Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Frost at Midnight" includes an emotional apostrophe to his two-year old son, Hartley, about the complex spiritual and artistic moments of transcendence that a truly visionary poet can find through the medium of Nature, away from the barriers of City walls: / (UNFORMATTED TABLE OR EQUATION FOLLOWS) / Coleridge's poem is itself a symbol of the focus of my study. I will explore the possibilities for, and the barriers against, the interrelated experiences of spiritual and artistic transcendence in the urban and natural landscapes of three writers: the English Romantics William Blake and Coleridge, examined in Chapters II and III, and the latter-day American Romantic, Frank Norris, treated in Chapters IV and V. In Chapter VI, I will extend my study to provide a brief look at urbanism in selected writers of the twentieth century. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-12, Section: A, page: 3711. / Major Professor: R. Bruce Bickley, Jr. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.

The Kekchi Indians of the Alta Verapaz are a resilient and tenacious people. Despite Spanish conquest, Christian proselytization, the introduction of European laws and institutions, and nineteenth-century Liberal land and labor reforms, the Kekchi maintained the underpinnings of their distinct culture, religion, and society. Between 1880 and 1930 a new generation of ladinos, foreigners, investors, and speculators arrived in the Alta Verapaz to integrate the region into the nation's expanding and lucrative coffee economy. A small number of foreign entrepreneurs, especially Germans like Erwin P. Dieseldorff, Richard Sapper, and Federico Gerlach, accumulated land titles and created vast estates in the Alta Verapaz wilderness. Nevertheless, the department's demographic, geographic, cultural, and historical landscape precluded the incipient planter elite from dismantling the traditional Kekchi way of life, values, beliefs, and traditions. Kekchi communities distant from the municipal seats of San Pedro Carcha, Coban, and San Juan Chamelco, frequently rejected ladino and planter authority and resorted to land invasions, litigation, strikes, and even rebellion to protect their inalienable rights to the land. Within and beyond the confines of the plantation, the pillars of Kekchi civilization, milpa agriculture, syncretic Maya-Christian rituals, ceremonies, and fiestas, and collective, usufruct attitudes toward land tenure survived as indelible components of Alta Verapaz society. Rather than perceive the Kekchi majority as faceless bystanders or victims in the nation's historical development, this work contends that a vibrant and malleable Indian culture conditioned the economic and social character of the modern Alta Verapaz. This study, based on research of previously unexplored departmental, legal, and land records in the Archivo General de Central America in Guatemala City, anthropological field notes, religious chronicles, and the Dieseldorff Collection in the United States, propounds a regional approach to understand the cultural, economic, and social discourse between postcolonial peoples and the institutions spawned by the nation-state, agro-export economies, and a Europeanized, capitalistic elite / acase@tulane.edu

Although there is a cure for leprosy (Hansen's Disease), several hundred thousand new cases of this disease are detected worldwide every year. Brazil has one of the highest rates of leprosy in the world, second only to India. There are numerous and complex reasons why leprosy continues to be a problem in Brazil when many other nations with lower GNPs worldwide have eradicated the disease. An analysis of Brazil's economy, history, and political and social realities provides some clues as to why leprosy took hold in Brazil in the first place. Simply talking to patients represents a different approach to exploring the reasons why leprosy treatment is problematic today in Brazil. In this dissertation, illness narratives, or stories of patients' experiences with every aspect of having an illness, were taken from people who have or had leprosy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Certain themes emerge from these narratives, and when analyzed in conjunction with observations in health posts, interviews with healthcare workers, and work with a non-governmental organization, some problems with leprosy treatment become clear. For example, most leprosy patients visit several physicians with their symptoms before receiving the correct diagnosis. Late detection and misdiagnosis contribute to disease transmission, as undiagnosed patients may continue to transmit leprosy to others. The experiences of patients point to many other problems with leprosy treatment in Brazil, many of which could be feasibly remedied. Solving these problems could not only reduce the prevalence and incidence of leprosy in Brazil but would improve the quality of life for leprosy patients and former patients / acase@tulane.edu

