La 'grande chasse' chez les Pygmées Baka du Sud-Est Cameroun. Contribution à l'Anthropologie de l'environnement.

This thesis focuses on “The “great hunting” among the Baka pygmies of the Southeastern Cameroon. A contribution to Anthropology of environment. The problematic in the study is the confrontation of great hunting among the Baka with the institutional, socio-economic and ecological change in forest. The goal is to analyze the mechanisms of adaptation of this game against these changes that affect the Baka environment. The proposed hypothesis suggests that Baka Pygmies have restructured the preparatory ceremonies of the great hunting following changes that occurred in their environmental milieu. Certain ritual animals have been substituted. Hunting lands, tools, methods and periods were also modified. The great hunting is opened to Baka hunters and non Baka hunters. Qualitative techniques, including observation, interviews and focus group discussions were used for data collection. The observations allowed us to understand the reality of driving forces in the forest as well as tools for hunting, hunting land and even the species sought. Interviews and focus group discussions were consolidated data on the ancient practice of hunting for rituals like Jengi and Beka, on the current practice of this hunting and on the impact of the of the modification of this hunting practice on the Baka culture. The results of this research show that the Baka have taken important measure to adapt their great hunting to the changing time and space. But the restructuring of this hunting varies from one village to another. As and when we leave the depths of the forest to the city of Yokadouma the great hunting is practiced less and less. Baka use illegal hunting tools and even fully protected species in their great hunting and in rituals celebrations. The overexploitation of forest resources, the creation of protected areas, full protection of certain large mammals and the action of ecoguards are something of an obstacle to the ancient practice of hunting for ritual. In most of camp where hunting is no more existing, ritual ceremonies are less and less celebrated. The study is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is related to the literature review, the theoretical framework, the definition of concepts, the second focuses on the geographical presentation of the study area, the third chapter looks at factors affecting the great hunting, the fourth chapter deal with the changes observed in the Baka’s great hunting, and the fifth chapter examines consequences of the restriction or suppression of the hunt on the Baka socio culture.

Bacchus and Civic Order: The Culture of Drink in Early Modern Germany / Bacchus und die bürgerliche Ordnung. Die Kultur des Trinkens im frühneuzeitlichen Augsburg

Lining the streets inside the city's gates, clustered in its center, and thinly scattered among its back quarters were Augsburg's taverns and drinking rooms. These institutions ranged from the poorly lit rooms of backstreet wine sellers to the elaborate marble halls frequented by society's most privileged members. Urban drinking rooms provided more than food, drink, and lodging for their guests. They also conferred upon their visitors a sense of social identity commensurate with their status. Like all German cities, Augsburg during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had a history shaped by the political events attending the Reformation, the post-Reformation, and the Thirty Years' War; its social and political character was also reflected and supported by its public and private drinking rooms. In Bacchus and Civic Order: The Culture of Drink in Early Modern Germany, Ann Tlusty examines the social and cultural functions served by drinking and tavern life in Germany between 1500 and 1700, and challenges existing theories about urban identity, sociability, and power. Through her reconstruction of the social history of Augsburg, from beggars to council members, Tlusty also sheds light on such diverse topics as social ritual, gender and household relations, medical practice, and the concerns of civic leaders with public health and poverty. Drunkenness, dueling, and other forms of tavern comportment that may appear "disorderly" to us today turn out to be the inevitable, even desirable result of a society functioning according to its own rules.

Freiheitsheld und Symbolfigur: Der Pilsudski-Kult als Mittel nationaler Identitäts- und Bewusstseinsbildung

Der Pilsudski-Kult ist ein typischer politischer Kult, der durch die Komponenten Mythos, Ritual und Symbole sowie durch eine damit einhergehende Institutionalisierung definiert wird. In den Ausdrucks- und Vermittlungsformen ähneln sich politische Kulte, während die inhaltlichen Aspekte Bezug auf die jeweiligen Traditionen und den historischen Kontext nehmen müssen. Da der Totenkult um Pilsudski auf dem Personenkult aufbaut, wird dieser seit dem Ersten Weltkrieg bis 1935 skizziert und im Folgenden die Begräbnisfeierlichkeiten als Katalysator und Auftakt des Totenkultes, der Totenkult selbst bis 1939 und die Ausdrucksformen und Funktionen des Kultes bis 1939 dargestellt. Anschließend wird dessen Entwicklung im Zweiten Weltkrieg, in der Pilsudski-nahen Emigration, während der Volksrepublik Polen und in der Dritten Republik untersucht. Es soll verdeutlicht werden, dass man den Pilsudski-Kult jederzeit politisch instrumentalisierte, wobei der Mythos als inhaltlicher Bestandteil jeweils nuanciert wurde. Er erhielt legitimatorische und über die Zeit der Zweiten Republik hinausführend identitätsstiftende Funktionen und beeinflusste das historische Gedächtnis.

Judaism and Emotion - Texts, Performance, Experience

Judaism and Emotion breaks with stereotypes that, until recently, branded Judaism as a rigid religion of laws and prohibitions. Instead, authors from different fields of research discuss the subject of Judaism and emotion from various scholarly perspectives; they present an understanding of Judaism that does not exclude spirituality and emotions from Jewish thought. In doing so, the contributions account for the relation between the representation of emotion and the actual emotions that living and breathing human beings feel in their everyday lives. While scholars of rabbinic studies and theology take a historical-critical and socio-historical approach to the subject, musicologists and scholars of religious studies focus on the overall research question of how the literary representations of emotion in Judaism are related to ritual and musical performances within Jewish worship. They describe in a more holistic fashion how Judaism serves to integrate various aspects of social life. In doing so, they examine the dynamic interrelationship between Judaism, cognition, and culture.

Russian language maintenance through bedtime story reading?: Linguistic strategies and language negotiation in Russian-French speaking families in Switzerland

This article proposes an interactional approach to the question of Russian language maintenance through the activity of bedtime story-reading in Russian-French bilingual families in French speaking Switzerland. Reading stories appears to be a language maintenance strategy commonly employed by the Russian speaking parent. The ritual and recreational moment of story-reading therefore becomes an opportunity for language learning. Drawing upon a language socialization perspective, this paper proposes an interactional analysis of the language use in the activity of story-reading. It shows how the language choice of the participants may be requested, negotiated and challenged during the interaction. The analysis further informs us about the language choice pattern and the bilingual competences in these families. We will gain insight into (Russian) language maintenance as a daily social and linguistic practice.

The “Out of Africa Tribe” (II): Paleolithic warriors with big canoes and protective weapons

It is generally difficult to establish a timeline for the appearance of different technologies and tools during human cultural evolution. Here I use stochastic character mapping of discrete traits using human mtDNA phylogenies rooted to the Reconstructed Sapiens Reference Sequence (RSRS) as a model to address this question. The analysis reveals that the ancestral state of Homo sapiens was hunting, using material innovations that included bows and arrows, stone axes and spears. However, around 80,000 y before present, a transition occurred, from this ancestral hunting tradition, toward the invention of protective weapons such as shields, the appearance of ritual fighting as a socially accepted behavior and the construction of war canoes for the fast transport of large numbers of warriors. This model suggests a major cultural change, during the Palaeolithic, from hunters to warriors. Moreover, in the light of the recent Out of Africa Theory, it suggests that the “Out of Africa Tribe” was a tribe of warriors that had developed protective weapons such as shields and used big war canoes to travel the sea coast and big rivers in raiding expeditions.