Native Customs Research Articles

Review: Since Time Immemorial: Native Custom & Law in Colonial Mexico, by Yanna Yannakakis

Review: <i>Since Time Immemorial: Native Custom &amp; Law in Colonial Mexico</i>, by Yanna Yannakakis

FROM SEED TO SHRUB: A THOROUGH REVIEW OF BIXA ORELLANA AND ITS DIVERSE APPLICATIONS

The plant Bixa orellana (Annatto) is a botanical treasure with a complex personality that shows adaptability beyond commercial and cultural limits. Following a thorough investigation, this plant's "From Seed to Shrub" journey is revealed, considering a variety of medicinal uses. The main attraction of this plant is the vivid reddish-orange pigment, derived from its seeds, which has become a staple in the culinary sector. Vegan items and ethnic foods alike benefit from the unique color and traditional flavor that annatto adds to food preparations. Bixa orellana is used in traditional medicine for purposes other than coloring; its extracts are said to have medicinal qualities. Its profound cultural importance, which is ingrained in native customs and ceremonies, lends depth to its adaptable nature. Industrially, the plant is highly productive because it can produce annatto dye, a commodity that finds use in textiles, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. This makes annatto an important component of worldwide industrial processes. The plant's ability to adjust to many environmental circumstances adds to its allure, making it easier to cultivate and guaranteeing accessibility on a worldwide level. Further investigation into the phytochemistry of Bixa orellana is also pointing to possible pharmaceutical uses, which could lead to the creation of new therapeutic opportunities. Its socio-economic significance is highlighted by the fact that annatto production and commercialization considerably improve living conditions in areas where it is abundant. Overall, Bixa orellana is a botanical wonder that has a rich history of use in a variety of disciplines, including being a versatile plant with a wide range of uses and a bright future.

How Icelandic Is French Law? A Few Remarks about the Discovery and Usage of Icelandic Antiquities in French Legal Historiography during the Nineteenth Century

How Icelandic Is French Law? A Few Remarks about the Discovery and Usage of Icelandic Antiquities in French Legal Historiography during the Nineteenth Century

Interpreting the History of Native Custom in Oaxaca, Mexico

Abstract This article addresses the opportunities and challenges for researching the history of Indigenous custom during a period in which constitutional and legal reform have led to the recognition of customary law as an official framework for local governance and the administration of justice in Oaxaca, Mexico. The article begins by situating Oaxaca’s laws within the context of broader neoliberal reforms in Latin America characterized by the promulgation of multicultural constitutions recognizing the legal jurisdiction and cultural autonomy of Indigenous communities. Some Indigenous intellectuals, activists, and NGOs working in Oaxaca have declared this new administrative arrangement a victory for Indigenous rights to self-determination, arguing that customary law serves as a defensive wall against state and corporate incursions of many kinds. Other local Indigenous scholars have nuanced the custom-law and community-state oppositions, situating customary law—currently referred to as “Indigenous normative systems”—as historical and contested, and in dynamic interplay with relationships of power within and beyond the community. The article’s author considers these debates about custom’s ambiguous meanings and effects and reflects on how the recent context of legal reform nourishes the author’s own scholarship on the colonial period by providing a broad temporal, cultural, and political framework with which to understand its stakes. The author also explores how historians researching Oaxaca’s deep past can meet the interpretive demands of their discipline while being attentive to historical justice and engaging the communities whose ancestors occupy center stage in our histories.

Circle of fortune: The long-term impact of Western customs institution in China

This paper examines the long-run effect of the customs institution founded by the Chinese Maritime Customs (CMC), a foreign-run customs agency established in the mid-19th century in China. A historical natural experiment is exploited to identify a causal effect: in 1902, the CMC took over a number of Chinese Native Customs stations, for which it established clear procedural guidelines and improved transparency and efficiency, while the other Native Customs stations remained under Chinese authority. Using the historical criterion that determined which Native Customs stations were taken over – those located within a 25 km radius of a CMC customs station – as a source of exogenous variation in the quality of the local customs institution, I show that counties historically affected by the CMC institution are more developed today relative to nearby but unaffected areas. Moreover, today’s business and bureaucracy in the affected counties suffer less from corruption, suggesting that the long-run effect of institutions can be explained by the cultural norms it fostered in the local society.

