Nana Edum-ekyir: an oak tree in Apewosika village. Nana Nkodwobum : a hillock on which pieces of manganese were found at Abowinmu. Nana Ebokwesi : a stone in Kukwado village. Nana Gyankobir : a hill on western side of Beulah lane. Nana Biba Tsintsin : a rock in front of Abrofo Mpoanu. Nana Abaka Tunfu : a rock in a grove at Kwesi Ipra village.
Nana Saadwi : a rock in Asikam Mpoanu. Nana Tsimtsimhwe : a stream flowing from Mfiriisim into Fosu lagoon. Sa-Sa Kwesi : a rock in Amamoma village, a god in charge of battle line.
Nana Mponasi : a tree in the Cape Coast University maintenance yard. Nana Mpona : a rock in the sea near Duakor. Nana Adam : a rock in Akyim village. Nana Abaka : a rock at the right side of Abakam, Elmina Road. Nana Tansar : a rock in Abrafo Mpoanu. Duakor : a rock in the sea but its shrine is on the way to Kukwado village near the university.
Nana Bura : a pond from which a stream flow into Anowuraba. Nana Mbodambo-mbodambo : a stone once in the site between Central Hospital and Fosu lagoon.
Emutu : a lagoon at Ekon. Abosantsin : a rock at Aban-akyir. Kwesinyinmarfo : a stone which was on the south of the Victoria Park now removed.
Nana Abaka Bonso : a rock in Idan Sea. Nana Boambradu : a rock in the Idan Sea. Nana Asika : a rock in shore to rocky lane. Nana Biba Kessi : a rock adjacent to Akroma Kodwo. Nana Ekumbrofu : a rock in the sea at Abrofu-Mpoanu. Nana Akroma Kodwo : a rock in the sea in front of the large rock in south-eastern part of the castle. Nana Bakumpe : a pond at Apewosika village. Nsokora : a rock behind the Cape Coast Castle in south-west. Nana Biba Kessi : a rock behind the house of the head of Ebiradze family.
Nana Ibintutu : a rock in Idun Sea. Nana Abaka Bronyi : a rock in the distance between Amunakofua and Bontsin. Nana Ayenbiba : a rock on shore in front of Etueyi. Nana Burabin : a tree at the University of Cape Coast transport yard.
Nana Miribimko : a bird at the Fosu lagoon area known to be removing fallen leaves from the water. Nana Eukyia Miensa : a triangular stone at Amanful Abanakyir. Nana Senaman : a stone that emits fire when and where necessary at the No. It is celebrated in the first week of September. African Cultural Values. Accra: Sankofa Publishing Company; London: Heinemann; Introduction to African Religion.
Oxford: Heinemann International Literature and Textbooks; According to Kofi Asare Opoku, all African societies have specific names for God which express the African idea of the uniqueness of God xviii.
Most of these names are true reflection of the attributes given to God. In this paper, there is a discussion on some indigenous Fante names of God and how they correlate with the attributes of God in the life and thought of the Oguaa people.
Names are very significant in the Fante culture. Names are to give specific identity to the bearers. The one who bears the name must be worthy of it and must live the implication of the name. Names are believed to influence the character of the person.
It is only those who are accepted as legitimate members of the family that are given names in the family. In his extensive contribution to the Akan meaning of God, J. For J. The indigenes of Oguaa use three distinctive names for the Supreme Being. These names bring to light the thoughts of the people concerning the Supreme Being. These names were not revealed to them by the Supreme Being as He revealed his name to those in other religions such as Islam and Judaism.
These names were constructed by the indigenes from how they experience the Supreme Being. All other names used apart from these three are His attributes. The most used name of the Supreme Being among Akans in general is Onyame. Anthropologists such as Rattray and Field have made us believe that Onyame is the sky God. Perhaps associating Onyame with the sky God arose out of the Akan myth of the old lady pounding fufu who drove God away with her long pestle xxii or the myth of the woman who used to cut the clouds into her soup or the one who usually washed her dirty hands in the clouds.
These myths express the notion that Onyame moved far away into the sky. We need to acknowledge that the name Onyame was not coined purposely for the myth. The name Onyame has existed in the mind and on the tongue of the people long before the myth was said. The essence of these myths concerning Onyame moving far into the sky is to elaborate the fact that in Akan religious thought, sin creates a big distance between nyimpa dasanyi human being and Onyame , so there is the need to avoid sin.
Once Onyame has nothing to do with the sky God, then what is the meaning of such a name? The meaning of the name is rooted in its etymology. There are two schools of thought concerning the etymology of the name. According to one school of thought championed by J. Danquah, Onyame or Nyame is derived from the word enyim-nyam literally meaning splendor of the face, shining, bright, glory, excellency, honor, dignity.
