prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: Which band, Matthew Good Band or Switchfoot is still together?

The following are given passages.
Context 1: Passage 1:
In a Coma
In a Coma: 1995-2005 is the title of the Matthew Good compilation album, featuring both his solo work and work from the Matthew Good Band 

Details
The album is often titled In a Coma: 1995-2005, and notably lacks either "best of" or "greatest hits" in the official title  It was released on September 20, 2005  However, even before its release, the album reached #1 on Amazon ca via pre-orders, and 200 signed copies sold out from Matthew Good's official site in under four hours 
The album is available in two forms: the regular version and the deluxe  The regular only includes disc one, the deluxe features two audio discs and one DVD  The first disc contains nearly all of the singles released by the Matthew Good Band and Matt solo, lacking only Good's most recent singles ("Near Fantastica", "It's Been a While Since I Was Your Man", "In Love with a Bad Idea") and the singles from the album The Audio of Being ("Carmelina", "Anti-Pop")  The first disc also contains two new songs ("Oh Be Joyful", "Big City Life"), as well as a b-side ("Pony Boy") recorded during the sessions for The Audio of Being 
For the second disc, Good entered the studio solo with an acoustic guitar and recorded new versions of several songs from his extensive catalog  For added effect, Good miked the street outside the studio as he performed, adding an ambiance to the session that Good particularly enjoyed  Given the scarcity of the two MGB EPs Lo-Fi B-Sides and Loser Anthems, Good decided to add the two discs to the latter half of the second disc as a nod to fans 
The DVD in the deluxe package includes every promotional video filmed during Good's career, solo and with the Matthew Good Band  As a bonus, Good recorded a commentary track with Bill Morrison, who directed the majority of the videos  The DVD also includes an animated video for "While We Were Hunting Rabbits", which was created by students at Sheridan College  After Good realized that his favourite songs had not been included in the package, a section featuring those songs accompanied by a slideshow of images similar to the cover artwork was added to the disc 
"Oh Be Joyful", the first single from In a Coma, was released on July 25, 2005  The song's release was accompanied by a video that many fans found confusing, as it contained little more than a burning fireplace  Matthew Good was quick to defend his video on his blog, saying that it was "one of the greatest temporary musical screen savers of all time" and that it was only intended to appear on his site, not to play on Much Music 

Track listing
Regular release
"Oh Be Joyful"  – 3:52 (previously unreleased)
"Big City Life"  – 4:15 (previously unreleased)
"Alert Status Red"  – 4:19 (from White Light Rock & Roll Review)
"Weapon"  – 6:06 (from Avalanche)
"In a World Called Catastrophe"  – 5:59 (from Avalanche)
"Hello Time Bomb"  – 3:56 (from Beautiful Midnight)
"Load Me Up"  – 3:42 (from Beautiful Midnight)
"Strange Days"  – 4:24 (from Beautiful Midnight)
"The Future Is X-Rated"  – 3:46 (from Beautiful Midnight)
"Everything Is Automatic"  – 4:18 (from Underdogs)
"Rico"  – 3:27 (from Underdogs)
"Apparitions"  – 5:14 (from Underdogs)
"Indestructible"  – 3:26 (from Underdogs)
"Symbolistic White Walls"  – 4:30 (from Last of the Ghetto Astronauts)
"Haven't Slept In Years (Alternate)"  – 3:35 (from Raygun)
"Alabama Motel Room"  – 3:20 (from Last of the Ghetto Astronauts)
"Pony Boy"  – 4:03 (previously unreleased)
"All Together" - 4:37 (previously unreleased) iTunes Pre-Order Track / ca 7digital com exclusive

Deluxe Edition
Part One: Rooms (acoustic reworkings)

"Truffle Pigs"  – 4:04
"Tripoli"  – 4:51
"Generation X-Wing"  – 3:55
"Apparitions"  – 4:05
"North American for Life"  – 3:13
"Advertising on Police Cars"  – 4:08
"Hello Time Bomb"  – 4:10
"Strange Days"  – 4:55
"Prime Time Deliverance"  – 4:22Part Two: Loser Anthems

 "Flashdance II"  – 4:44
"The Man from Harold Wood"  – 2:18
"My Life as a Circus Clown"  – 2:46
"Intermezzo: M  Good v  M  Trolley"  – 0:35
"Flight Recorder from Viking 7"  – 5:34
"Life Beyond the Minimum Safe Distance"  – 3:53
"The Fine Art of Falling Apart"  – 3:39Part Three: Lo-Fi B-Sides

 "Born to Kill"  – 5:14
"Enjoy the Silence"  – 3:11
"Fated"  – 3:31

Bonus DVD
Part One: Music Videos

Alabama Motel Room
Symbolistic White Walls
Everything Is Automatic
Indestructible
Apparitions
Rico
Hello Time Bomb
Load Me Up
Strange Days
The Future Is X-Rated
Carmelina
Anti-Pop
Weapon
In a World Called Catastrophe
Alert Status Red
It's Been a While Since I Was Your Man
While We Were Hunting Rabbits (new video)Part Two: The Making of "Rooms"

The Making of "Rooms" FeaturePart Three: Matthew's picks with special slide show

Avalanche
A Long Way Down
Pledge of Allegiance
Blue Skies Over Bad Lands
House of Smoke and MirrorsPart Four: Discography

Personnel
Matthew Good Band performs from Last of the Ghetto Astronauts to Loser Anthems  Others are performed by Matthew Good 

Matthew Good Band
Matthew Good - vocals, guitar, cover concept (Underdogs), piano, percussion, additional producer, strings, writing & arrangement, art director, producer
Ian Browne - drums
Geoff Lloyd - Bass guitar (Last of the Ghetto Astronauts, Raygun, Underdogs)
Rich Priske - Bass guitar
Dave Genn - Guitar, Keyboards

Last of the Ghetto Astronauts
Dave Genn - Organ, Rhodes (not part of MGB at this time)
John Shepp - Producer, mixer
Terry Brown - Mixer ("Alabama Motel Room", "Symbolistic White Walls")
George Leger - Mastering
Recorded at Utopia Parkway Studios, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Manufacturer: Darktown Records
Distributor: A&M Records, a division of PolyGram Inc 
Words and music by Matthew GoodExcept "Alabama Motel Room", music by Good/Lloyd/Browne

Raygun
Dale Penner - Producer, engineer
Clif Norrell - Mixer
Stephen Marcussen - Mastering
Recorded at Greenhouse Studios, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Words and music by Matthew Good

Underdogs
Todd Kerns performs backing vocals on "Everything Is Automatic" and "Rico" (not part of MGB)

Warne Livesey - Producer, engineer, mixer
Dean Maher - Assistant
Zach Blackstone - Engineer
Stephen Marcussen - Mastering
Recorded at Greenhouse Studios, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Words by Matthew Good
Music by Matthew Good/Dave GennExcept "Rico", music by Good/Browne/Lloyd/Genn

Lo-Fi B-Sides (Disc Two, Part Three)
Warne Livesey - Producer, engineer, mixer

Beautiful Midnight
Todd Kerns (not part of MGB) performs backing vocals on "Hello Time Bomb"

Natasha Duprey - Phone Sex on "The Future is X-Rated"
Warne Livesey - Producer, Engineer, mixer
Zach Blackstone - Engineer
Steve Kaplan (BJG Studios, London) - Mixer
Tim Young - Mastering
Recorded at House of Brucifer, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Words by Matthew Good
Music by Matthew Good/Dave GennExcept "Load Me Up", music by Good/Genn/Browne/Priske

Loser Anthems (Disc Two, Part Two)
Holly McNarland performs backing vocals on "Flight Recorder from Viking 7" (not part of MGB)

Avalanche
Pat Steward - Drums, Percussion
Richard Priske - Bass guitar, Additional Keyboards, Additional producer
Christian Thor Valdson - Electric Guitar
Vancouver Symphony Orchestra - Strings
Musica Intima - Choral Performances
Warne Livesey - Producer, engineer, mixer, strings Writing & Arrangement
Zach Blackstone - Engineer
Adam Ayan (Gateway Mastering) - Mastering
Recorded at Mushroom Studios, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
All songs by Matthew Good

White Light Rock & Roll Review
Pat Steward - Drums
Rich Priske - Bass guitar
Christian Thor Valdson - Electric Guitar
Warne Livesey - Producer, engineer, mixer
Scott Ternan - Assistant engineer
Joel Livesey - Assistant engineer
Zach Blackstone - Assistant engineer
Kirk McNally - Assistant engineer
Mastered by Tim Young at Metropolis, London, UK
Tim Young (Metropolis, London, England) - Mastering
Recorded at Mushroom Studios and Warehouse Studios, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
All songs by Matthew Good

New Songs ("Oh Be Joyful", "Big City Life")
Ryan Dahle - Lead guitar, engineer
Pat Steward - Drums
Megan Bradfield - Bass guitar
Zach Blackstone - Engineer
Randy Staub - Mixer
George Marino - Mastering
Recorded at Warehouse Studios, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
All songs by Matthew Good

B-Sides ("Pony Boy") (unreleased from "The Audio of Being" sessions)
Matthew Good - Electric Guitar, vocals
Dave Genn - Electric Guitar, Keyboards
Rich Priske - Bass guitar
Ian Browne - Drums
Holly McNarland - Backing vocals
Warne Livesey - Producer, engineer, mixer
Recorded at Armoury Studios and Warehouse Studios, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Words & Music by Matthew Good

Rooms
Recorded at Warehouse Studios, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
All songs by Matthew Good

Music videos
Videos features music, words, and band members from the album they were released on, information on those can be found on each album's page All videos directed by Bill MorrisonExcept "Strange Days" (Morrison/Good), "Anti-Pop" (Chris Nelson), "Weapon" (officially Ante Kovac/Good, but Good fired Kovac halfway through the video), "In a World Called Catastrophe" (Kyle Davison), and "While We Were Hunting Rabbits (animation students of Sheridan College)Note: Because most of this album is a compilation, the personnel varies from song to song, which is why the albums were listed during Disc One  The information here is condensed; full information can be retrieved on the album's original page 
Passage 2:
Matthew Good discography
This is a comprehensive discography for the solo works of Matthew Good, a Canadian singer-songwriter 

Demos
Albums
Studio albums
Compilations and live albums
Note: Contains material from the Matthew Good Band as well as Matthew Good's solo releases 

Extended plays
Singles
Music videos
See also
Matthew Good Band discography
Passage 3:
Matthew Good Band
Matthew Good Band was a Canadian alternative rock band formed in Coquitlam, British Columbia in 1995  The band consisted of singer-songwriter/guitarist Matthew Good, guitarist/keyboardist Dave Genn, drummer Ian Browne and bassist Geoff Lloyd  Lloyd was replaced by Rich Priske in 1998  They became one of the most successful rock bands in Canada during the late 1990s and early 2000s, being nominated for 14 Juno Awards and winning the awards for "Best Group" and "Best Rock Album" (Beautiful Midnight) in 2000  The band broke up after the release of their 2001 album, The Audio of Being 

History
1995–1996: Formation, Last of the Ghetto Astronauts
After beginning his music career as a folk musician, Matthew Good formed a three-piece rock band in 1995 composed of himself, drummer Charlie Quintana (later replaced by Ian Browne) and bassist Geoff Lloyd  Dave Genn originally only recorded with the band as a paid session musician  The four recorded the band's debut album, Last of the Ghetto Astronauts  The band released the album independently in 1995, after which Genn officially joined the band  The band was not originally called "Matthew Good Band"  In fact, the first 5000 copies of Last of the Ghetto Astronauts were just titled "MGB"  After the album was released, "Alabama Motel Room" began to receive significant radio airplay, and people began requesting the song on radio and the album at retail stores calling the band, "Matthew Good Band"  At the time, the band had been having conversations about their name, and decided that they would be called "Matthew Good Band"  Although initially popular only in the Vancouver area, they received more exposure across Canada in 1996, with the singles "Alabama Motel Room" and "Symbolistic White Walls" becoming significant hits on radio and their music videos being played on MuchMusic  In December 1996, Matthew Good Band signed a two-album deal with Private Music 

1997–1999: Underdogs
In mid-January 1997, on the first day of pre-production for their next album, the group was notified that BMG Entertainment North America was merging Private Music into Windham Hill/High Street Records, putting a halt to the production of the album  In mid-March, after negotiations, Windham Hill/High Street released the group from its contract  Good was paid what he was owed for the two albums, and the group then decided to record the new album without label support, using the money received from the divorce of their contract with Windham Hill/High Street to fund it  The group then agreed to release the upcoming album under a distribution agreement with PolyGram Group Canada  After releasing the EP Raygun in May 1997, the band later that year released their second full-length album, Underdogs  The album was produced by Warne Livesey, who would go on to produce every full-length MGB album and most of Good's subsequent solo albums  The album spawned the singles "Everything Is Automatic", "Indestructible", "Apparitions" and "Rico", all of which were hits in Canada 
The band toured across Canada with Edgefest during the summer of 1998  In November 1998, Geoff Lloyd left the band  Lloyd was replaced by Rich Priske shortly after  On January 21, 1999, Underdogs was certified Platinum in Canada 

