Women and the Ancestors
Black Carib Kinship and RitualSecond Edition
Women's central role in the survival of Black Carib culture
Paper – $42
978-0-252-06665-8
Publication Date
Paperback: 01/01/1997
About the Book
A classic study Women and the Ancestors illuminates the preservation of Black Carib culture through ancestral rituals organized by older women. Virginia Kerns draws on eighteen months of fieldwork in Belize to examine the journeys of women in Black Carib villages. As she shows, the women's essential involvement in ritual and family life comes from their sense of personal responsibility rather than the absence of men. Kerns follows these women from their roles as daughters and young mothers through their assumption of a more public role after their children are grown to taking on the responsibility for ensuring worship of the ancestors. She also examines issues like personal autonomy, kinship, age and gender, household life, death and mourning, and ritual organization.About the Author
Virginia Kerns is a professor emerita of anthropology at the College of William & Mary and the author of Sally in Three Worlds: An Indian Captive in the House of Brigham Young.Reviews
"An outstanding contribution to the literature on female-centered bilateral kinship and residence."--Grant D. Jones, American Ethnologist"A richly detailed account of a contemporary culture in which older women are important, valued, and self-respecting."--Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly
"A combination of competent research, interwoven themes, and an easily readable, sometimes beautifully evocative, prose style."--Heather Strange, The Gerontologist
"One of the outstanding studies of this genre. . . . Refreshingly, the book has good photographs, as well as strong endnotes and bibliography, and very useful tables, figures, maps, and index."--Choice
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