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Wilmington, North Carolina once had a thriving Black middle class and an elected interracial government. In 1898 white supremacists used violence to overthrow that government, kill Black residents and drive many others from the city.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
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Modekngei, or Ngara Modekngei (English: United Sect), is a monotheistic religious movement founded around 1915 by Tamadad, a native of the island of Babeldaob, that spread throughout Palau.[1] It rose to political significance between the First and Second World Wars and as of 2019[update] is professed by 5.7% of Palau's population.[2] Modekngei is a hybrid of ancient Palauan customs and Christianity. Followers of the religion believe in the Christian God, recognize Jesus Christ as the Messiah, and simultaneously make appeasements to the traditional Palauan deities.[3]
The origins of Modekngei are unknown, but one hypothesis purports that Modekngei began as a form of nonviolent resistance to the Japanese occupation of Palau.[3] By amalgamating native animistic and Christian beliefs in hymns (keskes), the islanders may have been better able to preserve and transmit their traditions.[4]
A common story in Ngatpang is that the religion developed from the efforts of Christian missionaries in Palau who hoped to convert the islanders. After visiting Ibobang, a village in Ngatpang where most of the residents practice Modekngei, the missionaries were so impressed by the villagers' commitment to their customs that they allowed the Palauans to keep their goddess while still practicing Christianity.
The goal of Modekngei is to preserve ancient Palauan traditions in a way that aligns with Christianity.
Adherents in Ibobang practice a lifestyle centered on ancient ideas of family, community, and purity. The religion prohibits followers from all alcohol and drug use, and children in the village are required to be home by dark and abstain from making loud noises in sacred places.
Citizens of Ibobang attend daily church services. The church building is located in the center of the village and is likewise the center of activity. One Modekngei custom requires members of the community to walk silently to church each morning. To speak, especially loudly, before a church service is disrespectful and borderline blasphemous.
Women in Ibobang usually wear pants, but at church, they are required to always wear a skirt or dress when either entering or passing the building. As a result, it is not uncommon to see a woman in Ibobang dressed in pants to take a longer route to her destination to keep from crossing the church grounds without the proper attire. Daily Modekngei church services are short, consisting mostly of individual and group prayers. However, services celebrating both traditional and religious holidays are more elaborate and can last several days, with weeks of communal preparation.
One custom that most Palauans observe—regardless of religious affiliation—is the prohibition of alcohol or tobacco within the Ibobang city limits. According to tradition, violating this religious ban will bring terrible rainstorms upon the village that will not go away until the sin has been forgiven by the Modekngei goddess.
Even Palauans who may normally drink or smoke will abstain from bringing the banned substances within the city limits. The belief that rains will plague the village is so strong that Modekngei elders will hang fruit and other treats on tree branches throughout the village in hopes of propitiating the goddess to be forgiving of outsiders' misconduct.
Another customary activity that takes place in Ibobang is the blessing of the roads. This particular custom coincides with the moon's cycle. A few days before each full moon, the community works together to clean the entire village. Lawns are cut, trash is cleaned and houses are scrubbed. Then, the evening before the full moon dawns, everyone who lives in Ibobang waits inside their houses while a village elder walks up and down the streets chanting prayers and blessings over the village. This is a necessary practice in Modekngei because it's believed that during a full moon, the Modekngei goddess is better able to see the malpractices of her people.
Ibobang is the home of Belau Modekngei School (BMS),[5] a boarding school for high school students situated at the far end of the village. In 1974, a handful of Modekngei elders realized their desire to pass on the ancient traditions of the Modekngei religion to future generations.
As of 2021[update], between 25 and 30 students from the 9th to 12th grade are enrolled at BMS.[6] Students and faculty have the option of living on campus in traditional dormitory-style housing with no electricity or running water, or in the surrounding villages of Ngatpang. Slightly more than half the students live on campus.
The student body at BMS is diverse. Some of the students attend because they come from families that value a traditional education. Other students enroll at BMS as a last resort. As one of the very few private high schools on Palau, BMS has the option of accepting students who have been expelled from the island's only public high school.[7]
Students at BMS study core academic subjects such as English, Math and Palauan, but they also take Modekngei religious classes, have the opportunity to farm ancient medicinal crops, and practice traditional customs with the wider village.
Belau Modekngei's primary goal is to preserve Modekngei religion for future generations.
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Modekngei, or Ngara Modekngei (English: United Sect), is a monotheistic religious movement founded around 1915 by Tamadad, a native of the island of Babeldaob, that spread throughout Palau. It rose to political significance between the First and Second World Wars and as of 2019 is professed by 5.7% of Palau's population. Modekngei is a hybrid of ancient Palauan customs and Christianity. Followers of the religion believe in the Christian God, recognize Jesus Christ as the Messiah, and simultaneously make appeasements to the traditional Palauan deities.
Ngatpang is one of Palau's sixteen states. It comprises an area of around 47 square kilometers in the west of Palau's largest island, Babeldaob, facing onto Ngeremeduu Bay. It has a population of 282, making it Palau's 9th largest state in population. Ibobang is in Ngatpang. It is a community dedicated to the practice of the Modekngei religion.