1999–2000: Beautiful Midnight
In July 1999, the band again toured across Canada as a part of Edgefest, this time on the main stage  In September 1999, the band released Beautiful Midnight  The album debuted at #1 on the Canadian Albums Chart and featured the hit singles "Hello Time Bomb", "Load Me Up" and "Strange Days"  In January 2000, Good underwent vocal cord surgery after being diagnosed with sarcoidosis, prompting him to temporarily quit smoking  In March 2000, The band won two Juno awards for "Best Group" and "Best Rock Album"  Good himself did not attend the ceremony, and guitarist Dave Genn has been quoted as saying that he only attends for the open bar  Beautiful Midnight became the band's best-selling album, being certified Double Platinum in Canada and selling over 300,000 copies by 2016  In 2000, the band's song "Running for Home" was featured in an episode of Higher Ground 

2000–2001: The Audio of Being
In the summer of 2000, Good stayed in a hotel for three weeks in Whistler to work on songs for the new album  Good later wrote that he spent much of the time "trying to keep down food supplement bars, trying to forget the growing tension within the band, the high expectations of needing to produce 'hit songs' (whatever they are these days), throwing up, and trying to find some semblance of direction in my personal life"  The band entered the studio in late 2000 to record the material  The sessions saw a great deal of intra-band turmoil  In February 2001, the band began a brief tour of the United States to promote the American release of Beautiful Midnight  In June 2001, the band released the EP Loser Anthems, and followed it with what would be the band's final tour in the summer  In August 2001, Dave Genn quit the band, returning though four days later  The band released The Audio of Being on October 30, 2001 

Breakup
In November 2001, it was reported that Genn had left the band again and Ian Browne had also left the band  In February 2002, Universal Music Canada confirmed that the band had broken up  In March 2002, during his first interview after the breakup was confirmed, Good stated that the breakup was "a conscious effort on everybody's part"  In a 2009 interview for The Ongoing History of New Music, Good stated that he decided the band was done after The Audio of Being was released, citing him no longer wanting to placate the needs of the other band members and no one wanting to tour the new record as reasons 

2002–present: Aftermath
Since the breakup of Matthew Good Band, Good has pursued a successful solo career, with Priske continuing as Good's bassist until 2005  Genn has been a member of the Canadian rock group 54-40 since 2003 and has written and produced songs for several artists  Geoff Lloyd died in January, 2010  Good briefly reunited with Browne in 2011, with Browne drumming for Good on his Lights of Endangered Species tour  Rich Priske died on July 11, 2020 

Members
Matthew Good – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (1995–2002)
Rich Priske – bass guitar (1998–2002)
Ian Browne – drums (1995–2001)
Dave Genn – lead guitar, keyboards (1995–2001)
Geoff Lloyd – bass guitar (1995-1998)

Discography
Last of the Ghetto Astronauts (1995)
Raygun (1997)
Underdogs (1997)
Lo-Fi B-Sides (1998)
Beautiful Midnight (1999)
Loser Anthems: B-Sides & Rarities (2001)
The Audio of Being (2001)

See also
Canadian rock
Music of Canada
Passage 4:
Switchfoot
Switchfoot is an American rock band from San Diego, California  The band's members are Jon Foreman (lead vocals, guitar), Tim Foreman (bass guitar, backing vocals), Chad Butler (drums, percussion), and Jerome Fontamillas (guitar, keyboards, backing vocals)  After early successes in the Christian rock scene, Switchfoot first gained mainstream recognition with the inclusion of four of their songs in the 2002 movie A Walk to Remember  This recognition led to their major label debut, The Beautiful Letdown, which was released in 2003 and featured the hits "Meant to Live" and "Dare You to Move"  The album sold over 2 6 million copies  They have since been noted for their energetic live shows, and their seventh studio album Hello Hurricane received a Grammy award in 2011 for Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album 
According to Jon Foreman, the name "Switchfoot" comes from a surfing term  "We all love to surf and have been surfing all our lives so to us, the name made sense  To switch your feet means to take a new stance facing the opposite direction  It's about change and movement, a different way of approaching life and music "

History
Formation and early years (1996–2002)
Switchfoot was founded in 1996 as Chin Up, consisting of Jon Foreman and his brother Tim, along with Chad Butler on drums  After playing a few shows including the Foreman brothers' dad's megachurch North Coast Calvary Chapel in Carlsbad, California, the band was contacted by music industry veteran Charlie Peacock and eventually signed to his indie label Re:think Records under the current moniker, Switchfoot  Re:think went on to distribute the first three Switchfoot albums, The Legend of Chin, New Way to Be Human, and Learning to Breathe  Because Re:think was bought by Christian giant Sparrow Records before Switchfoot's first release, however, the band's and Peacock's intentions of being marketed outside of the Contemporary Christian music scene and reaching a wider audience were put on hold  Consequently, the band was mostly marketed to Christian radio and retail outlets early in their careers, a time Jon Foreman has described as when "half of who we were was lost "Of Switchfoot's first three albums, Learning to Breathe was the most successful, receiving a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Gospel Album 
Later on in 2002, Switchfoot's music was featured prominently in the movie A Walk to Remember, starring singer and actress Mandy Moore, who sang Switchfoot's song "Only Hope" during a scene in the movie  In addition to Moore's cover of "Only Hope", Switchfoot's songs "You", "Learning to Breathe", and "I Dare You to Move" were showcased in the film, as well as their own original version of "Only Hope" towards the end of the film 

The Beautiful Letdown (2003–2005)
Following the exposure that came from A Walk to Remember, Switchfoot attracted attention from multiple record labels, and ultimately signed with Columbia Records/SonyBMG  Their major label debut, The Beautiful Letdown, under Columbia Records/Red Ink, represented the band's evolution from the predominantly lo-fi, indie rock sound of their early albums, toward a more layered, synth-influenced sound that helped launch the band to mainstream popularity  This shift sonically could be attributed to the fact that the album was the first to include keyboardist Jerome Fontamillas, formerly of industrial bands Mortal and Fold Zandura  Fontamillas had been touring with Switchfoot since 2000, following the release of Learning to Breathe 
The Beautiful Letdown has since been certified double platinum, selling more than 2 6 million copies, on the strength of constant touring and the huge mainstream radio hits "Meant to Live" and "Dare You to Move"  A live DVD depicting one of the band's live concerts, Live in San Diego, went platinum as well, and a third single, "This Is Your Life" was released to radio  In addition, the song "Gone" received major airplay on Christian radio stations as well 
Following the runaway success of The Beautiful Letdown, a compilation titled The Early Years: 1997-2000 was released, which featured Switchfoot's first three indie albums released under Re:think records including the original artwork for all the albums  This collection has since been certified Gold, with total sales of over 500,000 copies Switchfoot also received five 2005 Dove Award nominations, and won four, including Artist of the year 

Nothing Is Sound (2005–2006)
In 2005, prior to the release of Nothing Is Sound, Switchfoot announced that guitarist Drew Shirley (previously the guitarist for All Together Separate) had become the band's fifth member after touring with the band since 2003  Nothing Is Sound was released on September 13, 2005, and with Shirley's inclusion saw Switchfoot's sound become even more densely layered and guitar-heavy, resulting in an album that was edgier and darker than any of their previous work  "Stars" was released as the first radio single to promote the album, and was a solid hit on mainstream and alternative rock radio stations  It was also used in ads for HBO  "We Are One Tonight" was released as the second single in early 2006, and was also featured in ads for the 2006 Winter Olympics 

The album debuted at No  3 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, an all-time high for the band, while bassist Tim Foreman attracted headlines by speaking out against the copy-protection used by the label and providing fans a detailed workaround on the band's message board, which was quickly deleted by Sony  This copy-protection is known as Extended Copy Protection, which has been identified by leading anti-virus companies as a trojan horse and a rootkit 
During the Spring 2006 leg of the Nothing Is Sound Tour, the band introduced "a video diary of life on the road" in the form of free video podcasts available via iTunes and streaming online on YouTube  In addition to featuring snippets of upcoming songs and live performances, the videos gave fans an inside look at the more casual and humorous aspects of the band members' touring lives, as well as featuring footage of the band working on their follow-up to Nothing Is Sound 

Oh! Gravity  (2006–2007)
Switchfoot's next album, Oh! Gravity , was released on December 26, 2006, to considerable critical acclaim  It entered the Billboard chart at No  18 and peaked at No  1 on iTunes' Top Albums chart 

Before the release of the album, Switchfoot e-mailed a newsletter on June 2 which contained a free download of the song "Daylight to Break", a statement from Foreman implying that the band wanted to have a new album out by the end of the year, as well as a thanks to their fans for helping keep the band together for ten years  The band tried to involve their fans in the creation of the album, setting up a webcam in their recording studio and running a contest for a chance to play the cowbell in the studio with the band To promote the album, the band first released the song, "Dirty Second Hands", as a "preview" single via iTunes on September 26  The title track "Oh! Gravity" was also released to iTunes on October 21 and was sent to radio on October 31 as the lead single for the album, seeing limited success at alternative and modern rock radio  The album's second single, "Awakening", was released in early 2007  Although it saw virtually no play on mainstream radio, the accompanying band-funded music video song received over one million hits on YouTube in less than three months  Along with preorders of Oh! Gravity came a 3-song EP called Oh! Switchfoot  The short CD included three songs: "The Sound in My Mouth", "C'mon C'mon", and "Oh! Gravity (Acoustic)" 

Major-label independence, The Best Yet (2007–2008)
Later, on August 10, 2007, Jon Foreman revealed that the band had severed ties with Columbia Records in order to release music as an Indie band  "Neither party has any hard feelings," he said of the split a few months later  "I think for us, the reason why we signed with Columbia was because of the people that were there  So it's very understandable when all those people are gone, you don't hold any real bad feelings or good feelings towards a company name  I think that's part of the problem with the corporate entity as a whole is that there's no true responsibility " Later in October, the band announced that they had created a new record label called lowercase people records, in order to better make a direct connection with their fans 
Subsequently, Foreman began working on his own set of solo EPs (one named after each season of the year); the first of these was released on November 27, 2007, the last on June 10, 2008  "Your Love Is Strong" is the most well known from the string of releases  Each of Jon's EP's contained six songs  At the end of this, he released a sort of "best of" album called Limbs and Branches  Foreman wrote two additional songs for this called "Over the River" and "Broken from the Start"  Once all four EP's were released, they were released again on vinyl in limited quantity  Foreman also began a side project with Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek originally called "The Real SeanJon" but later renamed "Fiction Family" 
With their new status as an independent band, Switchfoot embarked on their 2007 fall tour, playing shows with Relient K and Ruth  The tour, dubbed the "Appetite for Construction Tour", was designed to benefit Habitat For Humanity, with the bands donating one dollar per ticket sold to the cause  In addition, Foreman wrote the song "Rebuild" with Matt Thiessen from Relient K, and released it as a way to raise additional money for Habitat  By the end of the tour, the bands had raised over $100,000 for Habitat for Humanity  With no new album to promote, the band continued touring for philanthropic causes, booking a short national tour in March through May (titled the Up In Arms Tour), partnering with and benefitting the organization To Write Love on Her Arms In March 2008, the band wrote and recorded a new song called "This Is Home" for the film The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian  The song was included on the film's official soundtrack and an accompanying music video was also filmed, with footage from the film Later that year, Columbia Records/Sony Music released a Switchfoot greatest hits compilation album titled The Best Yet, a sort of "final farewell from Sony" 

Hello Hurricane and Eastern Hymns for Western Shores (2008–2010)
Prior to the label split, Foreman had announced in a March 17, 2007 MySpace blog that Switchfoot had begun pre-production for a new album, saying that "the new SF record is underway " Later, on October 12, 2007, Foreman also announced that the band had begun construction of their own studio in their hometown of San Diego  The studio, named Spot X Studio, was completed in the spring of 2008, and the band began recording their follow-up to 2006's Oh! Gravity In April, the band announced that instead of one studio album, they had actually been at work on 4 albums-worth of material, and had decided at the time to release them one after another, starting with the first one on November 10, 2009, titled Hello Hurricane Upon completion of Hello Hurricane, the band began searching for "the right partners" to distribute the songs globally  On August 7, 2009, the band announced that lowercase people records was licensing the album to Atlantic Records, ensuring "these tunes are heard around the world " To help promote this new release, the band took a hands-on approach with their lead single, "Mess of Me", by hiding copies of the single all across the world and encouraging fans to share it around by finding the discs and making copies of their own to hide  Through this, the single spread all across the world in grassroots fashion in advance of a traditional radio release, which saw the track hitting the Top 15 of Modern Rock radio  This was followed by the release of "The Sound (John M  Perkins' Blues)", which went on to become the band's first Top 10 Modern Rock hit since "Dare You to Move" On December 1, 2010, it was announced that Hello Hurricane had been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album  It won the Grammy on February 13, 2011 
Late in 2010, Switchfoot announced, via newsletter, that they would be releasing an EP of songs that they wrote and recorded between Nothing Is Sound and Oh! Gravity  It was called Eastern Hymns for Western Shores  For a time the location of the masters of these tracks were unknown  Once found, Switchfoot announced that the EP would be available as part of their holiday fan pack which also included a Switchfoot calendar, poster, sweatshirt jacket, and limited edition post cards, one for each of the songs on the EP  In their newsletter the band described these songs as showing their "darker" side  The EP included five never before heard songs along with a different cut of the Oh! Gravity song "Dirty Second Hands" 

