Thirty-five years into his research among the descendants of rebel slaves living in the South American rain forest; anthropologist Richard Price encountered Tooy; a priest; philosopher; and healer living in a rough shantytown on the outskirts of Cayenne; French Guiana. Tooy is a time traveler who crosses boundaries between centuries; continents; the worlds of the living and the dead; and the visible and invisible. With an innovative blend of storytelling and scholarship; Travels with Tooy recounts the mutually enlightening and mind-expanding journeys of these two intellectuals.Included on the itinerary for this hallucinatory expedition: forays into the eighteenth century to talk with slaves newly arrived from Africa; leaps into the midst of battles against colonial armies; close encounters with double agents and femme fatale forest spirits; and trips underwater to speak to the comely sea gods who control the world’s money supply. This enchanting book draws on Price’s long-term ethnographic and archival research; but above all on Tooy’s teachings; songs; stories; and secret languages to explore how Africans in the Americas have created marvelous new worlds of the imagination.
#547748 in Books 1999-05-01 1999-05-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x .80 x 6.00l; .90 #File Name: 0226493113294 pages
Review
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful. Are we still prisoners of Shangri-la?By Magalini SabinaAt ten years from its publication that flared many a fire from other Tibetan scholars and Buddhist adepts; Lopez's demystifying and deconstructive work can be coolly judged for its positive and negative aspects. The book was issued in 1998 at the peak of American "Tibetmania" by an academician who was probably greatly annoyed by the many interpretations and transformations of what he deemed a field o knowledge worthy of a "scientific" study. With a solid even if slightly arrogant and according to some "biased" approach; the Author analyzes the cardinal points of Western misinterpretation of the Tibetan culture. Starting from the pejorative term of "Lamaism"; leading us through the Hippy and New-Age popularity of the "Tibetan Book of the Dead"; across Lobsang Rampa's global and successful hoax he shows us how; with a typical "Orientalism" approach; we tend to see in Tibet and its culture either a paradisiac or demoniac reality that does not exist and a great part of the confusion is due to the tools used for the interpretation of ancient texts. Eviscerating the formula "Om manipadme hum"; attempting an esthetical and epistemological analysis of Tibetan art works and depicting; this time in severely personal perspective; the scenario of Tibetan studies in the US and in the rest of the world; he lands us in a territory where with clean an virgin eyes we can try to really look and appreciate a culture so different form ours.The last part of the book deals with the apparent complacency of Tibetan religious authorities with the Western misreading of a "Buddhist modernism" and a "diluting of dharma"; in order to enforce anti-Chinese politics in the attempt of finding patrons in exile. Naturally this idea is strictly personal and has to re-evaluated today that somehow the illusion of a Free Tibet seems as far away as ever before.Another point to make at a distance of ten years is the constant updating of the translations of the original sources of Tibetan knowledge; that have greatly contributed on their own to the demystification of this academic discipline and widespread religion.The book is easy to read also because the innumerable bibliographical citations are helpfully all at the end and can be consulted at wish (don't miss them for clues to further reading) and represents a milestone for the layman that is interested in this field.P.S. The apparently incomprehensible and complicated Shugden affair is still going on now!9 of 13 people found the following review helpful. Rewriting History From the Roof of the WorldBy EternalSeekerA thought provoking and well documented look at how Tibet and its people have been reformulated by the media for the West's consumption for nearly 200 years. It's isolation has made it the victim of spiritual and political charletans selling a romantic and impossible image of it in the West; later to be followed by the total silence imposed by the Chinese as they carried out a ruthless policy of social genocide; further distorting the image of Tibet as a nation and a people.Anyone interested in the future of central Asia; and that is to say Asia; China and the world itself; should read this book; as should all those currently bewitched by Tibetan Buddhism. The historical reality of Tibet has much more to offer the world; than the fairy tale we have wistfully imposed upon it.22 of 27 people found the following review helpful. Backstage passBy Saul Boulschettto one of the biggest gigs touring the world right now.The book; written in the best academese; presents a clear view of the West's distortion; and the history of that distortion-making; vis-Ã -vis Tibet and Tibet's version of Buddhism.The book is laid out into seven neat chapters; each bearing a single-word title that feels Borgesian in its cryptic minimalism. Each chapter deals with one of the events and objects that have structured for the West the illusion called Tibet. They are (and refer to):1. The Name (the term `Lamaism')2. The Book (The Tibetan Book of the Dead)3. The Eye (the book; `The Third Eye' by T. Lobsang Rampa)4. The Spell (the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum)5. The Art (Thangkas; Mandalas; Wrathful Deities; Skull cups; etc)6. The Field (of Buddhist Studies and Tibetology in the US)7. The Prison (the collective illusion regarding "Tibet" and her mysteries)Yes; the debunking is sobering as well as entertaining; as it is done with solid scholarly information delivered with biting wit and even Wildean sarcasm at times.But the most interesting things the author mentions are questions and remain still as questions: Namely; the question of Tibetan clergy's willing "collusion" or co-option of the West's tendency to "psychologize" the Buddhist doctrine. For example; there is a marked tendency on the part of the Tibetan Lamas and American academics to veer away from interpreting the Six Realms as anything more than so many "psychological states" in this present incarnation but that is certainly NOT the way most Tibetans have been taught.Moreover; there is a Dalai Lama approved move to present to the West a user-friendly version of Tibetan Buddhism that is totally devoid of the really weird stuff that "formerly" took up (and still takes up for the average Tibetan) the bulk of what that faith used to be all about "back home": exorcism; magic; animistic rituals; etc.; stuff that would be totally unacceptable in the modern West.The last chapter deals a bit with the so-called Shugden Affair that may have played a part in the murder of an old Lama and his two students who supported the Dalai Lama's new policy (after consulting an oracle) to outlaw Shugden (a protecting deity of the Geluk sect) worship. This was not widely reported in the media but apparently this was/is a big deal among the Tibetans in the dressing room backstage even as they continue to put on a great show on stage.No doubt; Tibetan Buddhism; even in its Americanized (low fat; low salt; Stuart Smalley) version has something to offer to some people - if not to the West as a whole; then at least to the Tibetans' image. But are we in the West willing; ready; and daring enough to meet the Tibetans on their own religious turf and do what they do and eat what they eat; so to speak? If not; maybe going back to church and listening to a familiar sermon may not be entirely a bad idea for those who must have religion.Let's not forget; nobody in China has ever heard of; let alone eat; Chop Suey.