What Are the Maccabean Insurgents Fighting For? The Theological Meaning of νομίμων in 1 Macc 3:21

In the discussed verse 1 Macc 3:21, there are two main motivations for the struggle of Judah Maccabee and his compatriots against the Seleucid army of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The text combines the struggle for the physical existence of Jews with the defence of native customs established on the foundations of the Mosaic Law. There is a clear indissolubility of life and faith in the Jewish consciousness. One cannot survive without one’s own religious tradition, which is the basis of national identity. This article aims to explore the meaning of the Greek adjective νόμιμος, -η, -ον, appearing in the analysed verse of the the book, as substantive (τὸ) νόμιμον, "custom" especially in the plural τὰ νόμιμα, "customs, usages, norms". This term will be presented from a theological and historical perspective in search of an answer to the question about its content and implied meaning in the speech of Judah to his countrymen before the beginning of the battle of Beth-Choron. This content will be both the justification of the struggle undertaken and its importance in the history of Israel in the middle of the 2nd century BC.

Peace-Building Mechanism Among the Widikum of the Bamenda Grasslands, Cameroon, 1870-2014

The quest for sustainable peace is the primary objective of every nation or society. For any society to progress, peaceful co-existence become imperative. This article examines peace building mechanisms employed by peace actors in efforts to promote peace among the Widikum of the Bamenda Grasslands,Cameroon. Though several actors to promote peace have been deployed to scale down the multifaceted land and or chieftaincy conflict in the area under study, their efforts have registered limited success as the conflicts kept resurfacing after peace agreement because most peace effort were constructed from “top to bottom” rather than from “bottom to top” to include the indigenous mechanisms, their custom and tradition and primarily the failure to use powerful and skilful experts as mediators. Both primary and secondary sources were used in the writing of this article. An analysis of the data reveals that the British approach was the best for using alternative methods of both conventional and indigenous mechanisms. The British scale down the chieftaincy and or land conflicts,as justice was dispensed based on the native custom and tradition and sustainable peace was observed.

Beyond Statistics: Uncovering the Roots of Racial Disparities in Breastfeeding.

* Abbreviations: BFHI — : Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative CDC — : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention IHS — : Indian Health Service Breastfeeding is for white women. This sentiment was expressed by several Black women featured in Chocolate Milk , an eye-opening documentary series that was shown during a 2-week virtual breastfeeding elective created for medical students and implemented amid the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.1 In addition to learning about proper latch techniques, effective positions, and the breastfeeding challenges that women face, our learning also revealed racial disparities in breastfeeding. As 2 medical students who identify as Black and Native American, we desired to dig deeper to better understand the roots of these disparities and the systemic changes we can advocate for within medicine. Racial disparities in breastfeeding are similar to those that persist in other facets of health, including infant mortality. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), only 25.6% of all US infants born in 2017 were exclusively breastfed through 6 months of age. Whereas the 6-month exclusive breastfeeding rate among white infants born in 2017 was above the national average at 28.7%, only 21.2% of Black infants born in the same year and 19.6% of Native American infants born in 2015 (there is a lack of reporting after 2015) were exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months of life.2 Given the known benefits of breastfeeding for both mother and infant and the increased risks of comorbid health conditions for these communities, there is much to learn about how … Address correspondence to Suet Kam Lam, MD, MPH, MS, Department of Pediatric Hospital Medicine, Cleveland Clinic, 9500 Euclid Ave, S1-20, Cleveland, OH 44195. E-mail: skl48{at}case.edu

Disinheritance of Women Under Esan Customary law in Nigeria: The Need for a Paradigm Shift Towards Gender Equality.

Legal scholars, and activist in recent times had continued to advocate for equal rights of children irrespective of their gender on issues of succession or inheritance rights. The problem with gender-based discrimination are more palpable when a deceased die intestate and the principles of native law and custom regulating succession to the deceased intestate estate are fully activated. Most often, statistics have shown that female gender are discriminated against in most of the communities in Nigeria. Female children suffer the same fate under Esan customary law, because of the application of the rule of primogeniture that regulate inheritance and succession. Widows’ also are not excluded from discriminatory practises. This article seeks to examine critically the disinheritance of women either as daughters or as a widow under Esan customary law and advocate for a paradigm shift to bring its application in tandem with the Constitution.&#x0D; KEYWORD. Succession under Esan Customary Law, the Rule of Primogeniture and disinheritance of women.