Vice Verses (2011–2012)
Switchfoot's eighth studio album, Vice Verses, was released on September 27, 2011, and debuted at No  8 on the Billboard 200  According to Butler, the core of the record rests thematically in the idea of the polarity of life  A release date of September 27, 2011, was announced on AllAccess, with "Dark Horses" hitting modern rock radio on July 20 In an interview with CBN com, Bassist Tim Foreman calls Vice Verses a cousin to Hello Hurricane, not a sequel to their last album, but related in some ways  Tim, speaking of his brother (Switchfoot's lead singer, Jon), said, "It features some of his best lyrical work," and that Tim is happy with the musical component of the project as well  "From the very beginning, we set goals, one of them being to make a very rhythmic record, a very soulful record, and a very hard-hitting record that really pushes the boundaries, the highs and the lows," he told CBN com Switchfoot performed a song for the Hawaii Five-0 soundtrack, released October 4, 2011, titled "Out of Control" 
On Record Store Day 2012, Switchfoot released their latest EP record, Vice Re-Verses  The digital download of the EP was later released on May 1 

Fading West album and film (2013–2015)
As of May 2013, Switchfoot was on tour and filming a movie called Fading West  The band's guitarist Drew Shirley has said that it was "a surf documentary mixed with behind the scenes footage of the band" and that "the soundtrack will be released as a CD and it will be [their] next album"  On September 17, 2013 Switchfoot released Fading West EP containing three songs from the full-length album  Two songs on the EP, "Who We Are" and "Love Alone Is Worth the Fight", were released to different radio formats as the lead singles promoting the upcoming album  The Fading West film premiered during the Fading West Tour that started in September 2013, and was released digitally on December 10, 2013  Switchfoot's ninth studio album, also titled Fading West, was released on January 14, 2014 through lowercase people and Atlantic Records In February 2014, in a YouTube Interview with Relevant magazine, Jon Foreman hinted that a new album was coming out in late 2014 or early 2015 that would mostly consist of the songs that were cut from the Fading West film  The album, an EP titled The Edge of the Earth, was released on September 9, 2014  Foreman also announced that he would be releasing between 30-50 new songs for his solo albums most likely during 2015 
Switchfoot toured in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands in May and June 2015 
In July and August 2015, Switchfoot toured with Needtobreathe, Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors and Colony House during the second leg of the 2015 "Tour De Compadres" tour 

Where the Light Shines Through and hiatus (2015–2017)
In August 2015, it was reported that Switchfoot would be releasing their tenth studio album in 2016 
On April 29, 2016, Concord Music Group announced that the band had signed a worldwide recording and co-publishing deal with Vanguard Records imprint and Concord's sister publishing unit, The Bicycle Music Company 
On May 12, 2016, Switchfoot announced that the album, titled Where the Light Shines Through, would be released on July 8, 2016  It was produced by Switchfoot and John Fields, with whom the band has worked on The Beautiful Letdown, Nothing Is Sound and Oh! Gravity 
The band supported the album with the Looking for America Tour, featuring Relient K and traveled to over 70 cities from September 17, 2016 through February 2017 
On December 6, 2016, Switchfoot revealed through an email newsletter and on their website that the premiere of their new film, Live from Hollywood Palladium, would coincide with their 2017 Summer Getaway event 
In July 2017 the band took to the road touring with Lifehouse on the "Looking for Summer" tour  Where the band delivered 30+ shows across the U S  and Canada  It was the first time that both Lifehouse & Switchfoot had toured together, where rock fans across North America got to hear both dynamic Rock bands of the same era  A new single by Lifehouse and Switchfoot had been released to help those affected by Hurricane Harvey while on tour  The song, “Shine Like Gold” 
On December 15, 2017, Switchfoot announced via their website and mailing list that, after returning home from their fall tour, they will be taking a hiatus "for the foreseeable future"  The band said in their announcement, "For the first time in twenty years, we are taking an extended break "

Native Tongue and Covers (2018–2021)
On March 30, 2018, the band posted a clip on YouTube stating that they had come out of their hiatus and were working on something called "Project 11"  They also previewed a heavy metal version of "Meant to Live", claiming this to be their new sound  Two days later on April 1, this was revealed to be an April Fool's Joke On August 9, 2018, the band's song "You Found Me" was released as the single promoting the drama film Unbroken: Path to Redemption  The soundtrack album for the film was released on September 14, 2018 On October 19, 2018, Switchfoot announced the release of their eleventh album Native Tongue on January 18, 2019 through Fantasy Records  In support of the album, the band embarked on a 2019 concert tour of the United States, supported by Colony House and Tyson Motsenbocker  The first single "Native Tongue" and its music video were released in conjunction with the album announcement In Spring 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Switchfoot started working on an EP titled Covers, containing the band's take on songs by Frank Ocean, Vampire Weekend, The Chainsmokers, The Verve, Harry Styles and Jon Bellion  It was released on June 19, 2020 via Fantasy Records  They also played a monthly livestream concert called the "Fantastic Not Traveling Music Show" during which they played a variety of song requests spanning their career 

Interrobang (2021–present)
On May 7, 2021, Switchfoot released "I Need You (To Be Wrong)" as the first single from their twelfth studio album 
Interrobang  The album was released on August 20, 2021  A "deluxe" edition of the album was released on July 8, 2022, the six year anniversary of their 2016 album "Where The Light Shines Through"  Switchfoot returned to live touring opening for Needtobreathe on the "Into the Mystery Tour"  They also collaborated with Needtobreathe on an Amazon original Christmas song titled "Hometown Christmas" On February 21, 2022, the band announced that Drew Shirley and the band were parting ways In September 2022 the band announced their first Christmas album This Is Our Christmas Album will be released in November  The album was released on November 4, 2022 
In May 2023, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their album The Beautiful Letdown, the band released The Beautiful Letdown (Our Version) and went on a subsequent tour playing the entire album live 

Style and influences
Since Switchfoot's first release in 1997, the band's sound has changed significantly  The style of the early albums with independent label re:think Records consisted primarily of guitar-driven alternative rock, hard rock with characteristics of a three-man lineup, though they also incorporated string arrangements with slower songs 

Switchfoot's frontman and guitarist Jon Foreman cites his musical influences as U2, The Beatles, and Keith Green, and has said that he admires the vocal "strength and vulnerability" of Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash  Guitarist Drew Shirley cites U2, Miles Davis, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Tommy Walker, Phil Keaggy, Michael Jackson, Dave Matthews Band, and the Brand New Heavies, while bassist Tim Foreman pays tribute to Stevie Wonder  Chad Butler also cites Dave Grohl as an influence for The Beautiful Letdown  "We've never fit in any of the genre boxes," says Jon Foreman  "I think that diversity is our strength" With regard to their lyrics, Foreman notes "we try to make music for thinking people", which can be characterized by his allusions to the works of philosophers like Søren Kierkegaard and Augustine of Hippo in the songs "Sooner or Later (Soren's Song)" and "Something More (Augustine's Confession)" respectively  "Meant to Live", the band's runaway hit, was inspired by T  S  Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men", while "Stars", the lead single off Nothing Is Sound, briefly "looks at things from the Descartes perspective," according to Foreman 

Switchfoot and Christian music
Switchfoot is often referred to as a Christian rock band; even after having been signed to the mainstream Columbia Records from 2003–2007, Atlantic Records from 2008–2016, and currently, Vanguard Records, their albums are still distributed to Christian retail outlets through Sparrow Records/EMI CMG, their songs are featured on Christian radio and charts, they play at Christian festivals, and they are presented with Dove Awards  The band has always philosophically disagreed with this label; "We're Christian by faith, not genre," Tim Foreman explained to Rolling Stone magazine in 2003 Says Jon Foreman, "We've always been very open and honest about where the songs are coming from  For us, these songs are for everyone  Calling us 'Christian rock' tends to be a box that closes some people out and excludes them, and that's not what we're trying to do  Music has always opened my mind—and that's what we want" "[Signing to Columbia was] a realization of something that we'd wanted to be from the beginning," Foreman explains  "When we were signed to re:think Records [an indie label], the goal was to get the music out to everybody  [But] when Sparrow [a Christian label] bought re:think Records, it was evident that our music wasn't going to be in the hands of everybody  As a Christian, I have a lot to say within the walls of the church  But also, as a Christian, I've got a lot to say just about life in general     So to be able to be on Columbia and on Sparrow felt like the realization of the two sides of what we had to say  It's a dream come true to be able to have songs that are outside of the box "Following the release of The Beautiful Letdown, the band temporarily stopped playing at Christian festivals and doing interviews with Christian organizations, as they found the speculation about their faith to be distracting from the music  Three years later, they went back to headlining at large Christian-based music festivals, and also agreed to be featured on the June 2006 cover of CCM Magazine after declining the opportunity for years  Yet in many ways they used the opportunity to describe their split from the CCM industry  This has caused some, such as Spin writer Andrew Beaujon, to take the view that "their lyrics often have two different meanings, one meaning for a Christian audience and one meaning for the rest of us  They try to relate to two different groups of people at once " Jon Foreman has compared the Christian undertones of his music to the undertones of C S  Lewis's books 

Other projects
Switchfoot has been involved in a number of humanitarian causes, including DATA, the ONE Campaign, the Keep A Breast Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, Invisible Children, and To Write Love on Her Arms In addition to supporting those causes, they founded the Switchfoot Bro-Am Surf Contest, an annual benefit contest and concert to raise money for various organizations serving homeless kids in the band's hometown of San Diego  Also, before recording Nothing Is Sound, the band made a trip to several South African villages in January 2005, which inspired the album's song "The Shadow Proves the Sunshine"  Seeing an orphanage filled with infants who all lost their parents to AIDS, befriending orphans in the streets, and getting involved with a children's choir called the "Kuyasa Kids" moved them to start an organization called lowercase people  The organization originally published a quarterly online magazine for music, arts and social justice  They have also produced a CD by the Kuyasa Kids to help raise money for the children's communities 
In 2008, Switchfoot also got involved in the musical movement to spread awareness about 21st century slavery and human trafficking, performing "Awakening" for the documentary film Call + Response 
Jon Foreman has also released several solo projects, and is also involved in an acoustic collaboration called Fiction Family with Sean Watkins of the band Nickel Creek On Saturday, July 31, 2010, Switchfoot performed live at the 2010 Boy Scouts of America National Jamboree final arena show: "A Shining Light Across America" in Fort A P  Hill, Virginia  Jon and Tim Foreman were both Boy Scouts in their youth, and were honored by the opportunity to perform at the Scouts' 100th anniversary event Switchfoot performed at the Harvest America event on March 6, 2016 at ATT Stadium Switchfoot hosts a yearly charity event in their hometown of San Diego known as the "Bro Am"  Established in 2005, the event benefits local and national charitable organizations, including the band's own Bro Am foundation  The Bro Am festivities typically include a silent auction the night before the public event, wherein donors bid in a silent auction for charity  The Bro Am event consists of surf contests in the morning and musical performances in the afternoon, culminating in Switchfoot's capstone performance  Since its inception, the Bro Am has raised over $1 million for charitable causes In 2017, Switchfoot joined forces with the fellow rock band Lifehouse, to help raise funds for Hurricane Harvey victims through their song "Shine Like Gold” 

Members
Current membersJon Foreman – lead vocals, keyboards, piano (1996–present); lead guitar (1996–2004, 2022–present); rhythm guitar (1996–2001, 2005–2022 in studio; 2005–present live)
Tim Foreman – bass, backing and occasional lead vocals, occasional acoustic guitar (1996–present), keyboards (2000–2001)
Chad Butler – drums, percussion (1996–present)
Jerome Fontamillas – keyboards, piano, rhythm guitar, backing vocals (2001–present)Current touring musiciansBoaz Roberts – lead guitar, backing vocals (2021–present)Former membersDrew Shirley – lead guitar, backing vocals (2005–2022; touring musician 2004–2005)Timeline

Discography
The Legend of Chin (1997)
New Way to Be Human (1999)
Learning to Breathe (2000)
The Beautiful Letdown (2003)
Nothing Is Sound (2005)
Oh! Gravity  (2006)
Hello Hurricane (2009)
Vice Verses (2011)
Fading West (2014)
Where the Light Shines Through (2016)
Native Tongue (2019)
Interrobang (2021)
This Is Our Christmas Album (2022)
The Beautiful Letdown (Our Version) (2023)

Awards
Switchfoot won a Grammy Award for Best Rock or Rap Gospel Album in 2011 with Hello Hurricane  They've also garnered eleven GMA Dove Awards and twelve San Diego Music Awards 
Passage 5:
Raygun (album)
Raygun is an EP released by the Matthew Good Band in 1997  The EP was distributed by A&M Records on Matthew Good's own imprint, Darktown  It was the first MGB album recorded with guitarist Dave Genn as an official member of the band  The EP includes a re-recorded version of Last of the Ghetto Astronauts song, "Haven't Slept In Years" 

