Indigenous Religions

Overview

This volume on Indigenous Religions in The Library of Essays on Sexuality and Religion series focuses on indigenous religions and their attitudes towards human sexuality. Through previously-published articles the volume gives full scope to attitudes towards sexuality found in a vast range of contrasting expressions of religiosity outside of the so-called World Faiths.

Geographical Scope

Examples are taken from cultures as far afield as Africa, Australasia, South America and the Pacific islands.

Content Structure

Part 1 includes a number of articles centring on the role of sexuality in rites of passage and initiation in relation to liminality, maturity and reproduction.

Part 2 examines the relationship between sexuality, spirit possession and witchcraft.

Part 3 includes such areas as religion, gender, patriarchy and both hetero-sexuality and non-heterosexuality.

Final Part

The final part considers sexuality and indigenous religions in a changing and globalised world and entails the themes of sexuality as expressed through cargo cults, pilgrimage and religiosity in the context of colonial dominance.