Immemorial (and native) customs in early modernity: Europe and the Americas

This text asks how a greater familiarity with European law would change our vision of colonial territories, most particularly, Latin America. Concentrating on the study of immemorial and native customs in both European and American territories, it argues that these customs were not necessarily ancient or authentic. Instead, they authorised making legal exceptions to the general rule in a legal universe that was dramatically different from our own. They sustained the existence and legitimacy of a local juridical sphere while also maintaining the importance of a common, cross-Christian, legal understanding. By showcasing what practitioners, jurists, theologians, and scholars have said about customs during the early modern period and since, the aim is not to criticise what had been done by others but to offer a useful framework that would allow us to meaningfully merge the multiplicity of voices historians have already recovered, as well as supply those who work on these issues with the necessary background.

ОТЛУЧЕННЫЕ ПРИНЦЫ: ЭКСКОММУНИКАЦИИ В СРЕДНЕВЕКОВОМ УЭЛЬСЕ

Excommunication as a punishment for violating church rules on marriage and family relations was repeatedly imposed on members of Welsh dynasties during the 12th century. The aim of the research is to define the true reasons of such strict measures by means of analyzing historical sources: Welsh and English chronicles, including the Chronicle of the Princes, Annales Monastici, the corpus of Welsh native law texts known as the Law of Hywel Dda, the Historical Works of Gerald of Wales, some legal acts and official correspondence concerning Wales, including Thomas Becket’s letters. The Welsh native law was considered as a “barbarian” one by the Church. Undoubtedly, Welsh native customs contradicted canon law to some extent, allowing marriages between relatives, permitting divorces without reference to ecclesiastical procedures, and tolerating extramarital relationship. Incest marriages between members of major Welsh dynasties were a widespread phenomenon in Wales till the 13th century. Such marriages seemed to be an inevitable part of creating native political alliances in the face of danger from the Norman invaders. Welsh dynasties were often closely interrelated through marriages, but far not always this fact drew attention of the church. Owain Gwynedd and the Lord Rhys, who are believed to be the most powerful Welsh leaders of the 12th century, were both married to their first cousins. Owain Gwynedd was excommunicated for refusal to have his marriage annulled on the grounds of consanguinity. Meanwhile, the same circumstances of the Lord Rhys’ marriage went unnoticed. It must be taken into account that Owain Gwynedd’s canonically unacceptable marriage became a subject of the Pope’s attention only when the question of the Bishop of Bangor’s election and subsequent conflict with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, erupted. The Lord Rhys suffered the penalty of anathema just before his death not because of his scandalous marriage or immoral relationship but on account of disrespectful treatment of the Bishop of St. David’s, Peter de Leia. Obviously, conflicts between the Welsh rulers and the Anglo-Norman senior clergy as an essential part of Anglo-Welsh confrontation were the underlying reasons for such measures as excommunication. It is noteworthy that both of the aforementioned great Welsh princes were buried with due honor in the consecrated land despite the fact of excommunication, which demonstrated that the Welsh native clergy were loyal to their Welsh patrons rather than to the supreme ecclesiastical authorities.

Exploring perceptions of stress factors among transnational West African immigrant women

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the transnational connections of West African women immigrants and stress factors. From our extensive research, there is a scarcity of studies investigating this matter concerning transnational immigrant health. We conducted three focus group interviews with 7 transnational West African immigrants living in Chicago, Illinois. The PEN-3 model, as a cultural framework, was applied to guide the thematic analysis to explore the phenomenon of stress in West African immigrant women who maintain transnational ties between their home countries and the United States. Participants noted that a primary factor around increased stress involved trying to maintain strong ties to their native customs while acculturating to a foreign land. In particular, these women face challenges around employment and domestic responsibilities while also attempting to manage transnational responsibilities such as sending remittances back to their native land. The West African immigrant women of this study face several challenges in maintaining their home, work and social life. However, when they are resettling in a new land, these challenges affect them multidimensionally, including cultural identity, relationships and expectations, and cultural empowerment, which are elements of the PEN-3 framework. For these reasons, health researchers and intervention planners would benefit from further research into the links between the transnational connections that female African immigrants experience and their stress related coping behaviors.