Track listing
All tracks written by Matthew Good, except where noted 

"Raygun"  – 3:17
"Generation X-Wing"  – 4:32 (Good, Genn)
"Haven't Slept In Years (Alternate)"  – 3:31
"Alabama Motel Room"  – 3:22 (Good, Lloyd, Browne)
"So Long Mrs  Smith"  – 1:36

Production
Produced and engineered by Dale Penner for Paradise Alley Productions  Mixed by Clif Norrell at Ocean Way Recording, Los Angeles, CA, except Alabama Motel Room, which was produced and engineered by John Shepp and remixed by Clif Norrell  Recorded at Greenhouse Studios and Utopia Parkway Studios, Vancouver, BC  Mastered by Stephen Marcussen at Precision Mastering, Los Angeles, CA 

Band members
Matthew Good - vocals, guitar
Geoff Lloyd - bass guitar
Ian Browne - drums
Dave Genn - guitar, keyboards
Passage 6:
Rich Priske
Rich Priske (August 29, 1967 –  July 11, 2020), also known as Rich Rock, was a Canadian bass guitarist  Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, he had long been active in the B C  music scene, and played bass guitar and/or written songs for Art Bergmann, DSK, ShoCore, Chrome Dog, Bif Naked, The Real McKenzies, and others  Priske was best known for playing bass guitar in the Canadian band Matthew Good Band from 1998 to 2002  After the band's dissolution in 2002, he kept playing with Matthew Good until the end of the In a Coma tour in fall 2005  Later in life, he lived in Kelowna and played in the Jon Bos Band and Florida Man 

Writing
Priske was an avid writer, contributing to weblogs as a "citizen journalist" for kitsilano ca, and others  He contributed many technical and instructional articles to magazines such as CM (Canadian Musician)  Priske also wrote for Wine Trails, and other wine-industry publications  He had a long history with the web, and was an early adopter of what is now known as "web logging" or "blogging", beginning with his popular "Notes From The Road" feature on the now defunct Matthew Good Band website, circa 2001  He kept a blog on Blogger, but updated it rarely 

Film work
Priske was also involved in BC's thriving film and theatre industry, on stage and both in front of and behind the camera  As well as appearing in many music videos, he had bit parts in films like Red Scorpion 2, and Hard Core Logo, and appeared on stage in productions of Cabaret and You Can't Take It with You  Behind the scenes, Priske was active in the Art Department, earning an Emmy nomination for 2008's "Tinman" 

Death
On July 11, 2020, Priske died of a heart attack 

Discography
with Matthew Good Band:

Beautiful Midnight
Loser Anthems
The Audio of Beingwith Matthew Good:

Avalanche
White Light Rock & Roll Review
In a Comawith DSK:

Exploder
Imploderwith Bif Naked:

Bif Naked
Essentially Naked (greatest hits compilation)with The Real McKenzies:

Real McKenzies
Clash of the Tartanswith ShoCore:

untitled release (2007)with Brooke Nolan:

self-titled EPwith The Town Pants:

Weight of WordsSex With Nixon (1995) Self titled LP
Passage 7:
Weapon (song)
"Weapon" is a song by Canadian alternative rock artist Matthew Good  It was the first song released by Good as a solo artist after the break-up of the Matthew Good Band  The song was released in October 2002 as the lead single from his debut solo album, Avalanche   The song peaked at No  4 on Canada's Nielsen rock chart 

Track listing
Music video
The music video for "Weapon" was directed by Matthew Good and Ante Kovac  It was filmed on October 5, 2002, at Pier 94  In a later commentary, Good related that Kovac's first edit of the video was far too standard, with gratuitous and generic fades  After firing Kovac, Good flew to Toronto and worked with video editor Jay Deschamps to re-craft the footage  While working on the edit, Good began to experiment with overlaying text and adding still frames and stock photos to help deliver the message  Good noted that the video was his favourite from his catalogue 
The video won the award for "Best Video" at the 2003 Juno Awards  Good did not attend the ceremony and Kovac accepted the award alone 

In popular culture
The song is featured on MuchMusic's compilation album Big Shiny Tunes 7 
An excerpt of the song was used as the opening credits theme music for CTV's series The Eleventh Hour 
The song was featured on Hockey Night in Canada in the opening montage for Game 5 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals 
"Weapon" was also featured in the second-season finale of Smallville 
The song is used in the second-season episode "A Higher Echelon" of the J  J  Abrams series Alias 
The song appears in the third season of Queer As Folk 
The song was featured in the first season of Flashpoint in the episode "Between Heartbeats" 
Passage 8:
Ian Browne (musician)
Ian Browne (born November 12, 1973) is a Canadian-born musician and composer  He was formerly with psych-blues band No Sinner, and before that notably the drummer of the popular Canadian rock group Matthew Good Band  Browne plays drums and performs backup vocals on The Prettys' upcoming second LP "Soirée"  He also played on No Sinner's debut EP Boo Hoo Hoo, and played drums and produced tracks on their 2016 LP "Old Habits Die Hard"  He can also be heard on the Matthew Good Band albums Last of the Ghetto Astronauts, Raygun, Underdogs, Lo-Fi B-Sides, Beautiful Midnight, Loser Anthems, Audio of Being, and the greatest hits compilation In a Coma 
While with Matthew Good Band, Browne received Juno Awards in 2000 for Best Group of 1999 and Best Rock Album  of 1999  Browne also composed original music for the Sci-Fi network series Sanctuary  He now records and performs with The Prettys and occasionally other Vancouver, British Columbia based artists Rich Hope and Dustin Bentall 
As a composer, his work can be heard on the science fiction series Flash Gordon and Sanctuary  And Now and forever he’s playing in The Pierce Kingans , recording/playing on over 13 EPs 
Passage 9:
Yes to Everything
Yes to Everything is a 2005 album by Canadian alternative rock band 54-40  This was the first 54-40 album recorded with the band's new guitarist, Dave Genn (former guitarist of Matthew Good Band)   The album was recorded at The Warehouse Studio in Vancouver using former Midnight Oil and Matthew Good producer Warne Livesey 

Track listing
"Easy to Love" – 3:48
"Can't Get Enough" – 3:58
"Golden Sun" – 4:35
"Stop Line" – 6:05
"This Is Here, This Is Now" – 4:21
"All About Love" – 3:12
"Blue Plate Special" – 3:44
"Beautiful Self" – 3:38
"Calling You Out" – 3:00
"Another Kiss" – 3:06
"On the Road Home" – 3:58
Context 2: Passage 1:
Ovambo people
The Ovambo people (pronounced [ovambo] (listen)), also called Aawambo, Ambo, Aawambo (Ndonga, Nghandjera, Kwambi, Kwaluudhi, Kolonghadhi, Mbalantu), or Ovawambo (Kwanyama), are a Bantu ethnic group native to Southern Africa, primarily modern Namibia  They are the single largest ethnic group in Namibia, accounting for about half of the population  They have retained many aspects of their cultural practices, despite concerted efforts from Christian missionaries to wipe out what were believed to be ‘pagan practices’  They are also found in the southern Angolan province of Cunene, where they are more commonly referred to as "Ambo"  The Ovambo consist of a number of kindred Bantu ethnic tribes who inhabit what was formerly  called Ovamboland  In Angola, they are a minority, accounting for about two percent of the total Angolan population There are about 2 million ethnic Ovambo, and they are predominantly Lutheran Christians (97%) 

Demographics
The Ovambo people reside in the flat sandy grassy plains of north Namibia and the Cunene Province in south Angola, sometimes referred to as Ovamboland  These plains are generally flat, stoneless and at high altitude Water courses, known as oshanas, irrigate the area  In the northern regions of Ovamboland is tropical vegetation sustained by abundant but seasonal rainfall that floods the region into temporary lakes and islands  In dry season, these pools of water empty out  The Ovambo have adapted to the widely varying seasonal weather patterns with their housing, agriculture, and livestock practices The Ovambo people are a Bantu-speaking group  In Namibia, these are the AaNdonga, Ovakwanyama, Aakwambi, Aangandjera, Aambalantu, Ovaunda, Aakolonkadhi, Aakwaluudhi and Aambandja  In Angola, they are the Ovakwanyama, Aakafima, Evale and Aandonga  The Ovakwanyama are the largest sub-tribe 

History
The Ovambo started migrating to their current location around the 14th century from the Zambia region to the northeast  They settled near the Angola-Namibia border then expanded further south in Namibia in the 17th century  They have a close cultural, linguistic and historical relationship to the Herero people found in more southern parts of Namibia, and Kavango people to their east settled around the Okavango River In contrast to most ethnic groups in Africa, their isolated, low-density pastoral nomadic lifestyle left the Ovambo people largely unaffected by Swahili-Arab and European traders before the 19th century  When Germany established a colony in Namibia in 1884, they left the Ovambo people undisturbed  The Germans focused on the southern and coastal regions  After World War I, Namibia was annexed by the South African government into the Union of South Africa as the Territory of South West Africa  This brought major changes, with South African plantation, cattle breeding and mining operations entering the Ovamboland  The Portuguese colonial administration in Angola, who had previously focused on their coastal, northern and eastern operations, entered southern Angola to form a border with the expanding South African presence  The Ovambo people launched several armed rebellions against South African rule in the 1920s and 1930s, which were all suppressed by the Union Defence Force The South African administration in Namibia continued the so-called "Police Zone" in south, a region created by the Germans with a veterinary Red Line covering about two-thirds of the province later to become Namibia  Ovambo people were not allowed to move into the Police Zone, neither other tribes nor Europeans could move north without permits  This isolated the Ovambo people, preserving traditional authorities and reducing numbers of White farmers in the north  However, because of labor shortage in the Police Zone and South Africa, in part because of massacre of native Africans such as through the Herero and Namaqua genocide, the South African government allowed migrant wage labor  Numerous Ovambo people became migrant laborers in South African towns such as Cape Town and in the Police Zone, where they experienced segregation and lived under highly restrained human rights The South African Apartheid rule was brought into the Ovamboland in 1948  The South African government declared the Ovamboland an independent province in 1973, and appointed chiefs aligned with the South African government's policies  The Ovambo people rejected these developments, and in 1975 the appointed chief minister of Ovamboland was assassinated  In conjunction with the armed SWAPO movement, Namibia and its Ovambo people gained independence from South Africa in 1990 

Religion
Traditional religion
The traditional religion of the Ovambo people is the primary faith of less than 3%, as most state Christianity to be their primary faith  The Ovambo's traditional religion envisions a supreme being named Kalunga, with their rites and rituals centered around sacred fire like many ethnic groups in southwestern Africa  The Kalunga cosmology states that the Supreme Being created the first man and first woman, who had a daughter and two sons  It is the daughter's lineage that created Ovambo people, according to the traditional beliefs of the matrilineal Ovambo people The rituals involve elaborate fire making and keeping ceremonies, rain making dance, and rites have involved throwing herbs in the fire and inhaling the rising smoke  The head priest traditionally was the king of a tribe, and his role was in part to attend to the supernatural spirits and be the chief representative of the Ovambo tribe to the deities 

Christianity
Christianity arrived among the Ovambo people in the late 19th century  The first Finnish missionaries arrived in Ovamboland in the 1870s, and Ovambo predominantly converted and thereof have identified themselves as Lutheran Christians  The influence of the Finnish missions not only related to the religion, but cultural practices  For example, the typical dress style of the contemporary Ovambo women that includes a head scarf and loose full length maxi, is derived from those of the 19th-century Finnish missionaries The Ovambo now predominantly follow Christian theology, prayer rituals and festivities, but some of the traditional religious practices have continued, such as the use of ritual sacred fire  They also invoke their supreme creator Kalunga  Thus, the Ovamba have preferred a syncretic form of Christianity  Most weddings feature a combination of Christian beliefs and Ovambo traditions  Their traditional dancing is done to drumming (Oshiwambo folk music) 

Society and culture
The traditional home is a complex of huts surrounded by a fence of large vertical poles linked by two horizontal poles on each side  The complex is a maze with two gates but it is easy to get lost within the homestead  Each hut generally has a different purpose, such as a Ondjugo (the woman of the homestead's hut) or Epata (kitchen area) 
The Ovambo people lead a settled life, relying mostly on a combination of agriculture and animal husbandry  The staple crops have been millet and sorghum (iilyavala), and beans (omakunde) are another popular crop  In drier regions or seasons, pastoral activity with herds of cattle (eengobe/eenghwandabi), goats (iikombo/onakamela) and sheep (eedi) becomes more important  The animal husbandry is not for meat (ombelela), but primarily as a source of milk (omashini)  Their food is supplemented by hunting, fishing, and gathering During the colonial era, the Ovambo were active in elephant (eenjaba) hunting for their tusks to supply the ivory demand, and they nearly hunted the elephants in their region to extinction 

Each Ovambo tribe had a hereditary chief who is responsible for the tribe  Many tribes adapted representation by having a council of headmen who run tribal affairs  Members of the royal family of the Owamboland are known as aakwanekamba, ovakwaluvala, ovakwamalanga, ovakwaanime, aakwanyoka and many more; only those who belong to this family by birth, through the maternal line, have a claim to chieftainship  The tribes figure their descent by a matrilineal kinship system, with hereditary chiefs arising from the daughter's children, not the son's  Polygyny is accepted, with the first wife recognized as the senior 

