|
Nommo
The Nommo or Nummo are primordial ancestral spirits in Dogon religion and cosmogony (sometimes referred to as demi deities) venerated by the Dogon people of Mali. The word Nommos is derived from a Dogon word meaning "to make one drink." Nommos are usually described as amphibious, hermaphroditic, fish-like creatures. Folk art depictions of Nommos show creatures with humanoid upper torsos, legs/feet, and a fish-like lower torso and tail. Nommos are also referred to as "Masters of the Water", "the Monitors", and "the Teachers". Nommo can be a proper name of an individual or can refer to the group of spirits as a whole. For purposes of this article, "Nommo" refers to a specific individual and "Nommos" is used to reference the group of beings. Nommo mythology Dogon religion and says that Nommo was the first living creature created by the sky god Amma. Shortly after his creation, Nommo underwent a transformation and multiplied into four pairs of twins. One of the twins rebelled aga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dogon Religion
The Dogon religion is the traditional religious or spiritual beliefs of the Dogon people of Mali. Dogons who adhere to the Dogon religion believe in one Supreme Creator called Amma (or Ama). Insoll, Timothy, ''Archaeology, Ritual, Religion'', Routledge (2004), p. 123–125, (retrieved March 3, 2020/ref> They also believe in ancestral spirits known as the Nommo also referred to as "Water Spirits". Veneration of the dead is an important element in their spiritual belief. They hold ritual mask dances immediately after the death of a person and sometimes long after they have passed on to the next life. Twins, "the need for duality and the doubling of individual lives" (masculine and feminine principles) is a fundamental element in their belief system. Like other traditional African religions, balance, and reverence for nature are also key elements. The Dogon religion is an ancient religion or spiritual system. The Dogon religion, cosmogony, cosmology and astronomy have been su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dogon People
The Dogon are an ethnic group indigenous to the central plateau region of Mali, in West Africa, south of the Niger bend, near the city of Bandiagara, and in Burkina Faso. The population numbers between 400,000 and 800,000. They speak the Dogon languages, which are considered to constitute an independent branch of the Niger–Congo language family, meaning that they are not closely related to any other languages. The Dogon are best known for their religious traditions, their mask dances, wooden sculpture, and their architecture. Since the twentieth century, there have been significant changes in the social organisation, material culture and beliefs of the Dogon, in part because Dogon country is one of Mali's major tourist attractions. Geography and history The principal Dogon area is bisected by the Bandiagara Escarpment, a sandstone cliff of up to high, stretching about 150 km (90 miles). To the southeast of the cliff, the sandy Séno-Gondo Plains are found, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sirius Mystery
''The Sirius Mystery'' is a book written by Robert K. G. Temple supporting the pseudoscientific ancient astronauts hypothesis that intelligent extraterrestrial beings visited the Earth and made contact with humans in antiquity and prehistoric times. The book was first published by St. Martin's Press in 1976. Its second, 1998, edition is called ''The Sirius Mystery: New Scientific Evidence of Alien Contact 5,000 Years Ago''. Overview The book presents the hypothesis that the Dogon people of Mali, in West Africa, preserve a tradition of contact with intelligent extraterrestrial beings from the Sirius star system. These beings, who are hypothesized to have taught the arts of civilization to humans, are claimed in the book to have originated the systems of the Pharaohs of Egypt, the mythology of Greek civilization, and the Epic of Gilgamesh, among other things. Temple's theory is heavily based on his interpretation of the work of ethnographers Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Germaine Dieterlen
Germaine Dieterlen (15 May 1903 in Valleraugue – 13 November 1999 in Paris) was a French anthropologist. She was a student of Marcel Mauss, worked with noted French anthropologists Marcel Griaule (1898-1956) and Jean Rouch, wrote on a large range of ethnographic topics and made pioneering contributions to the study of Mythology, myths, initiations, techniques (particularly "descriptive ethnography"), graphic systems, objects, classifications, ritual and social structure. She is most noted for her work among the Dogon people, Dogon and the Bambara people, Bambara of Mali, having lived with them for over twenty years, often in collaboration with Marcel Griaule, with whom she wrote the book The Pale Fox (1965). Themes Some of the main themes in her work concentrate on the notions of sacred kingship, the position of the Childbirth, first born, relationships between maternal uncles and nephews, division of labor, marriage, and the status of the Rainmaking ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sirius
Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. Its name is derived from the Greek word (Latin script: ), meaning 'glowing' or 'scorching'. The star is designated Canis Majoris, Latinized to Alpha Canis Majoris, and abbreviated CMa or Alpha CMa. With a visual apparent magnitude of −1.46, Sirius is almost twice as bright as Canopus, the next brightest star. Sirius is a binary star consisting of a main-sequence star of spectral type A0 or A1, termed Sirius A, and a faint white dwarf companion of spectral type DA2, termed Sirius B. The distance between the two varies between 8.2 and 31.5 astronomical units as they orbit every 50 years. Sirius appears bright because of its intrinsic luminosity and its proximity to the Solar System. At a distance of , the Sirius system is one of Earth's nearest neighbours. Sirius is gradually moving closer to the Solar System and it is expected to increase in brightness slightly over t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcel Griaule
Marcel Griaule (16 May 1898 – 23 February 1956) was a French author and anthropologist known for his studies of the Dogon people of West Africa, and for pioneering ethnographic field studies in France. He worked together with Germaine Dieterlen and Jean Rouch on African subjects. His publications number over 170 books and articles for scholarly journals. Biography Born in Aisy-sur-Armançon, Griaule received a good education and was preparing to become an engineer and enrolled at the prestigious Lycée Louis-le-Grand when in 1917 at the end of World War I he volunteered to become a pilot in the French Air Force. In 1920 he returned to university, where he attended the lectures of Marcel Mauss and Marcel Cohen. Intrigued by anthropology, he gave up plans for a technical career. In 1927 he received a degree from the École Nationale de Langues Orientales, where he concentrated on Amharic and Ge'ez. Between 1928 and 1933 Griaule participated in two large-scale et ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VALIS
