' lives. Drawing upon his expertise in interdisciplinary working and Wittgenstein-influenced approaches, Mikel Burley examines several interrelated phenomena, including purported past-life memories, the relationship between metaphysics and ethics, efforts to 'demythologize' rebirth, and moral critiques of the doctrine of karma. This range of topics, with rebirth as a unifying theme, makes the book of value to anyone interested in philosophy, the study of religions, and what it means to believe that we undergo multiple lives.

In a post-colonial world, the contributions of anthropologists living outside North America and Western Europe can no longer be treated as marginal. World Anthropologies in Practice demonstrates how global dialogues enable us to draw on local knowledge as well as differences of perspective to help overcome anthropology’s eternal struggle against ethnocentrism and to strengthen the subject’s relevance to the contemporary world.Based on contributions to the ASA-sponsored IUAES World Anthropology Congress in Manchester, UK, this truly global book brings together a wide range of international scholars who might otherwise not talk to each other. Featuring articles from leading figures in the field such as Yolanda Moses, Winnie Lem, Carmen Rial, Miriam Grossi, and Cristina Amescua, the volume covers topics as diverse as the mobility of Brazilian football players, toilets in South Africa, trade unions in Nepal and South Africa, peace-building in southern Thailand, museological approaches in China, the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami, immigration and race in the United States, and many more. Edited by John Gledhill, the text offers a much-needed insight into the way in which anthropology is developing worldwide and makes a tremendous contribution to the discussion of ‘world anthropologies’. An important, timely work for students and researchers.