Ovambo brew a traditional liquor called ombike  It is distilled from fermented fruit mash and particularly popular in rural areas  The fruit to produce ombike are collected from makalani palms (Hyphaene petersiana), jackal berries (Diospyros mespiliformis), buffalo thorns (Ziziphus mucronata), bird plumes and cluster figs (Ficus racemosa)  Ombike, with additives like sugar, is also brewed and consumed in urban areas  This liquor is then called omangelengele; it is more potent and sometimes poisonous  New Era, a Namibian English-language daily newspaper, reported that clothes, shoes, and tyres have been found to have been brewed as ingredients of omangelengele 

Ovambo clans
The following table contains the names, areas, dialect names and the locations of the Ovambo according to T  E  Tirronen's Ndonga-English Dictionary  The table also contains information concerning the classification of noun class of the Proto-Bantu language for these words 

See also
Herero people
Himba people
Nama people
Oorlam people
Passage 2:
Santería
Santería (Spanish pronunciation: [san̪ t̪eˈɾi a]), also known as Regla de Ocha, Regla Lucumí, or Lucumí, is an African diasporic religion that developed in cuba during the late 19th century  It arose through a process of syncretism between the traditional Yoruba religion of West Africa, the Catholic form of Christianity, and Spiritism  There is no central authority in control of Santería and much diversity exists among practitioners, who are known as creyentes ("believers") 
Santería is polytheistic and revolves around deities called oricha  Deriving their names and attributes from traditional Yoruba divinities, they are equated with Roman Catholic saints  Each human is believed to have a personal link to a particular oricha who influences their personality  Various myths are told about these oricha, who are regarded as subservient to Olodumare, a transcendent creator deity  Olodumare is believed to be the ultimate source of aché, a supernatural force permeating the universe that can be manipulated through ritual actions  Practitioners venerate the oricha at altars, either in the home or in the casa (temple), which is run by a santero (priest) or santera (priestess)  Membership of the casa requires initiation  Offerings to the oricha include fruit, liquor, flowers and sacrificed animals  A central ritual is the toque de santo, in which practitioners drum, sing, and dance to encourage an oricha to possess one of their members and thus communicate with them  Several forms of divination are used, including Ifá, to decipher messages from the oricha  Offerings are also given to the spirits of the dead, with some practitioners identifying as spirit mediums  Healing rituals and the preparation of herbal remedies and talismans also play a prominent role 
Santería developed among Afro-Cuban communities following the Atlantic slave trade of the 16th to 19th centuries  It formed through the blending of the traditional religions brought to Cuba by enslaved West Africans, the majority of them Yoruba, and Roman Catholicism, the only religion legally permitted on the island by the Spanish colonial government  In urban areas of West Cuba, these traditions merged with Spiritist ideas to form the earliest casas during the late 19th century  After the Cuban War of Independence resulted in an independent republic in 1898, its new constitution enshrined freedom of religion  Santería nevertheless remained marginalized by Cuba's Roman Catholic, Euro-Cuban establishment, which typically viewed it as brujería (witchcraft)  In the 1960s, growing emigration following the Cuban Revolution spread Santería abroad  The late 20th century saw growing links between Santería and related traditions in West Africa and the Americas, such as Haitian Vodou and Brazilian Candomblé  Since the late 20th century, some practitioners have emphasized a "Yorubization" process to remove Roman Catholic influences and created forms of Santería closer to traditional Yoruba religion 
Practitioners of Santería are primarily found in Cuba's La Habana and Matanzas provinces, although communities exist across the island and abroad, especially among the Cuban diasporas of Mexico and the United States  The religion remains most common among working-class Afro-Cuban communities although is also practiced by individuals of other class and ethnic backgrounds  The number of initiates is estimated to be in the high hundreds of thousands  These initiates serve as diviners and healers for a much larger range of adherents of varying levels of fidelity, making the precise numbers of those involved in Santería difficult to determine  Many of those involved also identify as practitioners of another religion, typically Roman Catholicism 

Definitions
The term Santería translates into English as the "way of the saints"  This term was first used by scholarly commentators in the 1930s and later spread among the religion's practitioners themselves  It has become the most popular name for the religion, although some practitioners find it offensive  A common alternative is Regla de Ocha, meaning "the rule of ocha", ocha being a term for the religion's deities  Some adherents regard this as the religion's "official" name  The tradition has also been called Lucumí, in reference to the colonial Spanish term for the Yoruba people, or alternatively La Religión Lucumí ("the Lucumí religion") or Regla Lucumí ("the rule of Lucumí") Santería is an Afro-Caribbean religion, and more specifically an Afro-Cuban religion  In Cuba it is sometimes described as "the national religion", although it has also spread abroad  Santería's roots are in the traditional religions brought to Cuba by enslaved West Africans, the majority of them Yoruba, between the 16th and 19th centuries  In Cuba, these religions mixed with the Roman Catholicism introduced by Spanish colonialists  Roman Catholic saints were conflated with West African deities, while enslaved Africans adopted Roman Catholic rituals and sacramentals  In the 19th century, elements from Spiritism—a French variant of Spiritualism—were drawn into the mix, with Santería emerging as a distinct religion in western Cuba during the late 19th century Although Santería is the best known of the Afro-Cuban religions, and the most popular, it is not the only one  Others include Palo, which derives from practices originating in the Congo Basin, and Abakuá, which has its origins among the secret male societies practiced among the Efik-Ibibio  Many practitioners of Palo and Abakuá also follow Santería  Another Afro-Cuban religion is Arará, which derives from practices among the Ewe and Fon; although its origins are not Yoruba, it is sometimes considered a branch of Santería rather than a separate system  
Santería also has commonalities with other West African and West African-derived traditions in the Americas which collectively form the "Orisha religion", "Orisha Tradition", or "Orisha worship " These include Haitian Vodou and Brazilian Candomblé, sometimes characterized as "sister religions" of Santería due to their shared origins in Yoruba traditional religion Santería is a flexible and eclectic tradition, with considerable variation in how it is practiced  There is no strict orthodoxy, no key sacred text, and no central authority in control of the entire religion  It has absorbed elements from many cultures that it has encountered, such as that of the Chinese migrants who came to Cuba in the 19th century, while in continental North America, Santería has also incorporated influences from Central American and Mexican religions as well as from New Age and modern Pagan practices  As well as it being common for Cubans to idiosyncratically blend ideas from different religions, many of Santería's practitioners claim multiple religious allegiances  Santería's adherents often consider themselves to be Roman Catholics—some priests and priestesses of Santería refuse to initiate anyone who is not a baptised Roman Catholic—and others consider themselves to be Spiritists, Hindus, Vodouists, or Jews 

Terms for practitioners
Different vocabulary indicates the level of a practitioner's involvement, with the various terms sometimes reflecting different political and social agendas  Practitioners of both Santería and other Afro-Cuban religions are called creyentes ("believers")  Some people external to the religion have referred to its practitioners as "santerians" although this is not used by adherents themselves  A non-initiate, including those who may attend public Santería ceremonies, is an aleyo ("stranger"); these non-initiates make up the majority of people involved in the religion  Initiates are known as santero if male, and santera if female, although these two terms have sometimes been used for anyone, initiate or not, who participates in the religion  Alternative terms for an initiate are babalocha or babaloricha ("father-deity") if male and an iyalocha or iyaloricha ("mother-deity") if female  Those who have a sustained engagement with the religion are also referred to as omoricha ("children of the oricha"), aboricha ("one who worships the oricha"), and an oloricha ("one who belongs to the oricha") 

Beliefs
Olodumare and the oricha
Santería teaches the existence of an overarching divinity, known as Olodumare, Olofi, or Olorun  Practitioners believe that this divinity created the universe but takes little interest in human affairs  As this creator deity is inaccessible to humanity, no major offerings are dedicated to it  The three facets of this divinity are understood slightly differently; Olodumare represents the divine essence of all that exists, Olorun is regarded as the creator of all beings, while Olofi dwells in all creation  In taking a triplicate form, this deity displays similarities with the Christian Trinity 

The oricha
Santeria is polytheistic, revolving around deities called oricha, ocha, or santos ("saints")  The term oricha can be both singular and plural, because Lucumí, the ritual language of Santería, lacks plural markers for nouns  Practitioners believe that some oricha were created before humanity, while others were originally humans who became oricha through some remarkable quality  Some practitioners perceive the oricha as facets of Olodumare, and thus think that by venerating them they are ultimately worshipping the creator god  Certain oricha are female, others male  They are not regarded as wholly benevolent, being capable of both harming and helping humans, and displaying a mix of emotions, virtues, and vices Origin myths and other stories about the oricha are called patakíes  Each oricha is understood to "rule over" a particular aspect of the universe, and they have been described as personifications of different facets of the natural world  They live in a realm called orún, which is contrasted with ayé, the realm of humanity  Oricha each have their own caminos ("roads"), or manifestations, a concept akin to the Hindu concept of avatars  The number of caminos an oricha has varies, with some having several hundred  Practitioners believe that oricha can physically inhabit certain objects, among them stones and cowrie shells, which are deemed sacred  Each oricha is also associated with specific songs, rhythms, colors, numbers, animals, and foodstuffs 

Among the oricha are the four "warrior deities", or guerrors: Eleguá, Ogun, Ochosi, and Osun  Eleguá is viewed as the guardian of the crossroads and thresholds; he is the messenger between humanity and the oricha, and most ceremonies start by requesting his permission to continue  He is depicted as being black on one side and red on the other, and practitioners will frequently place a cement head decorated with cowrie shells that represents Eleguá behind their front door, guarding the threshold to the street  The second guerro is Ogun, viewed as the oricha of weapons and war, and also of iron and blacksmiths  The third, Ochosi, is associated with woods and hunting, while the fourth, Osun, is a protector who warns practitioners when they are in danger Perhaps the most popular oricha, Changó or Shango is associated with lightning and fire  Another prominent oricha is Yemaja, the deity associated with maternity, fertility, and the sea  Ochún is the oricha of rivers and of romantic love, while Oyá is a warrior associated with wind, lightning, and death, and is viewed as the guardian of the cemetery  Obatalá is the oricha of truth and justice and is deemed responsible for helping to mould humanity  Babalú Ayé is the oricha associated with disease and its curing, while Osain is linked to herbs and healing  Orula is the oricha of divination, who in Santería's mythology was present at the creation of humanity and thus is aware of everyone's destiny  Ibeyi takes the form of twins who protect children  Olokún is the patron oricha of markets, while his wife Olosá is associated with lagoons  Agagyú is the oricha of volcanoes and the wasteland  Some oricha are deemed antagonistic to others; Changó and Ogun are for instance enemies Although in Santería the term santo is regarded as a synonym of oricha and is not a literal reference to Christian saints, the oricha are often conflated with one or more Roman Catholic saints based on similar attributes  For instance, the Holy Infant of Atocha, a depiction of Christ as a child, is conflated with Eleguá, who is seen as having a childlike nature  Babalú Ayé, who is associated with disease, is often identified with the Catholic Saint Lazarus, who rose from the dead, while  Changó is conflated with Santa Barbara because they both wear red  Cuba's patron saint, Our Lady of Charity, is equated with Ochún  It has been argued that Yoruba slaves initially linked their traditional deities with Christian saints as a means of concealing their continued worship of the former from the Spanish authorities, or as a means of facilitating social mobility by assimilating into Roman Catholic social norms 

Relationships with the oricha
Santería's focus is on cultivating a reciprocal relationship with the oricha, with adherents believing that these deities can intercede in human affairs and help people if they are appeased  Practitioners argue that each person is "born to" a particular oricha, whether or not they devote themselves to that deity  This is a connection that, adherents believe, has been set before birth  Practitioners refer to this oricha as one that "rules the head" of an individual; it is their "owner of the head"  If the oricha is male then it is described as the individual's "father"; if the oricha is female then it is the person's "mother"  This oricha is deemed to influence the individual's personality, and can be recognised through examining the person's personality traits, or through divination To gain the protection of a particular oricha, practitioners are encouraged to make offerings to them, sponsor ceremonies in their honor, and live in accordance with their wishes, as determined through divination  Practitioners are concerned at the prospect of offending the oricha 
Creyentes believe that the oricha can communicate with humans through divination, prayers, dreams, music, and dance  Many practitioners also describe how they "read" messages from the oricha in everyday interactions and events  For instance, a practitioner who meets a child at a traffic intersection may interpret this as a message from Eleguá, who is often depicted as a child and who is perceived as the "guardian" of the crossroads  At that point the practitioner may turn to divination to determine the precise meaning of the encounter  The information obtained from these messages may then help practitioners make decisions about their life 

