Broken Gourds is Inspirational Folklore. It is a portrait of humanity mirrored in the events of one small Jamaican farming village. The story tells of a lowly healer whose mission is to empower the oppressed while fostering harmony and hope. His success attracts the temptations of greed, hate, and lust. These he must struggle to overcome. FIC000000

Humankind has had a long and intimate association with gourds, and one of them, the bottle gourd, or calabash, may have been man's first cultivated plant. Although grown in the United States today primarily as ornamentals, in other parts of the world gourds have many other important uses. With charming text and stunning black-and-white photographs, The Gourd Book provides fascinating scientific information and folklore about these remarkable plants and keys for identifying species. The first part of the book deals with tree gourds, widely used as containers and for decoration; the Cucurbita gourds, including the buffalo gourd, the Turk's turban, the silver-seed gourd, and the Malabar gourd, all utilized as food, and the beautiful ornamental gourds; the loofah gourds, popular as cosmetic sponges; minor gourds, such as the snake, wax, bitter, teasel, and hedgehog, sometimes used as food or medicine; and gourds mentioned in the Bible. The second part takes up the bottle gourd, which has been used for thousands of years. Even today this gourd is almost indispensable in many parts of the tropics, where species are used to make containers, musical instruments, and clothing, as food and medicine, and in art. The book concludes with a discussion of the gourd in folklore and myth and an appendix on growing, hybridizing, and preserving gourds for decoration. Delightfully written for general readers, this book will also appeal to botanists, anthropologists, horticulturists, and everyone interested in plants or gardening.

Step-by-step instructions explain how to complete a variety of projects using gourds of all shapes and sizes.

Gourds -- with their infinite variety of unusual shapes and sizes, and their smooth surfaces -- have provided a perfect canvas for artists in the American Southwest over many years. It's easy to carve, paint, and stain them, and add embellishments like beads and feathers. These beautiful projects, including rainsticks, masks, and bowls, reflect the traditional designs, techniques, and colors that are indigenous to this region.

Gourds -- with their infinite variety of unusual shapes and sizes, and their smooth surfaces -- have provided a perfect canvas for artists in the American Southwest over many years. It's easy to carve, paint, and stain them, and add embellishments like beads and feathers. These beautiful projects, including rainsticks, masks, and bowls, reflect the traditional designs, techniques, and colors that are indigenous to this region.

Much of the work in the field of African studies still relies on rigid distinctions of ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘resistance’, ‘indigenous’ and ‘foreign’. This book moves well beyond these frameworks to probe the complex entanglements of different intellectual traditions in the South African context, by examining two case studies. The case studies constitute the core around which is woven this intriguing story of the development of black theatre in South Africa in the early years of the century. It also highlights the dialogue between African and African-American intellectuals, and the intellectual formation of the early African elite in relation to colonial authority and how each affected the other in complicated ways. The first case study centres on Mariannhill Mission in KwaZulu-Natal. Here the evangelical and pedagogical drama pioneered by the Rev Bernard Huss, is considered alongside the work of one of the mission’s most eminent alumni, the poet and scholar, B.W. Vilakazi. The second moves to Johannesburg and gives a detailed insight into the working of the Bantu Dramatic Society and the drama of H.I.E. Dhlomo in relation to the British Drama League and other white liberal cultural activities.

The adventures of Gregory Hartley, who experiences the reconquest of the Sudan by the British Army in 1898.