''Valis'' (stylized as ''VALIS'') is a 1981 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, intended to be the first book of a three-part series. The title is an acronym for ''Vast Active Living Intelligence System'', Dick's gnostic vision of God. Set in California during the 1970s, the book features heavy auto-biographical elements and draws inspiration from Dick's own investigations into his unexplained religious experiences over the previous decade. It is the first book in the incomplete '' VALIS trilogy'' of novels, followed by ''The Divine Invasion'' (1981). The planned third novel, '' The Owl in Daylight'', had not yet taken definite shape at the time of the author's death. Dick's final novel, '' The Transmigration of Timothy Archer'' (1982), builds on similar themes; Dick wrote: "the three do form a trilogy constellating around a basic theme." Synopsis In March 1974, Horselover Fat (the alter-personality of Philip K. Dick) experiences visions of a pink beam of l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Half Asleep In Frog Pajamas
''Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas'' is a 1994 novel by Tom Robbins, published by Bantam Books. Overview Like Robbins' other books, the plot involves an eclectic mix of characters and complicated scenarios, and mixes the mundane with the mysterious, in the form of the Sirius mysteries and the mythology surrounding the Dogon Tribe. Unlike his other books, ''Half Asleep'' is written entirely in the second person, present tense. Robbins was a personal friend of Terence McKenna, whose influence is evident in several of his books. A main character in ''Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas'' named Larry Diamond advocates a theory similar to those of McKenna, involving psilocybin. Release details * Hardcover – () published on August 1, 1994 by Bantam Books Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by parent company Random House, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin Jr., Sid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Robbins
Thomas Eugene Robbins (July 22, 1932 – February 9, 2025) was an American novelist. His most notable works are "seriocomedies" (also known as "comedy dramas"). Robbins had lived in La Conner, Washington, since 1970, where he wrote nine of his books. His 1976 novel ''Even Cowgirls Get the Blues'' was adapted into the 1993 film version by Gus Van Sant. His last work, published in 2014, was '' Tibetan Peach Pie'', a self-declared "un-memoir". Early life Robbins was born on July 22, 1932, in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, to George Thomas Robbins and Katherine Belle Robinson. Both of his grandfathers were Southern Baptist preachers. The Robbins family lived in Blowing Rock before moving to Warsaw, Virginia, when the author was still a young boy. In adulthood, Robbins described his young self as being a "hillbilly". Robbins attended Warsaw High School (class of 1949) and Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia, where he won the Senior Essay Medal. The next year he enro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dream Park
''Dream Park'' is a 1981 sci-fi/murder mystery novel by American writers Larry Niven and Steven Barnes, set in a futuristic amusement park of the same name. It was nominated for the 1982 Locus Award and later expanded into a series of cyberpunk murder mysteries: ''The Barsoom Project'' (1989), ''The California Voodoo Game'' (1992), and ''The Moon Maze Game'' (2011). The books describe a futuristic form of live action role-playing games (LARPs), although the term was not in use when the original novel was published. The novels inspired many LARP groups, notably the International Fantasy Games Society which is named after a fictional entity in the book. Overview The ''Dream Park'' series is set in a near-future Earth, the first book taking place in March 2051. Technology is used to create realistic games in which participants act out the roles of free-willed protagonists in various stories. These are role-playing games and foreshadowed many aspects of modern live action role-playi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Oberg
James Edward Oberg (born November 7, 1944) is an American space journalist and historian, regarded as an expert on the Russian and Chinese space programs. He had a 22-year career as a space engineer in NASA specializing in orbital rendezvous. Oberg is an author of ten books and more than a thousand articles on space flight. He has provided multiple explanations of UFO phenomena for media outlets. He is also a consultant in spaceflight operations and safety. Early life and education James Oberg was born in New York City on November 7, 1944. He received a B.A. in Mathematics from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1966, a M.S. in applied mathematics (astrodynamics) from Northwestern University in 1969 (where he was also a NASA Trainee) and a M.S. in computer science from University of New Mexico in 1972. US Air Force At Northwestern University he started Ph.D. work in Mathematics, but was called to active duty by the United States Air Force in 1970. There he worked with modeling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip K
Philip, also Phillip, is a male name derived from the Macedonian Old Koine language, Greek (''Philippos'', lit. "horse-loving" or "fond of horses"), from a compound of (''philos'', "dear", "loved", "loving") and (''hippos'', "horse"). Prominent Philips who popularized the name include List of kings of Macedonia, kings of Macedonia and one of the apostles of early Christianity. ''Philip'' has #Philip in other languages, many alternative spellings. One derivation often used as a surname is Phillips (surname), Phillips. The original Greek spelling includes two Ps as seen in Philippides (other), Philippides and Philippos, which is possible due to the Greek endings following the two Ps. To end a word with such a double consonant—in Greek or in English—would, however, be incorrect. It has many diminutive (or even hypocorism, hypocoristic) forms including Phil, Philly (other)#People, Philly, Phillie, Lip (other), Lip, and Pip (other), Pip. There ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