There are a number of practitioners of traditional Maya medicine working in and around Piste, a small town located in the center of the northern half of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. These curers treat the physical, spiritual, and emotional ailments of their clients using a variety of indigenous and introduced plants, Western medicine, and traditional rituals that include magical elements. I examine the process of curing from the time the curers begin to acquire their skills through their administration of treatments. The ethnographic present is linked to the past by an analysis of the relationship among current curing practices and their colonial antecedents Collecting plants with traditional healers provided me with an opportunity to become acquainted with them on a personal level. Portraits of the curers are presented in an attempt to humanize the literature on the subject, which tends to focus on what these specialists do rather than on who they are. The healers included in this study either learn their craft from elders, or are recruited through dreams Traditional concepts of disease, its cause, and its treatment are based upon an underlying ideal of mental, physical, and spiritual balance. The concepts of 'culture-bound' illnesses such as evil eye, evil winds, bilis, and pasmo, tend to overlap and blend together, much in the same way as the curing practices blend plant medicine, massage, magical practices, and Western medicine. Although the components of individual practices vary, all of the practitioners in this study are herbalists. Plant medicine is the common denominator The close relationship between present-day plant names and plant uses I recorded and those in colonial period sources demonstrates that the same set of plants has been utilized for a fairly long period of time by those who know the local flora best. The curers with whom I have worked manage to maintain their traditions and simultaneously incorporate new elements into their practices. This seemingly contradictory cultural conservatism and flexibility may well have contributed to the longevity of traditional Yucatecan curing, and may influence its current evolution / acase@tulane.edu

This work questions the appropriateness of the positivist paradigm in psychiatry and the claim of universality for Western psychiatric nosology, and examines an alternative interpretative approach, George Devereux's ethnopsychiatric model, in the context of Hawaii's Japanese American subculture. In this psychoanalytically-oriented model, Devereux proposed that cultural conceptions (or 'thought models' in his terminology) of mental disorder: (a) define the nature and intensity of traumata to which insanity is seen as a justifiable response; (b) specify appropriate symptoms; (c) reflect conflicts present in the majority of normal individuals, and; (d) incorporate signal symptoms which are affronts to major cultural values and serve to announce the transition to the status of the mentally ill. In short, symptomatology is viewed as the culturally mediated expression of underlying mental disorder, and the recognition of mental disorder depends on conformity to thought model symptomatology rather than residual deviance as Scheff proposed A description of the Japanese American thought model of mental disorder was developed through informal interviews and an open-ended questionnaire. The symptom specifications of this thought model, which resemble schizophrenia, were compared with the behavior of Japanese American and European American psychiatric patients as recorded in their case records at the Hawaii State Hospital. As predicted by Devereux's model, the majority of Japanese American mental patients conformed symptomatically to the Japanese American thought model to a significantly greater extent than did patients of European American ancestry. The difference between the two ethnic groups was driven by those patients who carried diagnoses other than schizophrenia Although the psychiatric case records lacked sufficient detail to permit an adequate evaluation of Devereux's propositions pertaining to legitimate precipitating stresses, signal symptoms, and underlying conflicts, nothing was found that would discredit his model. On the basis of indirect evidence it is argued that the conflict underlying the Japanese American ethnic psychosis is related to the frustration of narcissistic needs The results of this study suggest that psychiatric nosology and diagnosis could be improved by making explicit the thought models upon which rest both clinical judgment and the patient's presentation / acase@tulane.edu

