The Mountain District Primitive Baptist Association enfolds churches in four counties in the Blue Ridge Mountains--North Carolina's Ashe and Allegheny counties and Virginia's Grayson and Carroll counties. Primitive Baptists are found throughout the United States and are related to the Strict and Particular Baptists of the United Kingdom. They are Calvinists, adhering to the theologies of John Calvin, John Bunyan, and British theologians such as Henry Philpott. As Calvinists, they teach predestination--that before the creation of the Earth, God chose who would be saved and damned. No one knows who is which and no one can change this destiny. Originally published in 1989, Pilgrims of Paradox is based on extensive fieldwork conducted in the 1980s. Despite what may seem a fatalistic doctrine, Peacock and Tyson show that the Primitive Baptists of this region live vigorous, sturdy lives marked by self-sufficiency and caring for their community. They also inspire others in the area with the beauty of their hymns and "discourses" and by accomplishments bounded by humility.

Pilgrims of Paradox: Calvinism and Experience among the Primitive Baptists of the Blue Ridge (Smithsonian Series in Ethnographic Inquiry)

Politics & Social Sciences

Peacock, James L.

Tyson, Ruel

Social Sciences

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Retired Faculty Association

Symbols and symbolism are, and always have been, an integral part of myth, belief, ideology, ritual, art, and fantasy. These basic areas of human activity are traditionally investigated under a very wide range of headings; but this book ignores the boundaries of such diverse disciplines as political science, religious sociology, psychology, and literature. Originally published in 1975, Consciousness and Change draws upon all these sources, and more; the result is both an introduction to and a perspective on the developing (though at the time by no means clearly defined) field of symbolic anthropology. The book opens with an analysis of symbols, discussing some of their essential qualities. The author then proceeds to examine the Durkheimian and Weberian schools of thought, as reflected in the works of anthropologists ranging from Levi-Strauss to Clifford Geertz; next, he considers the development of Protean symbolism, using material material derived from his own field experience in the U.S. South and elsewhere. He concludes with a typology relating different types of symbols to different periods of history, from the primitivism of the Australian aborigine to the quasi-primitivism of the modern commune-dweller. While it is not intended as a comprehensive textbook, Consciousness and Change provides student and lay reader alike with an introductory overview of the anthropology of symbols.

Consciousness and Change: Symbolic Anthropology in Evolutionary Perspective

Anthropology

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