Determining the effect of chieftaincy declaration on native law and custom: towards a consistent judicial approach in Nigeria

The appointment of most recognized chiefs is regulated by codified native law and custom usually called chieftaincy declaration or community constitution largely to obviate the necessity for oral proof and ensure certainty of the law. The court has maintained that it has no power to promulgate chieftaincy declaration for any community but departed from this principle in two cases when it held that it has competence to determine whether a chieftaincy declaration is in accordance with the prevailing custom and where it is not, declare it null and void. This paper concedes that the court can declare a chieftaincy declaration a nullity where the body that made it lacks competence; it cannot nullify a chieftaincy declaration on account of the correctness of the content. Whereas a finding of the court that a chieftaincy declaration does not represent the prevailing custom may necessitate a legislative reform, the nullification of a chieftaincy declaration on account of that finding amounts to judicial usurpation of legislative power. The proper construction of a chieftaincy declaration and its application to the facts will settle a dispute without the court necessarily nullifying the declaration. This paper therefore recommends a judicial rethink whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Entre mouras encantadas e encantados da amazônia: uma abordagem decolonial

RESUMO O objetivo deste artigo é analisar como agiu o colonizador ibérico quando chegou ao Novo Mundo e se deparou com povos nativos de culturas muito diversas e como ignorou totalmente os costumes e tentou invisibilizar o outro. Além do mais, o texto em questão visa discutir e examinar como elementos da cultura popular portuguesa foram infiltrados e ressignificados no Brasil e como os “restos ou rejeitados” fizeram para manter viva a sua base cultural. Para fazermos tal percurso apresentaremos a lenda da Moura Encantada e a da Moura Torta, ambas europeias, e as analisaremos tendo como contraponto as narrativas de mitos indígenas, dentre eles o da Iara, de forma a demonstrar que o caldeirão cultural não foi e não é uma via de mão única e que muitos de nossos personagens mitológicos encontrados, principalmente, nas florestas do Brasil e de outros países da América do Sul, renderam histórias e aguçaram o imaginário europeu, especialmente, sobre a Amazônia e tudo que nela pode ser reinventado. Para referendar nossas análises nos valeremos dos autores Walter Mignollo, Aníbal Quijano, Edgardo Lander e Frantz Fanon.

The ‘Reasonable Man’ in Colonial Nigeria

A key scholarly debate in late colonial law concerns the interpretation of the ‘reasonable man’. The reasonable man, whose paradigmatic status was itself a contested subject for English law, was all the more problematic for colonial law when the idea of a ‘reasonable native’ was presumed in and of itself to be questionable. Should the ‘native’ be held to the same standard of reasonableness as the Englishman? And if not, what standard of reason was valid? This article examines how popular literature of the period, both fiction and memoir, reflects these concerns. Focusing on accounts of colonial Nigeria, I show how this literature repeatedly complicates the perceived ‘reasonableness’ of both Europeans and colonial subjects. Moreover, I demonstrate that these complications, frequently dramatized through narratives of the uncanny, make visible colonial anxieties about the distinction between native custom and colonial authority.

The stones sing: The mestizo metal music of Kay Pacha and Yana Raymi

This article addresses the music of Kay Pacha and Yana Raymi, two bands from the city of Huancayo, Perú, that mix metal music with the world-view and instrumentation of the Andes, in an effort to reclaim Wanka culture and identity. To understand why both bands choose metal music to express what they understand as their own ancestral identity, I explore the history of the city of Huancayo, examining how the unique conditions in which its formation and development took place allowed local people to preserve native customs and, at the same time, integrate foreign elements that were gradually assimilated and conceived as their own. This phenomenon of integration has been termed mestizaje by José María Arguedas, who also sees it as a means to preserve and expand native culture. That particular way of understanding mestizaje can be examined by paying attention to the development of local popular music, including metal; particularly by reviewing the music, narratives and aesthetics of Kay Pacha’s black metal and Yana Raymi’s folk metal. I supplement the presented analysis via interviews with Jhon ‘Yachaq’ Limaymanta and Jhonn Castro, founding members of the respective bands.