Enyimnyanfo translated into English is a dignified, distinguished or honorable person. The other school is of the opinion that two words are joined together to form Onyame. For some First Nations, ceremonies and traditions marking big life moments may be integrated into seasonal hunting activities. Persons who are knowledge keepers or Elders in the community may also require time off to lead or support ceremonies for other community members.
People may sometimes require time off for grieving. There is a Code duty to accommodate such practices, when based on Indigenous spiritual beliefs or customs. For example, the grieving period may extend beyond the time allocated for grieving in an organization's policy or collective agreement. People may also need time off to observe or lead grieving practices for persons who are not immediate family members, where this is called for by cultural-spiritual custom or tradition.
Organizational policy and collective agreement terms should not be used as a basis to deny people accommodation to observe a bereavement practice connected to an Indigenous spiritual belief or custom. See section What is sacred then is more than a single burial location. As well, instruments created to celebrate stories and ceremonies, protect medicines and honour our ancestors are sacred Access to, use and preservation of ancestral burial grounds, sacred ceremonial sites and other sacred sites are integral to Indigenous Spirituality.
The courts have recognized the territorial aspect to the exercise of religious rights and customs of Indigenous peoples. Ancestral burial grounds are among the more well-known types of sites that Indigenous peoples consider sacred. It is the obligation of the Living to ensure that their relatives are buried in the proper manner and in the proper place and to protect them from disturbance or desecration. Failure to perform this duty harms not only the Dead but also the Living.
The Dead need to be sheltered and fed, to be visited and feasted. These traditions continue to exhibit powerful continuity. As such, Anishnaabeg treat the bones of their ancestors with great reverence, and abhor the disturbance of graves. This has been their way since time immemorial, and will be their way ever-more. To us, our ancestors are alive and they come and sit with us when we drum and sing. We did not bury them in coffins, so they became inseparable from the soil.
They are literally and spiritually, part of the earth that is so a part of us. That is one reason why we have such a strong feeling for the land of our traditional territories — our ancestors are everywhere. It is a sacrilege to disturb even the soil of a burial ground. It is an outrage to disturb, in any way, actual remains. Government and regulatory bodies involved in development and planning activities including policy or law-making that may have a negative impact on Indigenous peoples' ability to practice Indigenous Spirituality should consider, prevent and mitigate such impacts.
Indigenous peoples should be consulted and involved in decision-making processes to further prevent and mitigate negative impacts and facilitate inclusive design. RCAP also recommended an inventory of historical and sacred sites, legislation to ensure that Aboriginal peoples can prevent or arrest damage to these sites, and a review of legislation affecting the conservation and display of cultural artifacts to ensure that Aboriginal peoples are involved.
The provincial government should work with First Nations and Aboriginal organizations to develop policies that acknowledge the uniqueness of Aboriginal burial and heritage sites, ensure that First Nations are aware of decisions affecting Aboriginal burial and heritage sites, and promote First Nations participation in decision-making.
These rules and policies should eventually be incorporated into provincial legislation, regulations, and other government policies as appropriate. It would also promote consistency and conformity in their application. This is to include the provision of appropriate memorial ceremonies and commemorative markers to honour the deceased children. The OHRC has made recommendations to better address the human rights and Aboriginal rights implications of provincial land use planning.
The PPS defines cultural heritage to include, among other things, buildings, structures, monuments and geographical areas that may have been modified by human activity. The PPS encourages coordination with Aboriginal communities [] when dealing with planning matters, including managing natural and cultural heritage and archaeological resources. The Crown including both the federal and provincial government has a fiduciary duty to consult and accommodate Indigenous peoples when it considers actions or decisions that may affect potential or established Aboriginal or Treaty claim or rights under the Constitution.
Freedom of religion under section 2 a of the Charter may also extend rights protections relating to access to, preservation of and use of sacred sites and objects. These religious rights do not require that the Indigenous spiritual belief or practice existed since the time of pre-European contact. UNDRIP contains important provisions that should guide and inform enforcing human rights protections relating to Indigenous peoples' right to access, use and preserve sacred sites and objects.
Indigenous groups, by the fact of their very existence, have the right to live freely in their own territory; the close ties of indigenous people with the land must be recognized and understood as the fundamental basis of their cultures, their spiritual life, their integrity, and their economic survival. For indigenous communities, relations to the land are not merely a matter of possession and production but [have] a material and spiritual element which they must fully enjoy, even to preserve their cultural legacy and transmit it to future generations.