Birth and the dead
Santería teaches that the human head contains a person's essence, their eledá or orí  It maintains that before birth, the eledá goes before Olodumare, where it is given its essential character, and forms a link with the oricha who becomes "the owner of the head"  The concept of the eledá derives from Yoruba traditional religion, where it is seen as a person's "spiritual double"  In Santería, this concept idea has syncretised with Roman Catholic beliefs about guardian angels and Spiritist notions of the protecciones or protector spirits  There is no strict orthodoxy on this issue and thus interpretations differ  Practitioners often believe that everyone has a specific destiny, their destino (destiny) or camino (road), although their fate is not completely predetermined Ancestor veneration is important in Santería  The religion entails propitiating the spirits of the dead, known as egun, espíritus, or muertos  Practitioners believe that the dead must be treated with respect, awe, and kindness; they are consulted at all ceremonies  Although the dead are not deemed as powerful as the oricha, they are still thought capable of assisting the living, with whom they can communicate through dreams, intuition, and spirit possession  Santería teaches that a person can learn to both see and communicate with the dead  Practitioners will often provide offerings, typically seven glasses of water, to the egun to placate and please them  Especially propitiated are those egun regarded as ancestors; these ancestors can include both hereditary forebears or past members of one's congregation, with practitioners believing that a creyente becomes an ancestor when they die Adherents believe that everyone has a cuadro espiritual ("spiritual portrait" or "spiritual picture") of egun who protect them  Individuals can have as many as 25 protectores, or protective spirits  The religion maintains that all people have multiple egun accompanying them at all times, and that these can be benevolent, malevolent, or a mix of both  Practitioners also believe that the number and identities of these spirits can be determined through divination  It draws a distinction between evolved spirits, who can help those they are attached to, and unevolved spirits, who lack the wisdom and skill to be useful and instead cause havoc  Santería teaches that through offerings and prayers, individuals can help some of their unevolved spirits to become evolved  Santería also divides the spirits into categories that each exhibit different traits, reflecting stereotypes about different social groups, with such spirits often portrayed as African, Haitian, Gypsy, Arab, or Plains Indian  The gitano (gypsy) spirits for instance are believed capable of foreseeing impending troubles and diagnosing illnesses while the congo spirits of Africa are perceived as strong-willed, powerful, and adept at guiding people through hostile circumstances 

Aché
Aché is a major cosmological concept in Yoruba traditional religion and has been transferred to Santería  Aché is regarded as the organizing power of the cosmos; the Hispanic studies scholars Margarite Fernández Olmos and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert referred to it as "a spiritual-mystical energy or power found in varying degrees and in many forms throughout the universe"  The medical anthropologist Johan Wedel described it as "life force" or "divine force", while the folklorist Michael Atwood Mason called aché the "ritual generative power"  The ethnomusicologist Katherine Hagedorn described aché as "the realized and inherent divine potential in all aspects of life, even in apparently inert objects " She added that "Aché is neither good nor bad; rather, aché is motion" While deeming Olodumare the ultimate embodiment of aché, practitioners believe that aché permeates all life, and is present in both the visible and invisible world  It is nevertheless deemed to sometimes congregate more densely, for instance in the forces of nature, specific locales, and in certain human individuals; initiates are believed to attract more of it than other humans  Santería holds that aché can emanate from the human body via speech, song, dance, and drumming, and can be transmitted through such acts as singing praise songs for the oricha or sacrificing an animal  Among practitioners, aché is sometimes described as conveying notions of luck, health, and prosperity, and has the power to fortify a person's health 

Morality, ethics, and gender roles
Santería has standards for behavior expected of practitioners, encouraging behaviors influenced by the mythological stories about the oricha  The religion presents strict rules regarding how to interact with other people and with the supernatural, for instance placing emphasis on respect for elders and superiors  A general attitude in Santería is that if an individual maintains good character, the oricha will aid them  Practitioners generally take socially conservative stances, having high regard for traditional family structures, marriage, fidelity, and child-rearing; adherents in the United States often adopt more progressive stances on issues surrounding gender and sexuality than their counterparts in Cuba The religion is non-dualistic and does not view the universe as being divided between good and evil; rather, all things are perceived as being complementary and relative  Several academics have described Santería as having a "here-and-now" ethos distinct from that of Christianity, and the social scientist Mercedes C  Sandoval suggested that many Cubans chose Santería over Roman Catholicism or Spiritism because it emphasizes techniques for dealing with pragmatic problems in life  In the U S , some African American adherents have contrasted what they regard as the African-derived ethos of Santería with the non-African origins of Christianity, thus adopting it as a religion readily combined with black nationalism The scholar of religion Mary Ann Clark labelled Santería a "female oriented and female normative" religion, arguing that all of its practitioners are expected to take on "female gender roles" during its rituals  Women can hold the highest leadership positions, although restrictions are placed on them while menstruating  Similar restrictions are also placed on homosexual males, traditionally prohibiting them from taking part in certain forms of divination and ritual drumming  Many gay men are nevertheless santeros, and some santeras are lesbians  A stereotype exists that all male Santería priests are homosexual, and members of other Afro-Cuban traditions with a more masculinist orientation, such as Palo, have often denigrated it for being dominated by women and men they consider to be "womanly" 

Practices
Santería is a practice-oriented religion; ritual correctness is considered more important than belief  It has an elaborate system of ritual, with its rites termed ceremonias (ceremonies)  Most of its activities revolve around the oricha, focusing on solving the problems of everyday life  Practitioners usually use the term "work" in reference to ritual activity; thus "working ocha" describes its rites Santería is an initiatory religion, one which is organized around a structured hierarchy  An ethos of secrecy pervades many of its practices, with initiates often refusing to discuss certain topics with non-initiates  For this reason, Mason described Santería as a secret society  For ritual purposes, the Lucumí language is often used  Sometimes referred to as la lengua de los orichas ("the language of the oricha"), it is regarded as a divine language through which practitioners can contact the deities  Although some practitioners are uncomfortable using it, most initiates know tens or hundreds of Lucumí words and phrases  Most Cubans do not understand the Lucumí language, barring a few words that have filtered into Cuban Spanish  Lucumí derives from the Yoruba language, although it has become "increasingly fragmented and unintelligible" since the 19th century  As Yoruba transitioned into Lucumí, the Yoruba pronunciations of many words were forgotten, and in the early 21st century some practitioners have studied the Yoruba language to better understand the original meaning of Lucumí words 

Houses of worship
Rituals take place in the casa templo ("house of worship"), casa de santos ("house of saints"), casa de religión ("house of religion"), or ilé ("house")  This casa ("house") is usually the personal home of a santero or santera  It will typically have an inner room, the igbodu ("sacred grove of the festival"), where the most important rituals take place  There will also be an eyá aránla or sala, often a living room, where semi-private rites can be conducted  Another space, the iban balo, or patio, will be used for public occasions, as well as for the cultivation of plants and the housing of animals due to be sacrificed  The casa will typically include a place to store ritual paraphernalia, kitchen facilities, and space for visitors to sleep The casa refers not only to the building where ceremonies take place, but also the community of practitioners who meet there  In this sense, many casas trace a lineage back to the 19th century, with some santeros and santeras capable of listing the practitioners who have been initiated into it  In some ceremonies, the names of these individuals, who are regarded as the ancestors of the house, are recited in chronological order 
Although members of different houses often interact, each casa is largely autonomous, allowing for variation in their practices  In Cuba, it is common for Santería practitioners to meet with each other regularly, and to regard each other as being akin to a family: the familia de santo  Conversely, in an area like Veracruz in Mexico, many practitioners attend group rituals and then leave, sometimes never seeing their co-practitioners again Most casas are established by a santero or santera who has attracted a following  An apprentice is known as their ahijado (godson) or ahijada (goddaughter)  They refer to their santero/santera as padrino (godfather) or madrina (godmother)  The relationship between santeros/santeras and their "godchildren" is central to the religion's social organization, and practitioners believe that the more "godchildren" a santera or santero has, the greater their aché  The "godchildren" are expected to contribute both their labor and finances to events held at the casa and in return the santero/santera provides assistance for their needs  Within the religion, offending one's godparent is regarded as also offending the oricha that "rules the head"  Practitioners express respect both to their godparent and the oricha via a ritual prostration, the moforibale, in which they bow their head to the floor  The precise form of the moforibale differs depending on whether the individual's personal oricha is male or female 

Shrines
Altars or shrines to the oricha are typically found both within the igbodu and in practitioners' homes  Central to these altars are sacred objects, termed fundamentos ("fundamentals"), which are contained within porcelain vessels, often tureens, called sopera  The most important of the fundamentos are stones termed otanes (sing  otán), which are regarded as the literal and symbolic representation of the oricha, and thus living entities  They are deemed to be sources of aché, with older otanes having more aché than younger ones Practitioners will collect stones from the landscape and then use divination to determine which ones contain an oricha and, if so, which oricha it is  Specific otanes sometimes display traits linking them to particular oricha; for example ocean stones are linked with Yemaya, river pebbles with Ochún, and meteorite fragments with Changó  Each oricha is deemed to prefer a particular color and number of otanes in sopera devoted to them; Changó has six or ten black stones, Obatala has eight white stones, while Ochún favors five yellow stones  New otanes undergo a bautismo ("baptism") rite, entailing them being washed in osain, a mixture of herbs and water, and then "fed" with animal blood  When an initiate receives their stones, they take an oath to protect them and feed them at least annually 

Other material placed inside the sopera includes cowrie shells; usually 18 are added although the precise number differs depending on which oricha the sopera is devoted to  The sopera will often be covered by a cloth known as a pañuelo that is colored in accordance with the oricha in question  Often laid over the sopera are necklaces known as collares, again representing a particular oricha  On the altar, the sopera will be arranged in a descending hierarchy depending on which oricha each is dedicated to, with that of Obatala at the top Many altars contain few or no anthropomorphic depictions of the oricha, although will often include objects associated with them; a wooden axe for Changó or a fan for Ochún, for instance
Context 3: Passage 1:
Trusty system (prison)
The "trusty system" (sometimes incorrectly called "trustee system") was a penitentiary system of discipline and security enforced in parts of the United States until the 1980s, in which designated inmates were given various privileges, abilities, and responsibilities not available to all inmates It was made compulsory under Mississippi state law but was used in other states as well, such as Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, New York and Texas  The method of controlling and working inmates at Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman was designed in 1901 to replace convict leasing  The case Gates v  Collier ended the flagrant abuse of inmates under the trusty system and other prison abuses that had continued essentially unchanged since the building of the Mississippi State Penitentiary  Other states using the trusty system were also forced to give it up under the ruling 

History
Prisons had trusties as far back as the 1800s 

Parchman Farm
The prison had approximately 16,000 acres (65 km2) of farmland and grew such cash crops as cotton as well as engaged in livestock production  Although the population of the prison was around 1,900 inmates (two thirds of whom were black and in racially-segregated units), the law allowed only a maximum of 150 staff members to be hired to minimize operating costs  Thus, the farm labor was done by inmates The bulk of guarding and disciplining of the inmates was performed by inmate trusties  They also performed most of the administrative work, supervised by a few employees  Therefore, the inmate trusties essentially controlled inmate care and custody, basically running the prison system Highest in the prison inmate hierarchy were the inmates armed with rifles, called the "trusty shooters"  Their job was to act as prison guards and control other inmates on a day-to-day basis in the residential camps or out on the field work crews  Next came the unarmed trusties who performed janitorial, clerical, and other menial tasks for the prison's staff  Simple tasks, such as distributing medication, were carried out by other categories of inmates such as "hallboys"  Inmate trusties enforced discipline within the prison inmate living quarters (16 different residential camps) and in the work camps and prison farms  In addition to punishment administered on site, inmate trusties could recommend further punishment in the special punishment area for disobedient or disruptive inmates According to attorney Roy Haber, who handled the series of litigation cases brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against the trusty system, inmates were whipped with leather straps for failing to pick their daily quota of cotton  The farm's camps of black inmates were supervised by one white sergeant, and under him the black inmate "trusty shooters", who were serving sentences for murder, carried rifles and enforced discipline 

Abolition
Gates v  Collier (Gates v  Collier Prison Reform Case, 1970–1971) ended the flagrant abuse of inmates under the trusty system and other prison abuses that had continued essentially unchanged since the building of the prison in 1903  On October 20, 1972, Federal Judge William Keady ordered the end of racial segregation in prison residential quarters  He also required replacement of trusty shooters with civilian prison guards Any system in which inmates were allowed to be in a position of authority and control other inmates or to use physical abuse or intimidation of other inmates was abolished  It also found some types of corporal punishment were a violation of an inmate's Eighth Amendment rights, including "handcuffing inmates to the fence and to cells for, long periods of time,    and forcing inmates to stand, sit or lie on crates, stumps, or otherwise maintain awkward positions for prolonged periods "Its structure and abuses were detailed in Hope v  Pelzer in which a former inmate sued the prison superintendent for personal injury suffered under the trusty system Other states using the trusty system, such as Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas were also forced to abolish it under the Gates v  Collier rulings  However, some states, such as Texas, still continued their use of trusty systems (known as "building tenders") until the 1980s, when Federal Judge William Wayne Justice, in Ruiz v  Estelle, 503 F  Supp  1265 (S D  Tex  1980), compelled the replacement of the trusty system with the strictly-regulated Support Service Inmate (SSI) system 

See also
"Parchman Farm" (song)
Louisiana State Penitentiary
Kapo
Passage 2:
Brockmeyer v  Dun &amp; Bradstreet
Brockmeyer v  Dun & Bradstreet 113 Wis  2d 561, 335 N W 2d 834 (Wis  1983), was a case in which the Wisconsin Supreme Court first identified that Wisconsin has some judicial exceptions to the employment at will doctrine 