Cultures of Sex, Laws of Difference: Age of Consent Law and the Forging of a Fraternal Contract on the Margins of the Nineteenth-Century British Empire

In the British colony of Natal, laws governing sex for settlers were concerned with reproduction and sexual respectability, which were the grounds for imagining difference amongst imperial populations only recently assembled under colonial jurisdiction. Age of consent laws arose out of these contingencies rather than out of any concern with a liberal politics of social reform. Consequently, colonial age of consent laws governing white settlers bore only superficial resemblance to metropolitan legislative reforms such as age of consent laws. Instead, the Natal state's practices of law-making recognized three discrete and divergent moral economies of sex in the colonial laws governing white settler citizens, Native law which governed the lives of Africans and the consolidated body of laws governing Indian immigrants. In this young colony, not only did ‘age of consent’ laws have to be newly made, but they were conceived separately and contained by ‘colonial law’, ‘Native custom’ and ‘Indian custom’. The sexuality of young white woman was coded in colonial rape laws and used to draw lines of civilizational difference between settler citizens and their Others. For these others, relating sex to exceptional marriage customs excluded from legal codes of civilized common practice was how the state worked to assert difference.

Mémoires of Michilimackinac and the Pays d'en Haut: Indians and French in the Upper Great Lakes at the Turn of the Eighteenth Century by José António Brandão

Book Reviews 173 José António Brandão (translator and editor). Mémoires of Michilimackinac and the Pays d’en Haut: Indians and French in the Upper Great Lakes at the Turns of the Eighteenth Century. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2019. Pp. 482. Illustrations. Cloth: $54.95. To describe this book as anything less than a triumph would be a disservice to its value to scholars of the early history of the upper Great lakes and to the scholarship of the translator/editor. The primary sources that he presents have long been known to historians, though in translations done at the turn of the twentieth century or before that were based on poorly executed transcriptions containing many inaccuracies, omissions, or changes that frequently confuse the documentation within them. Brandão’s fresh new translations make accessible three documents detailing the critical relationships between the French and their Native American friends, trading partners, and adversaries in the Pays d’en Haut (the Upper Country). Mémoires of Michilimackinac and the Pays d’en Haut presents readers with a wealth of information—commercial, historical, anthropological, and topographical. The mémoires are particularly useful for their record of Native customs and the nature of the working relationship between the French and Indians. The end of the seventeenth century and the first years of the eighteenth were a crucial time as French authorities and merchants first established themselves at the Straits of Mackinac, subsequently withdrew for a time, and then reestablished themselves on the south shore of the straits at the new post of Michilimackinac. The trio of mémoires in the book include one that has long been attributed to Antoine Laumet dit Lamothe Cadillac, though of uncertain date; a long official report by François Clairambault de Aigremont; and an argument of 1713 for reestablishing a military garrison at the straits written by François Bégon de La Picardiere, financial commissary of New France. The editor has also included a useful appendix of previously translated letters, reports, and mémoires dating from 1631 to 1716. These include a great deal of supporting and contextual information on the Laumet Cadillac, Clairambault, and Bégon documents. The reasons for the French preoccupation with Michilimackinac are laid out in the words of individuals who personally travelled, observed, and worked in the region they describe. Their accounts of life and Native customs in the Pays d’en Haut are noteworthy. The discussions within them present everything from speculations about the Hebrew origin of the Native American people (159-69) to the most gruesomely detailed account of the custom of the torture and burning of prisoners found in 174 The Michigan Historical Review print. (79-107) Explanatory footnotes identify and expand on items in the text. The editor seems to have missed only one opportunity to identify and explain a natural phenomenon. Cadillac’s text notes of Lake Michigan: “there is a tide, that is to say, an ebb and flow over twenty-four hours, just as in the seas of the south.” (17) This is clearly a reference to an event known as seiche, where wind-driven water piles up on the opposite shore giving the illusion of a tide. This book may be approached from two angles of interest. There are, of course, the three mémoires and their rich content. Then there is the extended introduction, in which Brandão lays out his methods and results for properly retranslating and verifying the documents. His tenacious and successful effort is a boon to those who want to further explore one of the most fascinating periods of Michigan and Great Lakes history. The book is attractively produced and nicely illustrated, with French and English text on facing pages. Mémoires should be in the library of anyone interested in the French in the colonial Great Lakes. Brian Leigh Dunnigan Curator Emeritus of Maps William L. Clements Library University of Michigan Shonda Buchanan. Black Indian. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2019. Pp. 333. Bibliography. Illustrations. Paper: $19.99. Shonda Buchanan, the award-winning poet, educator, and literary editor of Harriet Tubman Press, masterfully weaves together strands of family addiction, abuse, and racial identity to...

