Cosmological Beliefs Research Articles

The Philosophy of African Medical Practice

The philosophy of African medical practice is rooted in the African world view. Those locating the cause and cure of sickness in traditional practice ask about the ultimate who, rather than what. The answers given are in terms of the cosmological beliefs of the people. I shall deal with the philosophical issues in African medicine with particular reference to causes and cures of sickness in the traditional practice, the human person in this practice, the Christian, the colonial, and modern impact on this view, and a look towards the future. In doing this, I shall show that African traditional medical practice has important contributions to make in technologically oriented medicine.

MANUSCRIPT MAPS IN LATE IMPERIAL CHINA

This paper, based on collections of Oriental maps in the Library of Congress and in the British Museum, describes the cartographic characteristics of manuscript maps made in late Imperial China and evaluates their role in cartographic history in a world perspective. Chinese manuscript maps were constructed by local authorities in great numbers for various administrative, water control, military, and ideological purposes. While Chinese cartographers seemed quite content with much limited planimetric information, they devoted their efforts almost entirely to the perfection of symbolization and the visual effectiveness of map design for its own artistic value. Chinese maps were oriented in a few peculiar ways to serve functional and ideological needs. Pictorial map symbols which were so elaborately designed reflected a good deal of Chinese perception of physical and cultural features in various periods. The distortion and exaggeration of many planimetric features on these maps were associated with certain institutional and cosmological beliefs.

A Psychological Interpretation of a Chippewa Origin Legend

Wf T THILE doing field-work on a Chippewa reservation in northern Wisconsin during the summer of I944, I had as my informant a conservative seventy-year-old Mide priest called Tom Badger,2 who agreed to dictate to me the origin legend which is told in conjunction with the rituals of the Midewiwin, or Medicine Dance. His version of this legend will be presented in this paper. There are, of course, many points of view from which one could analyze a document of this kind. An origin legend is always of interest as a long-treasured storehouse of cosmological belief, historical tradition, and folklore. It may be combed by the ethnologist for historical clues-for evidence of past migrations and contact with other cultures-or to gain some conception of preliterate beliefs concerning natural phenomena, astronomical lore, etc. But an origin legend may be regarded from still an-

Milton's Dialogue on Astronomy: The Principal Immediate Sources

In a recent series of studies I developed at some length the general background of cosmological thought which gave rise to and in large measure explains both the astronomy and the astronomical comment of Paradise Lost. The present essay continues this investigation of Milton's cosmological beliefs, but restricts discussion to the Raphael-Adam dialogue of Book VIII, interpreted in the light of its immediate sources. In brief, these sources consist of a number of related passages from three English books contemporary with Milton.