Erik R. Seeman's Books

Speaking with the Dead in Early America

By: Erik R. Seeman

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Speaking with the Dead in Early America

By: Erik R. Seeman

In late medieval Catholicism, mourners employed an array of practices to maintain connection with the deceased—most crucially, the belief in purgatory, a middle place between heaven and hell where souls could be helped by the actions of the living. In the early sixteenth century, the Reformation abolished purgatory, as its leaders did not want attention to the dead diminishing people's devotion to God. But while the Reformation was supposed to end communication between the living and dead, it turns out the result was in fact more complicated than historians have realized. In the three centuries after the Reformation, Protestants imagined continuing relationships with the dead, and the desire for these relations came to form an important—and since neglected—aspect of Protestant belief and practice. In Speaking with the Dead in Early America, historian Erik R. Seeman undertakes a 300-year history of Protestant communication with the dead. Seeman chronicles the story of Protestants' relationships with the deceased from Elizabethan England to puritan New England and then on through the American Enlightenment into the middle of the nineteenth century with the explosion of interest in Spiritualism. He brings together a wide range of sources to uncover the beliefs and practices of both ordinary people, especially women, and religious leaders. This prodigious research reveals how sermons, elegies, and epitaphs portrayed the dead as speaking or being spoken to, how ghost stories and Gothic fiction depicted a permeable boundary between this world and the next, and how parlor songs and funeral hymns encouraged singers to imagine communication with the dead. Speaking with the Dead in Early America thus boldly reinterprets Protestantism as a religion in which the dead played a central role.

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345

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University of Pennsylvania Press

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ISBN 10

0812296419

ISBN 13

9780812296419

Death in the New World

Cross-Cultural Encounters, 1492-18

By: Erik R. Seeman

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Death in the New World

Cross-Cultural Encounters, 1492-18

By: Erik R. Seeman

Reminders of death were everywhere in the New World, from the epidemics that devastated Indian populations and the mortality of slaves working the Caribbean sugar cane fields to the unfamiliar diseases that afflicted Europeans in the Chesapeake and West Indies. According to historian Erik R. Seeman, when Indians, Africans, and Europeans encountered one another, they could not ignore the similarities in their approaches to death. All of these groups believed in an afterlife to which the soul or spirit traveled after death. As a result all felt that corpses—the earthly vessels for the soul or spirit—should be treated with respect, and all mourned the dead with commemorative rituals. Seeman argues that deathways facilitated communication among peoples otherwise divided by language and custom. They observed, asked questions about, and sometimes even participated in their counterparts' rituals. At the same time, insofar as New World interactions were largely exploitative, the communication facilitated by parallel deathways was often used to influence or gain advantage over one's rivals. In Virginia, for example, John Smith used his knowledge of Powhatan deathways to impress the local Indians with his abilities as a healer as part of his campaign to demonstrate the superiority of English culture. Likewise, in the 1610-1614 war between Indians and English, the Powhatans mutilated English corpses because they knew this act would horrify their enemies. Told in a series of engrossing narratives, Death in the New World is a landmark study that offers a fresh perspective on the dynamics of cross-cultural encounters and their larger ramifications in the Atlantic world.

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385

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University of Pennsylvania Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0812206002

ISBN 13

9780812206005

The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead

Indian-European Encounters in Early North America

By: Erik R. Seeman

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The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead

Indian-European Encounters in Early North America

By: Erik R. Seeman

Appreciating each other's funerary practices allowed the Wendats and French colonists to find common ground where there seemingly would be none. This title analyzes these encounters, using the Feast of the Dead as a metaphor for broader Indian-European relations in North America." -- WorldCat.

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172

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JHU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0801898544

ISBN 13

9780801898549

Death in the New World

Cross-Cultural Encounters, 1492-18

By: Erik R. Seeman

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Death in the New World

Cross-Cultural Encounters, 1492-18

By: Erik R. Seeman

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385

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University of Pennsylvania Press

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0812206002

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9780812206005

The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead

Indian-European Encounters in Early North America

By: Erik R. Seeman

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The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead

Indian-European Encounters in Early North America

By: Erik R. Seeman

“Two thousand Wendat (Huron) Indians stood on the edge of an enormous burial pit . . . they held in their arms the bones of roughly seven hundred deceased friends and family members. The Wendats had lovingly scraped and cleaned the bones of the corpses that had decomposed on the scaffolds. They awaited only the signal from the master of the ritual to place the bones in the pit. This was the great Feast of the Dead.” Witnesses to these Wendat burial rituals were European colonists, French Jesuit missionaries in particular. Rather than being horrified by these unfamiliar native practices, Europeans recognized the parallels between them and their own understanding of death and human remains. Both groups believed that deceased souls traveled to the afterlife; both believed that elaborate mortuary rituals ensured the safe transit of the soul to the supernatural realm; and both believed in the power of human bones. Appreciating each other’s funerary practices allowed the Wendats and French colonists to find common ground where there seemingly would be none. Erik R. Seeman analyzes these encounters, using the Feast of the Dead as a metaphor for broader Indian-European relations in North America. His compelling narrative gives undergraduate students of early America and the Atlantic World a revealing glimpse into this fascinating—and surprising—meeting of cultures.

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172

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JHU Press

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ISBN 10

1421401851

ISBN 13

9781421401850

Speaking with the Dead in Early America

By: Erik R. Seeman

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Speaking with the Dead in Early America

By: Erik R. Seeman

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344

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University of Pennsylvania Press

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ISBN 10

0812251539

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9780812251531

Book's by Erik R. Seeman

Speaking with the Dead in Early America

Speaking with the Dead in Early America

Death in the New World

Death in the New World

The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead

The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead

Death in the New World

Death in the New World

The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead

The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead

Speaking with the Dead in Early America

Speaking with the Dead in Early America

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