As part of the duty to accommodate, organizations may also be obliged to facilitate and not prevent access to sacred objects and items required to observe an Indigenous spiritual practice in a Code social area. When he said that it contained tobacco, he was told to remove it as tobacco is not allowed in school.
Example : Recognizing the close relationship between traditional Anishnaabe food consumption and health, culture, spirituality and identity, the Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre SLMHC offers all patients traditional foods miichim once a week in accordance with nutritional guidelines.
The hospital, which serves many northwestern Ontario Indigenous peoples, also offers a selection of premade frozen miichim meals to patients who are interested in staying with their traditional diets on a daily basis. SLMHC negotiated with relevant authorities to get exemptions from legislation and regulations that would otherwise have prevented the hospital from receiving, storing and serving uninspected food and game including moose, caribou, beaver, small game, whitefish, geese, ducks, local blueberries and wild rice, etc.
Appropriate forms of accommodation should not create undue delays or pose unnecessary barriers to access such items, nor risk the integrity of such objects, in violation of Indigenous Spiritual norms, customs, laws and standards. Example : Prison authorities subject Elders who provide spiritual support to Indigenous inmates to lengthy search and screening processes upon entry, inappropriately handling sacred ceremonial objects and medicines in the process.
Their handling of such objects effectively renders them unusable for the intended purposes, due to Indigenous customary laws governing this. Example : A court room has a ventilated smudge room that also contains sacred items such as the Eagle feather. When persons involved in court proceedings request to hold a feather during the proceeding, they are told the smudge room is locked and are effectively denied from doing so. In exceptional cases, there may be a bona fide requirement to search, handle or limit access to items as set out in section 9.
Example: The Toronto Zoo developed a protocol, guideline and education for employees on how to gather, keep and distribute Eagle feathers.
It is offensive for an Eagle feather to be handled by someone other than the persons prescribed by customary law. Ontario Code 35 table. Statistics Canada Catalogue no. Released November 13, Retrieved September 9, from www Nationally, just over 64, people reported in this survey that they were affiliated with traditional Aboriginal Spirituality, representing 4. Most of the people who affiliated with traditional Aboriginal Spirituality lived in Ontario Others may identify with Indigenous Spirituality as a cultural identity or perspective, without necessarily believing in a Creator or spiritual realm.
Burrows, J. Moon Ed. Toronto: UBC Press. See Fleming, J. See also Waldram, J. Irwin Ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Cited in Dr. Edward in Hamilton Health Sciences Corp. Hill, who testified during the hearing in D. Aboriginal Education Directorate. Retrieved July 24, from www. Yet organizations tend only to view the latter as being protected under the Code ground of creed. Aboriginal spirituality and the construction of freedom of religion. In Beaman, L.
Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press Inc. These scholars show how religious freedom and equality laws have often been interpreted to protect only a narrow range of what is considered sacred and spiritual from an Indigenous perspective. The missing link: tolerance, acceptance, accommodation and…equality. Canadian Diversity, 9 3 , Retrieved from www.
Its power was used to create the world and human beings. It has provided medicine, food, and a livelihood. It is up to humans to be responsible for themselves. In the following section the Bidor Semai story about the creation of humans, as conveyed to us by our key informants, is analysed. It made the first couple and then it disappeared into nothingness. This primordial force created a man and a woman from wax. However, after they were created they melted away.
This force then took some earth and again created the form of a man and a woman. This primordial force found that life was very heavy, and on its way back to earth it was very curious to see what life was like.
It wondered how something so intangible could be so heavy. When this thought appeared in its mind, its middle finger started to open up and life escaped. The primordial force brought it back to earth and filled the two humans with life.
The first couple was Semai. From them were born one couple each of Malay, Chinese, Indian, and Negro 9 people. This is why these different ethnic groups have great similarities in their physical appearance and in their cultures. After that the primordial force created another couple from clay. They were the original white couple, and from them were born Arabs, Europeans, Bengalis, and all other white people. Creation stories tell us something about how people conceive the nature and origin of the creative power.
The main actors in this myth can be interpreted as metaphors for ancient sexual identities. Whether the creator is conceived as masculine or feminine has important consequences for the evolution of the authority relationship between the sexes Sanday For the Semai, the ungendered creator and the simultaneous creation of the first woman and man means that an authority relationship between the sexes is not supported.
The Semai cosmos is multi-regional. The regions that are close to humans contain spirits. The second region comprises the earth and the sea, and is the dwelling place of Naga and his wife Ipoh Bernei. Ipoh Bernei is the spirit of the ipoh plant the source of blowpipe dart poison and is believed to have come from the Mambang seas. The third region is the forest in the east, where the sun rises, and it is called Jentun Bereg.
