Indigenous Religions

Stephen Hunt is Reader in Sociology at the University of the West of England, UK

Contents: Introduction; Part I Rites of Passage and Sexuality: The timing and role of initiation rites in preparing young people for adolescence and responsible sexual and reproductive behaviour in Malawi, Alister C. Munthali and Eliya M. Zulu; Coming of age in Samoa and Nebraska, David Weisberg; Learning the facts of life: past and present experiences in a rural Tanzanian community, Denise Roth Allen; Growing yams and men: an interpretation of Kiman male ritualized homosexual behaviour, J. Patrick Gray; Liminal meanings: sexually charged Giriama funerary ritual and unsettled participant frameworks, Janet McIntosh. Part II Spiritual Possession, Witchcraft and Sexuality: Perversion of power, witchcraft and the sexuality of evil in the South African lowveld, Isak Niehaus; Witchcraft and the exchange of sex, blood, and money among Africans in Cape Town, South Africa, Erik Bähre; 'Broken calabashes and covenants of fruitfulness': cursing barrenness in contemporary African Christianity, J.Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu; Male homosexuality and spirit possession in Brazil, Peter Fry; Women heal women: spirit possession and sexual segregation in a Muslim society, Pamela Constantinides. Part III Gender and Sexuality: Manhood, warriorhood and sex in Eastern Africa: perspectives from the 19th and 20th centuries, Dent Ocaya-Lakidi; Sex, food and female power: discussion of data material from Northern Mozambique, Signe Arnfred; Heteronormativity and the deflection of male same-sex attraction among the Pitjantjatjara people of Australia's Western Desert, Jon Willis; Sexuality and gender in certain Native American tribes: the case of cross-gender females, Evelyn Blackwood; Queer Nahuatl: Sahagún's faggots and sodomites, lesbians and hermaphrodites, Peter Sigal. Part IV Social Transformations and Sexuality: Sexuality and cargo cults: the politics of gender and procreation in West New Britain, Andrew Lattas; Myth, pilgrimage and fascination in the Aiyappa cult. A view from field work in Ta