After a brief review of the literature on inbreeding in human populations, the historical and political circumstances that led to the formation of a unique, isolated demographic unit indigenous to southwestern Louisiana are described. Details of the frontier boundary disputes in western Louisiana and east Texas, first between the French and Spanish (1715-1762) and later between the United States and the Spanish (1803-1821), are reviewed with special attention given to the events associated with the establishment of the Neutral Ground and the make-up of the first settlers to that region. Specifically, the history of the settlers of the former Cherry Winche country, known by the nickname Ten Milers, is updated and consolidated from widely scattered sources. As unbiased assessment of the possible origins of this alledged tri-racial isolate leads to the conclusion that there is no objective evidence that this population is of tri-racial ancestry Demographic and genetic data were compiled from censuses of local cemeteries and marriage records for this area. Inbreeding in this population was quantified using Crow and Mange's (1965) isonymy technique. The average inbreeding coefficient was estimated to be 7.938 x 10('-3), which is much higher than the average inbreeding estimates for the United States (9.0 x 10('-5); Freire-Maia, 1968) and is comparable with other human isolates. As part of a descriptive demographic profile, lifetable analyses were performed on the cumulative survival distribution in this population and various sub-populations (males vs. females, Ten Milers vs. non Ten Milers, etc.) are compared. Overall childhood mortality was high with 16% of the population failing to reach age one and 20% failing to reach age five. Relative measures of endogamy and migration confirm the endogamous nature of this population Investigation of the possible adverse effects of inbreeding, through the analysis of mortality distributions across sub-populations in different time intervals and in different seasons, suggests that differences in mortality distributions among sub-populations are the result of cultural rather than biological circumstances. Data on the relative age of marriage partners is also suggestive of a confounding influence on childhood mortality. Certain types of cancer show anomalous incidence levels in the region. No unique genetic diseases were found in association with this population / acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation clarifies the anthropological concept of religion by crafting the most useful scientific definition. The first chapter illustrates the confusion surrounding this term, and argues that the comparative method of anthropology requires that this imprecision be removed. Reviewing the four types of definitions of religion extant in the literature--Content, Behavioral/Performative, Mental, and Functional--Chapter 1 concludes that the best definition will be a generative functional definition. The second chapter supports this conclusion by finding that an independent discipline, American constitutional law, has arrived at the same understanding Chapter 3 details the nature of definitions and the method of their proper construction, and uses these insights to define of religion based upon its function to alleviate death anxiety. Chapter 4 examines whether an inverse relationship between religiousness and death anxiety actually pertains, while Chapter 5 argues that the discerned relationship is not merely correlational, but in fact technically functional. The sixth chapter demonstrates the superior utility of the proposed definition as compared to content definitions by considering which generates better hypotheses about religious conversion The remaining chapters anticipate possible criticisms of the proposed definition. Perhaps because the highlighted inverse relationship is not supported unanimously by the empirical evidence, it is unsuitable for a definitional criterion. But Chapter 7 counters that imperfect results arise from a faulty methodological equation between personal religiousness and professions of institutional affiliation. To illustrate the independence of theisms and religiousness, instances of theistic nonreligions (superstitions, folktales) and nontheistic religions (political and scientific religions) are discussed The universality of the proposed definition could be more forcefully argued if the relationship between religiousness and death anxiety were tied to other human universals such as the psychobiological substratum of possession mediumship. Chapter 8 first shows that the most popular sociological interpretation of mediumship, that by I. M. Lewis, inadequately fits the data for Brazil. Chapter 9 supplements Lewis' model by linking mediumship to genetic talents for dissociation. Such links, if they exist, would serve as support for the underlying premises which predicted the results, and thereby the probable universality of the proposed definition of religion / acase@tulane.edu

Traditional anthropological analyses of myth do not account adequately for historical processes of cultural syncretism and antisyncretism. This dissertation is an examination of a collection of myth texts written in Yucatec Maya during the Colonial period (c.1540 A.D.--1820 A.D.), particularly those present on pages forty-two through sixty-three of the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel. The research consists of a comparative examination of multiple redactions of individual myths, as well as analyses of the instances of reported speech and markers of evidentiality that occur in these myths. In contrast with traditional approaches, the methodology is grounded in a dialogical theory of language and culture. The application of such a methodology reveals the interconnectedness of indigenous responses to religious and linguistic (anti)syncretism with processes of identity formation in colonial Yucatan. New translations of these Maya myth texts in the Book of Chilam Balam are provided that take into account both the Prehispanic and European written and oral sources to which these myths were composed in rejoinder / acase@tulane.edu