Naga, although the youngest, is said to be wise and gentle, and to possess vast supernatural knowledge. The Bidor Semai believe that there is a parallel dimension that coexists with the world and that its inhabitants are like humans.
They are called maay lemag and are sometimes visible to humans. In addition, there are four guardian spirits or angels who guard the four corners of the earth. These four guardian spirits are called upon to protect and assist with rice planting. There are both male and female spirits in Semai cosmology, but the four guardian spirits are ungendered or genderless.
However, we need to compare this information with other ethnographies of the Semai. In the footnote of another article, Robarchek a mentions that Naga is usually referred to as a female spirit dwelling in the ground. So here we can see that a previously female spirit is today regarded as a male spirit.
All this shows a certain lack of rigidity in the gender of Semai spirits and deities. Both gender and species transformations are considered possible. The Semai do not discriminate between species where inter-species sociality and mutuality prevails. This undermines human centrism and portrays a cosmos that is deeply interconnected—one in which the animal world passes religious wisdom down to humans. Below we elaborate on the lack of rigidity in the gender of spirits and deities in Bidor Semai cosmology, and the interconnectedness of the human and animal world in terms of the transmission of religious knowledge through inter-species communication and marriage.
In the beginning, humans did not have any special spiritual knowledge, mantras, or skills to communicate with the spiritual world. This communication with the spirit world became the basis for the rituals performed by the Semai today. Below the myths of origin related to these rituals are explained and analysed. The gunig did not appear in their own forms, but in the forms of a nail, ring, chain, hair, and tooth, among others. However, these too had powers. Once upon a time there was a woman named Ken Tatau.
She was married to a man from another village. When she reached his village, he did not welcome her. When she asked him if he wanted to return home, he did not reply. One night, in the middle of her journey, it began to get dark and so she found a huge tree to sleep in. She climbed up and slept there to protect herself from tigers and bad spirits.
When she looked down she saw a tiger climbing up the tree. The tiger pleaded with Ken Tatau and promised not to eat her. When they approached the village, the tiger told her to enter the village alone. When Ken Tatau informed the villagers of the planned ritual they were surprised and frightened, for it had never been performed before.
After a while she followed her husband back to his land in Jentun Bereg. Hi rengyaag are the spirits of the ancestors for whom the Semai are yearning and longing to see and be with. These leaves are cut and arranged by the women. In the evening, after all the preparations are finished, both men and women use the leaves to decorate the space where the ritual will be held.
All community-level rituals, including large-scale community healing rituals, are held at the rumah adat a large house with a spacious hall used for communal events and rituals. An exception to this is made when the ritual is being carried out to heal a sick person, when it will be held in the house of that person. This ritual is conducted when the community feels that there is an imbalance in nature—the idea is to appease these elements to bring nature back into balance. The ritual and chanting is a form of communication that is able to appease these natural elements.
The very act of communicating with these elements pacifies the spirits. The Semai do not worship rocks, trees, mountains, or other things that are around them.
The rituals very often act out the myth, and there is a relationship between rituals, myths, and social structure. The word gunig comes from the Malay gundik consort or concubine Kroes But he also goes on to say that the adept-familiar relationship is more than erotic Dentan Some also say that familiars are like adopted children and need to be protected.
As such, Dentan states that this rough equality makes sexual metaphors less salient in Semai constructions of the cosmos and that traditional Semai rarely attribute particular characteristics to one gender or the other. He also states that:. Here we are beginning to see some level of formalization of the ritual, where men are participating more than women and standardizing the invocatory chants.
Once upon a time there was a king, and the king had a daughter who was very sick. He told her to live with the Semai and teach them the curing and healing knowledge that they today possess. This helper is usually a woman.
This woman will find others to assist her in the work. Only two of these task—that of drumming and the collection of the carag leaves—are done by men.
But today women are also involved in collecting the carag leaves, and men have been relegated to the role of drummer. But these aspects too are beginning to be carried out by men in certain instances. Women participate and are the objects of solicitude, but they do not direct the activities. In addition to this, the transmission of religious accounts is now in the hands of the male elders. We would like to revisit the much-debated thunder, taboos, and blood sacrifice complex found among various Orang Asli groups with the purpose of highlighting the role of women in it.
