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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 agai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dogon Religion
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 nor ... [...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 River, 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 Dogon religion, 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-Gond ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sirius Mystery
''The Sirius Mystery'' is a book written by Robert K. G. Temple (born Robert Kyle Grenville Temple in 1945) 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 eth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Germaine Dieterlen
Germaine Dieterlen (15 May 1903 in Paris – 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 myths, initiations, techniques (particularly " descriptive ethnography"), graphic systems, objects, classifications, ritual and social structure. She is most noted for her work among the Dogon and the 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 first born, relationships between maternal uncles and nephews, division of labor, marriage, and the status of the rainmaker in Dogon society. Because each episode of the rite is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sirius
Sirius is the list of brightest stars, brightest star in the night sky. Its name is derived from the Ancient Greek language, Greek word , or , meaning 'glowing' or 'scorching'. The star is designated α Canis Majoris, Latinisation of names, Latinized to Alpha Canis Majoris, and abbreviated Alpha CMa or α 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 A-type main-sequence star, 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 List of nearest stars, nearest neighbours. Sirius is gradually moving closer to the Solar S ... [...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 ethnograp ... [...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 light ... [...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 (born July 22, 1932) is a best-selling and prolific American novelist. His most notable works are "seriocomedies" (also known as "comedy drama"), such as ''Even Cowgirls Get the Blues''. Tom Robbins has lived in La Conner, Washington since 1970, where he has written nine best-selling books. His latest work, published in 2014, is '' Tibetan Peach Pie'', which is a self-declared "un-memoir". ''Even Cowgirls Get The Blues'' has been adapted into a movie that shares the same name by Gus Van Sant in 1993. 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 Baptist preachers. The Robbins family resided in Blowing Rock before moving to Warsaw, Virginia, when the author was still a young boy. In adulthood, Robbins has described his young self as a " hillbilly". Robbins attended Warsaw High School (class of 1949) and Hargrave Military Academy in Chatha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dream Park
''Dream Park'' is a 1981 sci-fi/murder mystery novel written by 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, 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-playing games. Many elem ... [...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 gave many explanations of UFO phenomena in the popular press. 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 laser and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip K
Philip, also Phillip, is a male given name, derived from the 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 kings of Macedonia and one of the apostles of early Christianity. ''Philip'' has many alternative spellings. One derivation often used as a surname is Phillips. It was also found during ancient Greek times with two Ps as Philippides and Philippos. It has many diminutive (or even hypocoristic) forms including Phil, Philly, Lip, Pip, Pep or Peps. There are also feminine forms such as Philippine and Philippa. Antiquity Kings of Macedon * Philip I of Macedon * Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great * Philip III of Macedon, half-brother of Alexander the Great * Philip IV of Macedon * Philip V of Macedon New Testament * Philip the Apostle * Philip the Evangelist Others * Philippus of Croton (c. 6th centur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
