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Mar’a Sabina: Selections (Poets for the Millennium, 2)
A shaman and visionary--not a poet in any ordinary sense--María Sabina lived out her life in the Oaxacan mountain village of Huautla de Jiménez, and yet her words, always sung or spoken, have carried far and wide, a principal instance and a powerful reminder of how poetry can arise in a context far removed from literature as such. Seeking cures through language--with the help of Psilocybe mushrooms, said to be the source of language itself--she was, as Henry Munn describes her, "a genius [who] emerges from the soil of the communal, religious-therapeutic folk poetry of a native Mexican campesino people." She may also have been, in the words of the Mexican poet Homero Aridjis, "the greatest visionary poet in twentieth-century Latin America." These selections include a generous presentation from Sabina's recorded chants and a complete English translation of her oral autobiography, her vida, as written and arranged in her native language by her fellow Mazatec Alvaro Estrada. Accompanying essays and poems include an introduction to "The Life of María Sabina" by Estrada, an early description of a nighttime "mushroom velada" by the ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson, an essay by Henry Munn relating the language of Sabina's chants to those of other Mazatec shamans, and more..
Price: $10.79
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Napi
Napí is a young Mazateca girl who lives with her family in a village on the bank of a river in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Each afternoon the family sits beneath the shade of a huge ceiba tree and listens to the grandfather's stories. As Napí listens, she imagines different colors — orange, purple, violet, and green. When night comes, the trees fill with white herons settling on their branches. The ceiba tree sends Napí dreams every night, and in her favorite one, she becomes a heron, gliding freely along the river. Domi's vibrant palette and magical illustrations perfectly complement this imaginative story. .
Price: $9.52
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The Devil's Book of Culture: History, Mushrooms, and Caves in Southern Mexico
"The author's elegant prose, at times raw, and peppered with colorful vignettes exposing the many foibles of fieldwork, makes for pleasurable and engaging reading. Perhaps more importantly, Feinberg's work represents a significant theoretical contribution to the study of ethnic identity in Oaxaca, a topic of considerable anthropological narration. It demands a thorough reexamination of the very ways in which we study and write about indigenous "culture" by looking at how Mazatec identity is constructed through a host of intersecting metacultural discourses, including those of its ethnographers. While based on regionally specific ethnographic material, I highly recommend Feinberg's book not only to anthropologists, but also historians and others interested in critical theory and identity formation, as well as cultural and historical representation." —The Americas ...Feinberg's insights are penetrating and he makes important contributions to theoretical critiques of the concept of culture. —The Journal of Latin American Anthropology "This book looks at the Sierra Mazateca and its inhabitants in a fresh, engaging, intelligent, and interesting way.... It will be useful to readers in various fields who are interested in ethnicity, identity, history, and/or ethnography." —Brian Stross, Professor of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin
Since the 1950s, the Sierra Mazateca of Oaxaca, Mexico, has drawn a strange assortment of visitors and pilgrims—schoolteachers and government workers, North American and European spelunkers exploring the region's vast cave system, and counterculturalists from hippies (John Lennon and other celebrities supposedly among them) to New Age seekers, all chasing a firsthand experience of transcendence and otherness through the ingestion of psychedelic mushrooms "in context" with a Mazatec shaman. Over time, this steady incursion of the outside world has significantly influenced the Mazatec sense of identity, giving rise to an ongoing discourse about what it means to be "us" and "them." In this highly original ethnography, Benjamin Feinberg investigates how different understandings of Mazatec identity and culture emerge through talk that circulates within and among various groups, including Mazatec-speaking businessmen, curers, peasants, intellectuals, anthropologists, bureaucrats, cavers, and mushroom-seeking tourists. Specifically, he traces how these groups express their sense of culture and identity through narratives about three nearby yet strange discursive "worlds"—the "magic world" of psychedelic mushrooms and shamanic practices, the underground world of caves and its associated folklore of supernatural beings and magical wealth, and the world of the past or the past/present relationship. Feinberg's research refutes the notion of a static Mazatec identity now changed by contact with the outside world, showing instead that identity forms at the intersection of multiple transnational discourses. .
Price: $23.95
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Napi Goes to the Mountain
When their father disappears one day, Napí and her little brother Niclé decide to leave their village to find him. They set off upriver on a raft. As they go, their search assumes a magical quality and becomes a journey of self-discovery. Turtles carry the raft on their backs; the children are transformed into deer; and other animals offer help and advice. Finally, an armadillo tells them that if they return home, they will find a big surprise awaiting them. Featuring richly evocative art by the award-winning illustrator Domi, Napí Goes to the Mountain has the imaginative interest and timeless appeal of the Mexican folk culture that inspired it. .
Price: $4.00
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Napi: Spanish-Language Edition
Napí is a young Mazateca girl who lives with her family in a village on the bank of a river in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Each afternoon the family sits beneath the shade of a huge ceiba tree and listens to the grandfather's stories. As Napí listens, she imagines different colors — orange, purple, violet, and green. When night comes, the trees fill with white herons settling on their branches. The ceiba tree sends Napí dreams every night, and in her favorite one, she becomes a heron, gliding freely along the river. Domi's vibrant palette and magical illustrations perfectly complement this imaginative story. .
Price: $9.52
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
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