Facts
Charles J  Brockmeyer was employed at investment firm Dun & Bradstreet as a district manager of credit services, though he lacked a formal employment contract  After the employer settled a sex discrimination suit filed by the employee's former secretary, with whom he allegedly had an affair, the employer fired the employee  The court held that it was appropriate to create a public policy exception to the employment-at-will doctrine, as the termination had clearly violated a well-defined public policy, as evidenced by existing law  While the employer's actions may have constituted bad faith, they did not contravene the policies of any statute or constitutional provision  As the employee failed to prove that his discharge violated fundamental public policy, the decision for the employer was appropriate 

Holding
The court affirmed the decision of the lower court in favor of the employer 

Citations
The case is cited in Bammert v  Don's Super Valu, Inc 
Passage 3:
Miller v  California
Miller v  California, 413 U S  15 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U S  Supreme Court modifying its definition of obscenity from that of "utterly without socially redeeming value" to that which lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value"  It is now referred to as the three-prong standard or the Miller test 

Background
In 1971, Marvin Miller, an owner/operator of a California mail-order business specializing in pornographic films and books, sent out a brochure advertising books and a film that graphically depicted sexual activity between men and women  The brochure used in the mailing contained graphic images from the books and the film  Five of the brochures were mailed to a restaurant in Newport Beach, California  The owner and his mother opened the envelope and seeing the brochures, called the police Miller was arrested and charged with violating California Penal Code 311 2(a) which says in part, "Every person who knowingly sends or causes to be sent, or brings or causes to be brought, into this state for sale or distribution, or in this state possesses, prepares, publishes, produces, or prints, with intent to distribute or to exhibit to others, or who offers to distribute, distributes, or exhibits to others, any obscene matter is for a first offense, guilty of a misdemeanor " California lawmakers wrote the statute based on two previous Supreme Court obscenity cases, Memoirs v  Massachusetts and Roth v  United States Miller was tried by jury in the Superior Court of Orange County  At the conclusion of the evidence phase, the judge instructed the jury to evaluate the evidence by the community standards of California, i e , as defined by the statute  The jury returned a guilty verdict 
Miller appealed to the Appellate Division of the Superior Court, arguing that the jury instructions did not use the standard set in Memoirs v  Massachusetts which said that in order to be judged obscene, materials must be "utterly without redeeming social value " Miller argued that only a national standard for obscenity could be applied  The appellate division rejected the argument and affirmed the jury verdict  Miller then filed an appeal with the California Court of Appeal for the Third District, which declined to review  Miller applied to the Supreme Court for certiorari, which was granted  Oral arguments were heard in January 1972 

Previous Supreme Court decisions on obscenity
The U S  Supreme Court granted certiorari to Miller because the California law was based on its two previous obscenity cases which the Court wanted to revisit  Chief Justice Warren Burger came to the Court in 1969 believing that the Court's obscenity jurisprudence was misguided and governments should be given more leeway to ban obscene materials  In consideration of Miller in May and June 1972, Burger pushed successfully for a looser definition of "obscenity" which would allow local prosecutions, while Justice William J  Brennan, Jr , who by now also believed the Roth and Memoirs tests should be abandoned, led the charge for protecting all "obscenity" unless distributed to minors or exposed offensively to unconsenting adults  Decision of the case was contentious, and Miller was put over for reargument for October term in 1972, and did not come down until June 1973, with Burger prevailing with a 5–4 vote Since the Court's decision in Roth v  United States, the Court had struggled to define what constituted constitutionally unprotected obscene material  Under the Comstock laws that prevailed before Roth, articulated most famously in the 1868 English case Regina v Hicklin, any material that tended to "deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences" was deemed "obscene" and could be banned on that basis  Thus, works by Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, James Joyce, and D  H  Lawrence were banned based on isolated passages and the effect they might have on children  Roth repudiated the "Hicklin test" and defined obscenity more strictly, as material whose "dominant theme taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest" to the "average person, applying contemporary community standards"  Only material now meeting this test could be banned as "obscene" In Memoirs v  Massachusetts, a plurality of the Court further redefined the Roth test by holding unprotected only that which is "patently offensive" and "utterly without redeeming social value," but no opinion in that case could command a majority of the Court either, and the state of the law in the obscenity field remained confused   In Jacobellis v  Ohio, Justice Potter Stewart's concurring opinion said that the Court in earlier pornography cases "was faced with the task of trying to define what may be indefinable," and that criminal laws were constitutionally limited to "hard-core pornography," which he did not try to define: "perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so  But I know it when I see it " Other Justices  had equally been unwilling to clearly define what pornography could be prohibited by the First Amendment 

Supreme Court decision
Miller had based his appeal in California on Memoirs v  Massachusetts  The Court rejected that argument 
The question before the court was whether the sale and distribution of obscene material was protected under the First Amendment's guarantee of Freedom of Speech  The Court ruled that it was not  It indicated that "obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment," especially that of hardcore pornography, thereby reaffirming part of Roth However, the Court acknowledged "the inherent dangers of undertaking to regulate any form of expression," and said that "State statutes designed to regulate obscene materials must be carefully limited " The Court, in an attempt to set such limits, devised a set of three criteria which must be met for a work to be legitimately subject to state regulation:

whether the average person, applying contemporary "community standards," would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
whether the work depicts or describes, in an offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions, as specifically defined by applicable state law (the syllabus of the case mentions only sexual conduct, but excretory functions are explicitly mentioned on page 25 of the majority opinion); and
whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value This obscenity test overturns the definition of obscenity set out in the Memoirs decision, which held that "all ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance     have the full protection of the guaranties [of the First Amendment]" and that obscenity was that which was "utterly without redeeming social importance" The Miller decision vacated the jury verdict and remanded the case back to the California Superior Court 

Definition of obscenity post-Miller
Miller provided states greater freedom in prosecuting alleged purveyors of "obscene" material because, for the first time since Roth, a majority of the Court agreed on a definition of "obscenity " Hundreds of "obscenity" prosecutions went forward after Miller, and the Supreme Court began denying review of these state actions after years of reviewing many "obscenity" convictions (over 60 appeared on the Court's docket for the 1971–72 term, pre-Miller) A companion case to Miller, Paris Adult Theatre I v  Slaton, provided states with greater leeway to shut down adult movie houses  Controversy arose over Miller's "community standards" analysis, with critics charging that Miller encouraged forum shopping to prosecute national producers of what some believe to be "obscenity" in locales where community standards differ substantially from the rest of the nation  For example, under the "community standards" prong of the Miller test, what might be considered "obscene" in Utah might not be considered "obscene" in Massachusetts, or the opposite might be true; in any event, prosecutors tend to bring charges in locales where they believe that they will prevail  Justice Brennan, author of the Roth opinion, argued in his dissent for Paris Adult Theatre that outright suppression of obscenity is too vague to enforce in line with the First and Fourteenth Amendments The standards established by Miller were elaborated upon in Pope v  Illinois in 1987  In the case, the jury instructions for the local court had been for the jurors to evaluate whether adult magazines had value according to a community standard, and the conviction was held by the Illinois appellate court  The Supreme Court overruled the appellate court decision, siding with the defendant  In the majority opinion, the Supreme Court held that the first two prongs of the test were to be evaluated according to a "community standard," but not the third, which was to be held to the higher standard of a "reasonable person" evaluating the work for value In 1987, Oregon became the first state to strike down the criminalization of obscenity  In State v  Henry, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled in favor of Earl Henry, the owner of an adult bookstore, stating that the state obscenity statute violated the free speech provision of Oregon's state constitution In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled in Reno v  American Civil Liberties Union that the anti-indecency provisions of the Communications Decency Act were unconstitutional  The Act had criminalized the sending of "obscene or indecent" material to minors over the Internet  The court unanimously ruled that the provision violated the First Amendment due to its burden on free speech 

Effects of the decision
In the years since Miller, many localities have cracked down on adult theatres and bookstores, as well as nude dancing, through restrictive zoning ordinances and public nudity laws Additionally, in 1982's New York v  Ferber the Court declared child pornography as unprotected by the First Amendment, upholding the state of New York's ban on that material  In the 2002 Ashcroft v  Free Speech Coalition case, however, the Court held that sexually explicit material that only appears to depict minors, but actually does not, might be exempt from obscenity rulings In American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression v  Strickland, plaintiffs American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, joined by various publishers, retailers, and web site operators, sued Ohio's Attorney General and Ohio county prosecutors in United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio  Plaintiffs alleged that Ohio Revised Code §2907 01(E) and (J), which prohibited the dissemination or display of "materials harmful to juveniles", unconstitutionally violated both the First Amendment and the Commerce Clause of the Constitution  Plaintiffs specifically challenged the statute's definition of "harmful to juveniles", as well as the provisions governing Internet dissemination of those materials  The court held the statute unconstitutional because the statute's definition of "material harmful to minors" did not comply with Miller The "community standards" portion of the decision is of particular relevance with the rise of the Internet, as materials believed by some to be "obscene" can be accessed from anywhere in the nation, including places where there is a greater concern about "obscenity" than other areas of the nation  Enforcing and applying obscenity laws to the Internet have proven difficult  Both the Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) and the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) have had sections struck down as unconstitutional in cases such as Ashcroft v  Free Speech Coalition and Ashcroft v  ACLU 

See also
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 413
Sex-related court cases
United States obscenity law
Passage 4:
Gasser v MISAT
Gasser v MISAT (C–116/02) was a decision of the European Court of Justice regarding the interpretation of the Brussels convention of 1968 ruling that a court chosen in a choice of court agreement should stay its proceedings - as any other court chosen second within the Brussels regime - until the court first seized had declared it did not have jurisdiction  The court's decision was considered problematic as it favoured the uniformity of application of the Brussels regime jurisdictional rules temporarily over party autonomy : 572  Due to similar provisions in the 2001 Brussels Regulation and Lugano Conventions, the interpretation also affects choice of court agreements under those later instruments  However, in the 2012 Recast version of the Brussels I Regulation chosen courts can take jurisdiction, even if a court not chosen has been addressed first 

Facts
Austrian supplier Gasser and Italian distributor MISAT entered into a contract together for the supply of children's clothes  In the contract, they included a choice-of-court agreement, stipulating that an Austrian court have jurisdiction in case of conflict  However, when a dispute arose between the two parties, MISAT seised an Italian court to declare that the contract had been terminated, contrary to the choice-of-court clause they agreed on 
MISAT relied on Article 21 of the Brussels Convention, a convention to which all members of the European Community were party, and which regulates which court within those states has jurisdiction  The convention contains a lis alibi pendens-rule: where proceedings involving the same issue and between the same parties are brought before the courts of different Member States, the court seised second must stay proceedings up until the jurisdiction of the court first seised has been established – after which the court second seised must decline jurisdiction if the court first seised is indeed found to have jurisdiction  Consequently, Article 21 of the Convention establishes a type of "first come, first served"-rule: when there is a triple identity in parties,: §34  object,: §40  as well as cause of action, the court that has been seised second will only be able to decide in the case when it has been decided in the first court that the latter has no jurisdiction  The Report Jenard cites the need to "facilitate the proper administration of justice within the Community" as the underlying idea behind this lis alibi pendens rule, as irreconcilable judgments would obstruct such proper administration and ultimately be detrimental to the "mutual trust in the administration of justice in the Community"  Consequently, the lis pendens-rule can be considered as an expression of the Regulation's search for both certainty and the preservation of mutual trust amongst Member States The problem however in the case at hand was that the parties had first made an agreement as to which court would have jurisdiction in case of conflict- namely an Austrian court  Consequently, Gasser brought the same case before the Oberlandesgericht (Higher Regional Court) Innsbruck in Austria, where the question was eventually passed on to the European Court of Justice of whether or not the lis pendens-rule could override the parties' autonomous decision contained in their choice-of-court agreement and thus, if the abovementioned rule contained in Article 21 of the Convention was applicable or not : §21, §28

CJEU procedure
The reference for a preliminary ruling were made on 25 March 2002, and observations were made -in addition to the parties in the dispute- by Italy, the United Kingdom and the European Commission  While Italy, the Commission and Misat contended that the lis pendens doctrine needed to take precedence, and that thus the court second seized should stay its proceedings until the first court had decided on its position, the UK and Gasser argued that the choice of the parties should take immediate precedence over the lis pendens rule 

Advocate-General
The (advisory) opinion of Advocate-General was delivered on 9 September 2003  The Advocate-general held that the European Court of Justice had the possibility to rule that a valid choice of court clause amounted exclusive jurisdiction to a (group of) courts, and that thus it was possible to derogate from using the lis pendens doctrine and give such a court immediate jurisdiction  The court had made a similar exception before in Overseas Union Insurance Ltd and Deutsche Ruck Uk Reinsurance Ltd and Pine Top Insurance Company Ltd v New Hampshire Insurance Company where it ruled that if one of the "exclusive jurisdiction" grounds of Article 16 applied, the court that had exclusive jurisdiction did not have to stay proceedings, even if it was seized second  The exclusive jurisdiction of choice of court agreements/clauses is however placed in Article 15, and thus is not automatically covered by the judgments  The Advocate general suggested to only allow a court seized second (and which was chosen in a choice of court clause/agreement) "where there is no room for any doubt as to the jurisdiction of the court second seised"; to avoid the situations where both courts would assume jurisdiction 

