Mahorney World Cultures

    The Zapotec people are a group of indigenous people that mainly live in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Most are subsistence agriculturalists that grow maize. A few do cultivate coffee beans as cash crops as well as a kind of sugarcane they call panela.  Today, we are looking over the Zapotec's mythology(773), various sacred objects and places (778), and their spirits and gods (776).     In modern times, the Zapotec people follow catholicism, due to Spanish colonization of Mexico during the 1500s. In catholicism, the Zapotec believe Jesus Christ is their one and only god. However, what makes Zapotec catholicism unique to them is their worship of saints, some being recognized saints such as the Virgin of Guadalupe, also known as the Virgin Mary. The Zapotec also worship local saints such as  Santa Muerte, the saint of death and the afterlife. The Zapotec form groups devoted to the worship of one saint, these are called cofradías.     A...

       The Sami people are pastoralists who mainly herd reindeer as well as hunt, fish, and raise other animals like sheep and cattle. They live mainly in Scandinavian countries such as Norway, Sweden, and Finland although a smaller number of them live in north-western Russia as well. The lands they live in is sometimes called "Lapland" by non-Sami people, with the Sami being called "Laplanders", although they do not call themselves that name. Today, we are looking over the Sami's mythology(773), various sacred objects and places (778), and their spirits and gods (776). One popular myth of the Sami religion involves the Scandinavian god Thor. Many centuries ago, one group of Sami had adopted this god of Scandinavian myth into their religion although the majority of Sami do not worship Thor or any other Scandinavian deities. This group also changed Thor's name as well, deciding to call him Aijeke. The myth goes that in a cave under Lake Enare, Aijeke lived th...

  The Zulu people are agro-pastoralists that live in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Their name comes from their word for the sky, "izulu", as they believe the first humans originally lived in the sky. The Zulu's mythology(773), various objects and places that are sacred (778), and their spirits and gods (776). The Zulu mythology states people long ago lives in the sky with their deities. Their creation myth states that all people originally lived in the sky with the gods. However, one man got in trouble for riding the favorite ox of iNkosi, the Zulu sky god or "Lord of the Sky". iNkosi punished the man by cutting a hole in the sky that led down to Earth and throwing the man through the hole. The man was exiled there and had to struggle to survive for a month. Taking pity on the man, iNkosi has the most beautiful woman of the sky go down to Earth and become the man's wife. The two would become the first humans of Earth, according to Zulu tradi...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zulu_Culture,_KwaZulu-Natal,_South_Africa_(19892163053).jpg For my blog project, I will be researching religious beliefs (770) on the three culture groups I have chosen. I will examine their mythologies(773), various objects and places that are sacred (778), and their spirits and gods (776). I chose these three narrower subjects of religious beliefs because not only did they seem the most interesting, but I am curious to find out how these cultures view life and more importantly, the afterlife. To add, these three aspects of religious beliefs are key components to finding possible overlap between these three cultures. That is why I chose these subjects for my overarching theme. For the three cultures I will study, I chose the Zulu, Sami, and Zapotec cultures. These three cultures live in environments that are very different. I wonder if their environments resulted in drastically different religious beliefs; which I hope will make my studies i...

I favorite animal are dogs since my family has had three dogs over the course of my life. My favorite holiday is Christmas because of the gifts and in my religion, it is the birth of our Lord.