Prototype Issue
The Village of Water Spirits: The Dreams of African Americans
By Michael Ortiz Hill
(page 1 of 1)Preserving the teachings of native tradition, Michael Ortiz Hill passes on the knowledge of his scholastic digging.
Michael Ortiz Hill is a scholar-initiate of Africana wisdom traditions. He belongs to a new intellectual movement that is emerging to capture the indigenous meanings of Africana cultures and make them as strong and creative as possible. This new movement is constantly stewarding, arbitrating and rethinking the indigenous values, principles and methodologies of Africana cultures. The best thinkers of this new movement are staging an intellectual revolution that is moving the exploration of Africana wisdom traditions from the margins to the center of modernity around the world. In this book The Village of Water Spirits, Hill deals with the enduring legacy of wisdom among African American people and explores the religious world they built in the North American diaspora for the past three centuries. This work relies on long conversations between Hill and shonga nganga (medicine man) Mandaza Kandemwa. They address what they perceive as the spirit world of African Americans as revealed in their dreams. In addition, it is based on Hill’s scholarly research into the African shape of the African American soul. The book explores the intimate aspects of the life of African Americans and shows how they have built worlds of meaning to resist the dehumanizing Western slavery and racism. 192 pages, Spring Publications Inc.—Dr. Kykosa Kajangu, Department of Religion and Philosophy, Southwestern University
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