The Rastafari have long transcended the place specificity that exclusively associated their movement with Jamaica following the earlier days of its inception in the 1930's and have envisioned themselves as a nation beyond national, linguistic, and cultural boundaries. They have crossed and challenged these boundaries by establishing extensive networks that form the essence of an ever-growing diaspora. This dissertation examines how, in recent years, the Rastafari have sought to organize, centralize, and formalize their movement by engaging in nation-building processes at both local and transnational levels. To analyze the dynamics at work, I look at the vision, practices, and endeavors put forth by the Solidarity Churchical Organization of St. Martin and argue that the congregation members' commitment to nation building and the ways in which they realize it are unique and pioneering amongst the Rastafari Using the performance of the Seven Sacraments and---most recently---a large-scale farming project as their vehicle to consolidate the Rastafari Nation and guarantee its perpetuation in future generations, Solidarity members' relentless engagement in nation building relies on the cohesive structure of their foundation and the services they provide at the local level. Outside of St. Martin, Solidarity's transnational involvement is facilitated by frequent travels and participation in international Rastafari organizations. Opportunities to encounter bredrins and sistrens from different countries and continents function to crystallize a sense of collective memory, communal values, and shared identity amongst the Rastafari. Yet they also embody many of the tensions that ensue from dissent regarding what defines Rastafari in terms of spiritual orientations, practices, as well as gender roles and race A crucial premise of this work is that, when applied to the Rastafari, notions of nation building and transnationalism do not contradict each other but rather coexist in new spaces of identity defined by changing human landscapes in which people seek to maintain connections and claims to identities beyond localized geographies / acase@tulane.edu

Landscapes are created and transformed by human beings as they engage in a dialogue with their biotic and abiotic environment. The Q'eqchi'---the fourth largest group of the Maya language family with speakers numbering over 700,000---are the primary transformers of the lowland forested landscapes of northern Alta Verapaz. However, families actively involved in this transformation are new arrivals to the area and hail from a botanical environment wholly different from the lowland tropical forests of their new home. This dissertation is based on 17 months of ethnographic and ethnobotanical research in two Q'eqchi' communities---one in the highlands, the other in the lowlands---and unravels the cultural process of behavioral and linguistic adaptation to an unfamiliar botanical environment Using the Mesoamerican aldea as the unit of analysis, the methods of this controlled comparison are both qualitative and quantitative. Participant observation and a long-term, personal commitment to the communities and the Q'eqchi' language provided an intimate understanding of ethnobotany as applied to the cultural domains of house construction, home gardens, agriculture, harvesting of forest resources, local and regional markets, and plant related lexical patterns. Community surveys, home garden inventories, and a plant trail experiment provided a large, quantitative data set that helped determine patterns in the cultural matrix. Basic descriptive statistics, multilinear regression, multi-dimensional scaling, cluster analysis, agreement matrices, and consensus analysis were all employed to help determine the patterns of cultural adaptation within the two communities The cultural data show that, although the lowlands are indeed largely unfamiliar to the migrants, distant and recent histories have played a role in preadapting the Q'eqchi' to the lowlands. Through these historical and contemporary channels, knowledge of plants and other characteristics of the lowland forests have reached the highlands, essentially helping to homogenize plant knowledge and behavior across any artificial altitudinal categories. Nevertheless, the lowlands are drastically new and the needs and stressors of the new ecological and cultural environment seem to elicit numerous instances of behavioral and lexical modification The 'worldy' Q'eqchi'---an ethnographic enigma when compared to other Mayan groups---have been stigmatized in the conservation and anthropological literature as the 'invaders' of a 'pristine' ecological haven in northern Guatemala. Until this community and the Guatemalan government understand and address the pressing problems in the highlands, the lowlands will remain a social and ecological sponge, destined to become uninhabitable / acase@tulane.edu