The Baháʼí Faith is a religion established by Baháʼu'lláh in the 19th century that teaches the essential worth of all religions and the unity of all people. It initially developed in Iran and parts of Western Asia, where it has faced ongoing persecution since its inception. The religion has 7–8 million adherents, known as Baháʼís, who are spread throughout most of the world's countries and territories. The Baháʼí Faith has three central figures: the Báb (1819–1850), executed for heresy, who taught that a prophet similar to Jesus and Muhammad would soon appear; Baháʼu'lláh, who claimed in 1863 to be the expected prophet and who had to endure both exile and imprisonment; and his son, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá (1844–1921), who made teaching trips to Europe and the United States after his release from confinement in 1908. After ʻAbdu'l-Bahá's death in 1921, the leadership of the religion fell to his grandson Shoghi Effendi (1897–1957). Baháʼís annually elect local, regional, and national administrative bodies that govern the religion's affairs, and every five years an election is held for the Universal House of Justice, the nine-member governing institution of the worldwide Baháʼí community that is located in Haifa, Israel, near the Shrine of the Báb. According to Baháʼí teachings, religion is revealed in an orderly and progressive way by a single God through Manifestations of God, who are the founders of major world religions throughout human history; the Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad are cited as the most recent of these Manifestations of God before the Báb and Baháʼu'lláh. Baháʼís regard the world's major religions as fundamentally unified in their purpose, but divergent in their social practices and interpretations. The Baháʼí Faith stresses the unity of all people as its core teaching; as a result, it explicitly rejects notions of racism, sexism, and nationalism. At the heart of Baháʼí teachings is the vision of a unified world order that ensures the prosperity of all nations, races, creeds, and classes. Letters and epistles by Baháʼu'lláh, along with writings and talks by his son ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, have been collected and assembled into a canon of Baháʼí scriptures. This collection also includes works by the Báb, who is regarded as Baháʼu'lláh's forerunner. Prominent among the works of Baháʼí literature are the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the Kitáb-i-Íqán, Some Answered Questions, God Passes By, and The Dawn-Breakers.
The Druze, who call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn (lit. 'the monotheists' or 'the unitarians'), are an esoteric religious group of Arabs who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic, esoteric, monotheistic, ethnic, and syncretic religion whose main tenets assert the unity of God, reincarnation, and the eternity of the soul. Although the Druze faith originally developed from the Ismā‘īli branch of Shiʿa Islam, members of the Druze community do not identify as Muslims. They maintain the Arabic language and culture as integral parts of their identity, with Arabic being their primary language. Most Druze religious practices are kept secret, and conversion to their religion is not permitted for outsiders. Interfaith marriages are rare and strongly discouraged. They differentiate between spiritual individuals, known as "uqqāl", who hold the faith's secrets, and secular ones, known as "juhhāl", who focus on worldly matters. Druze believe that, after completing the cycle of rebirth through successive reincarnations, the soul reunites with the Cosmic Mind (al-ʻaql al-kullī). The Epistles of Wisdom (Rasāʾil al-Ḥikma) is the foundational and central text of the Druze faith. The Druze faith originated in the Ismā‘īli denomination of Shiʿa Islam, and has been influenced by a diverse range of philosophical and religious traditions, including Christianity, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and Pythagoreanism. This has led to the development of a distinct and secretive theology, characterized by an esoteric interpretation of scripture that emphasizes the importance of the mind and truthfulness. Druze beliefs include the concepts of theophany and reincarnation. The Druze hold Shuaib in high regard, believing him to be the same person as the biblical Jethro. They regard Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, and the Ismā‘īli Imam Muhammad ibn Isma'il as prophets. Additionally, Druze tradition honors figures such as Salman the Persian, al-Khidr (who they say are reincarnations of Elijah, John the Baptist, and Saint George), Job, Luke the Evangelist, and others as "mentors" and "prophets". The Druze faith is one of the major religious groups in the Levant, with between 800,000 and a million adherents. They are primarily located in Lebanon, Syria, and Israel, with smaller communities in Jordan. They make up 5.5% of Lebanon's population, 3% of Syria's and 1.6% of Israel's. The oldest and most densely populated Druze communities exist in Mount Lebanon and in the south of Syria around Jabal al-Druze (literally the "Mountain of the Druze"). The Druze community played a critically important role in shaping the history of the Levant, where it continues to play a significant political role. As a religious minority, they have often faced religious persecution from various Muslim regimes, including contemporary Islamic extremists and terrorists. Several theories about the origins of the Druze have been proposed, with the Arabian hypothesis being the most widely accepted among historians, intellectuals, and religious leaders within the Druze community. This hypothesis significantly influences the Druze's self-perception, cultural identity, and both oral and written traditions. It suggests that the Druze are descended from 12 Arab tribes that migrated to Syria before and during the early Islamic period. This perspective is accepted by all Druze communities in Syria and Lebanon, as well as by most Druze in Israel.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →The Greenwood District.