Essentializing Ugandan Indigenous Cultures in Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s Manchester Happened

This paper examines Manchester Happened by Jennifer Nansubuga in the light of postcolonial concepts of essentialism and time. This study is motivated by the observation that relationships between the former colonialists and colonized as represented in contemporary diasporic literature are still characterized by rivalry, racism and ideologies about the backwardness of Africans, Caribbeans and Asians. The creation of the Commonwealth of Nations has not served as a platform to eradicate the inauspicious binary matrices that existed in the days of the British Empire. African migrants in England are unable to effectively integrate themselves in the socio-economic sphere since their ‘Otherness’ remains a consideration for rejection. Oppression and marginalization are therefore presented as traits in Western culture whereas the spirit of community, attachment to cultural values and the desire to foster the ideals of the past characterize Ugandan indigenous attitudes as presented in Manchester Happened. From this problematic stance, the following research questions were derived: How is home constructed in Manchester? What is the significance of making journeys back to the homeland? This study is therefore predicated upon the claim that Ugandans in Manchester exhibit trends of their indigenous culture as they seek to assert their cultural identity in the diaspora and back home in Uganda. Globalization and modernity affect some characters that are enamored by Western attitudes. However, Nansubuga presents Ugandans who embody native customs which they practice daily in Manchester, and besides, they regularly travel to Uganda for other communal rites. In these instances, value is ascribed to native customs and the heritage from their ancestral past.

The implementation of the African charter on human and peoples’ rights and the convention on the rights of the child in Nigeria: the creation of irresponsible parents and dutiful children?

This article examines the implementation of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Nigeria together with the Junkun native law and custom. The article finds that these are multiple laws reflecting legal pluralism within the social field of the relationship between parents and their offspring. The article further finds that children are obliged to take care of their parents when they are in need for the rest of their lives under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act whereas under the Children’s Rights Act, parents are no longer responsible to their children after the children have attained the age of 18 years. Thus, the implementation of the two treaties can create irresponsible parents and dutiful children most especially where children are given more rights under customary law beyond 18 as expressed in the Junkun native law and custom. In resolving this situation of legal pluralism, the article subjects the situation to the interrogation of pluralistic archetypes such as legal pluralism of indifference, legal pluralism of accommodation, combative legal pluralism, legal pluralism of mutual support or complementary legal pluralism and offers solution by way of strategies to be adopted in balancing rights with duties through bridging, harmonization, incorporation, subsidization, or repression. The study argues that the Children’s Rights Act appears to be in a combative relationship with the Junkun native law and custom while the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act appears to be in a situation of indifference to Children’s Rights Act. Also, the Nigerian Constitution 1999 also appears indifferent to the Junkun native law and custom. The study therefore recommends subsidization and harmonization as strategies to be adopted by the law making organs in Nigeria and urges them to amend the Nigerian Constitution 1999 to accommodate customary law where it offers a better protection. In addition, the study recommends that pending the amendment, judges should be permitted rule shopping or norm shopping as a repressive strategy to supplant any norm that will do injustice where an alternative norm will do otherwise. The study concludes that by having the Constitution amended, the legislative process as a manifestation of the state's legal power or authority in Nigeria will acquire legitimacy. Also, by adopting a repressive strategy, the judicial process as a manifestation of the state's legal power or authority in Nigeria will acquire legitimacy.