As Robarchek pointed out, to explain thunder gods, taboos, and punishment; offerings of human blood; and the mockery of animals, Freeman draws on concepts from psychoanalytical theory in order to establish symbolic associations and their meanings, and this leads him into a world of aggressive and punishing fathers, phallic symbolism, and the sexual nature of mockery Robarchek a— We agree with Robarchek that such biological reductionism removes cultural behaviour from the context in which it occurs and that this search for biological causation leads to the essentialization of the male thunder god as a set of male characteristics, such as being aggressive and punishing, which is linked to male biology.
We contend that the Semai beliefs concerning thunder, taboos, and blood sacrifice are part of a cultural world view and are not rigid and unchanging. For example, taboos such as punan or trlaac 14 rest on the idea that actions such as incest and the mocking of animals cause natural calamity.
This is consistent with the belief that people, flora, fauna, and natural phenomena are bound together in one enormous, interconnected world.
Women play an important role in maintaining the balance in this interconnected world through the blood sacrifice they perform during thunderstorms. The blood sacrifice is usually performed by women Dentan They take a sharp splinter of bamboo and use it to make a shallow slice across their shins, catching the blood in a bamboo ladle and throwing it towards the sky to stop the thunder.
This act is known as siwaac in Semai Diffloth The phallic symbolism associated with the thunder god by scholars such as Freeman creates an ideological disjuncture between the cultural meaning from which the symbol originates and the meaning that has been given to it. What has been neglected in this analysis of the thunder complex is the fact that the blood sacrifice is predominantly carried out by the women in Semai culture.
Significantly, it is women who play the leading role in tricking the thunder god into stopping the storm. His universalist position ignores the possibility of other forms of gender systems and the myriad possible cultural interpretations of shared symbols.
These authors say that their tasks are to preside as chief medium at all tribal ceremonies; to instruct the youth of the tribe; to ward off as well as to heal all forms of sickness and trouble; to foretell the future; to deter when necessary the wrath of heaven; and, even, when re-embodied after death in the shape of a wild beast, to extend benevolent protection to his progeny. The gunig gives the instructions and performs the healing; therefore, the power belongs to the gunig and the spirits.
Their characters are honoured and respected and the stories are recounted with appeal and awe Leong —7. They are thereby significant role models for the Semai. However, while the Semai are aware of the participation of female figures, they do not recount such stories in the ritual chanting today.
This is due to the central role played by men in the transmission of mythological tales, which has led to greater importance beginning to be placed on male-centred tales and stories. In addition, the Semai are fast losing sight of their female heroines and figures due to interaction with the Malay and Chinese communities, which follow hierarchical religious systems such as Islam and Christianity.
Through received ideas, the Semai men and women are learning that men and women are unequal, and this is affecting the way that women perceive themselves relative to men, which is contributing towards gender differentiation within Semai culture. Today men are participating more actively than women in all aspects of Semai religious life, and they are the ones who are controlling and directing rituals. Men are also actively involved in standardizing and formalizing Semai religious practices to give them more structure.
This is a consequence of the need to conserve and preserve Semai religious knowledge in response to the greater external influences on Semai lives. People are afraid of losing their religious and ritual knowledge, and are making efforts to protect and salvage this knowledge and to formalize Semai religion. However, traditionally, Semai beliefs were not structured or formalized. Religious knowledge was variable and flexible, and each individual was entitled to his or her own interpretation of it.
By not maintaining a rigid structure of knowledge and practice, the Semai did not have to formalize gender hierarchies or value male and female participation differently. A more fluid spiritual system is therefore more egalitarian in gender terms than a structured one. Semai say that rigidity sets in with structure, but at the same time its flexibility is considered to be weakening Semai belief systems.
Male domination of women, however, is not necessarily the automatic or immediate response to external stress. Other solutions to this pressure are possible.
It is through the cooperative endeavours of both women and men that the heritage of the Orang Asli can be maintained across space and through time. Much published ethnographic material on the Orang Asli shows how men and women work together to maintain their ways of life, and this article attempts to add to that evidence, especially with respect to religion. Instead, we have found Semai women to be serious in the upholding, observance, and transmission of their religious heritage.
Religion permeates every aspect of their lives. The views of Orang Asli women are seldom solicited by outsiders, and we need to urgently fill this lacuna. One co-author of this article, a Semai activist, speaks about their lives as women and as Orang Asli in both national and international forums.
We are sure that these women were not invisible within their own societies in the past, and their importance has been recognized by some researchers, such as those who note that Temiar and Semai women can become adepts and that, when they do, they are usually better adepts than the men Roseman ; Jennings ; Dentan However, female adepts are rare, supposedly because their bodies are not strong enough to withstand the rigours of trance Dentan In contrast, trance rituals have been seen amongst the Temiar as a way to restore gender equality Roseman
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