Decision
The Court resolutely rejected the possibility that the party autonomy could take precedence over the abovementioned goals of certainty and mutual trust, stating that "the court second seised is never in a better position than the court first seised to determine whether the latter has jurisdiction" : §48  Even though the Austrian court was consistent with the parties choice-of-court agreement, it was for the court first seized to decide it had not jurisdiction and the presence of such a clause is "not such as to call in question the application of the procedural rule contained in Article 21 of the Convention [now Article 27], which is based clearly and solely on the chronological order in which the courts involved are seised" : §46–47

Relevance
The ruling by the Court has implications not only for the application of the Brussels Convention, but also by the Brussels I Regulation (44/2001) that mostly replaced it, and for the interpretation by EU states of the Lugano Conventions of 1998 and 2007 that contain similar provisions : 572 First, there is the (unlikely) risk that the court first seised finds the jurisdiction clause invalid, which consequently takes away the possibility for the designated court to decide the case, even if the latter would have declared the clause valid : 577  Although the Court in Gasser first seems to minimise the likelihood of this hypothesis by stating that a jurisdiction clause "must be regarded as an independent concept",: §51  it nonetheless points out that verifying the existence of jurisdiction clauses "may necessitate delicate and costly investigations" : §26  As a result, although unlikely, there is still a risk that two courts from different Member States will decide upon the validity of a jurisdiction clause differently : 572 Second, the Court's ruling, which imposes a sort of absolute first-come, first-served principle, promotes the use of tactical litigation and "torpedo claims" : 573  The reason why can be described as the difference between theory and reality  In theory, the fact that a party would have to turn to a different Member State for a ruling in his case is irrelevant or even meaningless, as the Brussels I Regulation rests upon the axiomatic assumption that procedural justice is served wherever in the community proceedings are heard : 570  In reality however, this fact is of great tactical significance to the recalcitrant party, since -apart from the aforementioned fact that the first court seised may determine the effect of Article 23 differently- some Member States have a system of much slower-moving judiciary, which makes the realisation of procedural justice unlikely : 577  Italy is a prime example thereof, with decisions on jurisdiction alone taking several months or even years; commencing proceedings in Italy is accordingly dubbed "firing the Italian torpedo"  This torpedo may well sink a jurisdiction agreement, as the crude confrontation with increased delay and expense for the other party makes it not only unlikely for him to recommence proceedings in the agreed court after jurisdiction has been settled, but can even deter him from litigating altogether at the sight of the location of the court first seised : 577 In conclusion, not only may the party defending the choice-of-court agreement experience substantive disadvantages in the other Member State, as the court situated there might declare the agreement invalid, the party may also be exposed to procedural disadvantages, caused by judicial system which is not chosen : 573  This in turn can make the jurisdiction agreement ineffective altogether, going against the principle of party autonomy  Taking a formalistic and literal approach, the Court states that "the difficulties of the kind (   ) stemming from delaying tactics by parties (   ) are not such as to call in question the interpretation of the Brussels Convention, as deduced from its wordings and purpose",: §53  pointing out that the Regulation "is necessarily based on the trust which Contracting States accord to each other's legal systems and judicidial institutions" : §72

Effect on the Brussels Regulation
In the Recast of the Brussels I Regulation, the Commission addressed the problems created by the Gasser judgment  Dealing with the problematic tactical litigation spawning from the Gasser judgment, the Recast Regulation now contains a reversal of the priority rule, by giving the court chosen by the parties in the jurisdiction agreement precedence over all other courts, regardless of when proceedings were initiated  From a prima facie point of view, this certainly seems to deal the Gasser problem effectively, as a tactical race to the court is now without effect  However, some have raised the question to whether or not this will simply encourage the use of 'sham jurisdictional agreements', and if this indisputable preference for allegedly-chosen courts could not just lead to “improved” or “reverse” torpedo claims 
Passage 5:
Adams v  Burke
Adams v  Burke, 84 U S  (17 Wall ) 453 (1873), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court first elaborated on the exhaustion doctrine  According to that doctrine, a so-called authorized sale of a patented product (one made by the patentee or a person authorized by it to sell the product) liberates the product from the patent monopoly  The product becomes the complete property of the purchaser and "passes without the monopoly " The property owner is then free to use or dispose of it as it may choose, free of any control by the patentee  Adams is a widely cited, leading case  A substantially identical doctrine applies in copyright law and is known as the "first sale doctrine" 
As the Supreme Court recently explained, in Kirtsaeng v  John Wiley & Sons, Inc , 133 S  Ct  1351 (2013), the principle comes from early English common law of property, explained in Coke on Littleton early in the 17th century  Under the common law, if a man is possessed of a chattel (item of personal property) and he transfers his property in it to another, no restriction against the use or disposition of the chattel will be effective, for that would hinder trade and commerce – it would interfere with bargaining among men  If once a patented product was sold and allowed to enter the stream of commerce, if it could be subject to restrictions (perhaps secret) on its use or further disposition, businessmen would not be able to know whether transactions in the product were effective and business certainty would be greatly impaired 

Factual background
In 1863, U S  Patent No  38,713 issued to the inventors Merrill and Horner for a  coffin lid that permitted interested persons to view the name-plate and inscription of the decedent in the coffin, irrespective of whether the coffin cover is open or closed  In 1865 they assigned to Lockhart & Seelye of Cambridge  Massachusetts, the ownership of the patent in a circular area around Boston having a ten-mile radius  Adams, the plaintiff in this case, was the assignee of the patent in an area outside this circle which included the town of Natick, Massachusetts Burke, the defendant, was an undertaker doing business in Natick, Massachusetts, seventeen miles from Boston  Burke purchased some patented coffin lids from Lockhart & Seelye, who had manufactured them  Burke then took them to Natick (more than ten miles from Boston), and used them in his business  Adams then sued him 

Trial court opinion
The circuit court for the district of Massachusetts dismissed the case  It said:

When a patented product passes lawfully into the hands of a purchaser without condition or restriction, it is no longer within the monopoly or under the protection of the patent act, but outside of it     It is clear that by such a sale the purchaser acquires an absolute title to the manufactured product which is the subject of a patent, and may deal with It in the same manner as if dealing with any other kind of property  He may use it, repair it, Improve upon it, or sell it  Subsequent purchasers acquire the same rights as the seller had, and may do with the article, or its materials, whatever the first purchaser could have lawfully done if he had not parted with the title 

Supreme Court opinion
Adams appealed to the Supreme Court, which affirmed  The Court began by observing that this was a case of first impression in the Supreme Court although the governing principle had been involved in other patent cases  That principle was this:

[T]he sale by a person who has the full right to make, sell, and use       a machine carries with it the right to the use of that machine to the full extent to which it can be used in point of time         [I]n the essential nature of things, when the patentee, or the person having his rights, sells a machine or instrument whose sole value is in its use, he receives the consideration for its use and he parts with the right to restrict that use



ground_truth: Switchfoot

prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: Migene González-Wippler is leading expert on a religion that developed among which ethnic group ?

The following are given passages.
Context 2:  Creating these altars is deemed expensive and time-consuming  Material may be selected based on the tastes of the adherent; anthropologists have observed practitioners who have included Taoist figurines or statues of wizards, on their altars  Food and flowers are often placed on the altar as offerings  Although rarely included on their altars, practitioners will often have statues of Roman Catholic saints elsewhere in their homes In addition to their altar to the oricha, many practitioners have altars set aside for the spirits of the dead  These typically consist of a white-covered table known as a bóveda, something derived from the White Table of Spiritism  Bóveda often feature photographs of deceased relatives, to whom offerings are given; popular offerings for the spirits of the dead include seven glasses of water, a cafecito coffee, and the aguardiente liquor  Alternatively, many practitioners of Santería—like those who follow Palo—will have a rinconcito ("little corner"), a small area in which they collect together assorted objects, often those typically found in a household, as a material manifestation of the dead  Offerings to the dead may be placed here  Many practitioners will also enshrine their family ancestors under the bathroom sink  This location is chosen so that the ancestors can travel between the realms of the living and the dead via the water in the pipes 

Offerings and animal sacrifice
Offerings are called ebbó (or ebó), and are given to the oricha, ancestral spirits, to a person's own ori, and sometimes to the earth  These offerings can consist of fruit and other foodstuffs, liquor, flowers, candles, money, or slaughtered animals  Divination is often used to determine the exact nature of the offering; initiates are supposed to provide offerings on a regular basis, and at least once a year  Given to strengthen the supernatural forces, to thank them, or as a supplication, they help form a reciprocal relationship with these entities in the hope of receiving something in return  If this fails to materialise, practitioners may resort to several explanations: that the details of the ritual were incorrect, that the priest or priestess carrying out the rite lacked sufficient aché, or that the wrong ebbó was provided for the situation Conducted by a matador, animal sacrifice is called matanza  It is usually carried out by a man, with menstruating women prohibited from involvement   Birds—including guinea fowl, chickens, and doves—are commonly sacrificed, usually by having their throats slit or their heads twisted and ripped off  For rituals of greater importance, sacrifices are often of four-legged animals  Some practitioners describe the killing of animals as an acceptable substitute to human sacrifice, and in Cuba there have been persistent rumours of children being sacrificed in Santería rites  The oricha and egun are believed to "eat" the blood of the victim; the latter's lifeforce is deemed to transfer to the oricha, thus strengthening its aché  An animal that struggles to avoid being killed is sometimes understood as having particular strength which will then pass to the oricha Once killed, the animals' severed heads may be placed on top of the sopera belonging to the oricha to which the sacrifice has been directed  After the carcass has been butchered, some of the organs—known as acheses—may be cooked and offered to the oricha; other parts will be eaten by practitioners  Some of the blood may be collected and added to omiero, an infusion of herbs and water  Believed to contain much aché, this liquid is used for removing malevolent influences and in ceremonies for baptising ritual tools  Santería's animal sacrifice has been a cause of concern for many non-practitioners  It has sometimes brought adherents into confrontation with the law, as with the 1993 case of Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v  City of Hialeah, in which the U S  Supreme Court ruled that animal cruelty laws targeted specifically at Santería were unconstitutional 

Initiation
Initiation is known as kariocha, "making ocha", or "making santo"  A charge is levied for initiation; this varies depending on the client, but is often equivalent to a year's wage  Each initiation varies in its details, which are often concealed from non-initiates  The initiate is known as an iyabó or iyawó, a term meaning both "slave of the oricha" and "bride of the oricha"  As well as the santero or santera overseeing the initiation ceremony, the event may be attended by an oyubona or oyugbona ("one who witnesses"), who acts as a secondary godparent to the new initiate The initiation process takes seven days, plus two days of preparatory rituals  During this preparation, a misa espiritual ("spiritual mass") will typically take place to gain the blessings of the ancestral egun, and an ebó de entrada ("opening sacrifice") will be made to the oricha or the egun  Next comes the ceremonia del río ("ceremony of the initiate"), in which offerings are given to Ochún, and the rompimiento ("breaking"), in which the oyubona takes the initiate to purify themselves in a river  The rest of the initiation takes place in the igbodu, where the initiate sleeps upon a mat on the floor for the seven days  No one uninvolved in the initiation is permitted entry  The initiate is given their own otanes, as well as objects representing the warrior oricha  They are also given beaded necklaces, known as elekes, ilekes, or collares  Each necklace is a different color associated with a specific deity  During the prendición ("pinning") ritual, a heavy necklace known as the collar de mazo is placed on the initiate  During the lavatorio ("washing"), the initiate's head is bathed in omiero, designed to rid them of any malevolent spirits attached to them  Often, their hair will be shaved off 

On the día del itá ("day of history"), usually the third day, the initiate will undergo the itá, a session with a diviner  The diviner will reveal the initiate's Lucumí ritual name, a praise name of the oricha that rules their head  This name often incorporates elements indicating the initiate's tutelary oricha; devotees of Yemajá for instance usually include omí ("water"), while those of Changó often have obá ("king")  Next comes the asiento ("seating"), or coronación ("coronation"), which marks the point when the aché of the tutelary oricha is believed to literally enter the initiate's cranium  The otanes of several oricha are placed to the initiate's head, culminating in those of their tutelary oricha  An animal sacrifice usually follows, involving at least five four-legged animals and 25 birds  The following day is el Día del Medio ("the middle day"), when guests—including the initiate's family and friends—pay homage to them  It includes drumming and a feast  On the seventh day of the initiation, the new initiate leaves the casa and visits the marketplace, where they make offerings to Eleguá and steal something small, also as an offering to Eleguá The initiate can finally take their otanes home  They may then undergo a year-long period, the iyaworaje ("journey of the iyawo"), during which they must observe certain restrictions, the nature of which depends on their tutelary oricha  This may for instance include abstaining from sexual intercourse, wearing only white, or not cutting their hair  The iyaworaje ends with the ebó del año ceremony  Once this is done, they may lead rituals and help initiate others  Thenceforth, they will celebrate the annual anniversary of their initiation, their cumpleaños de santo ("birthday in the saint")  Although a largely orally-transmitted tradition, santeros and santeras often emphasise teaching in a non-verbal manner, encouraging their initiates to learn through taking part in the ritual activities  Since at least the 20th century, some initiates have kept libretas, notebooks in which they have written down material relevant to the practice of Santería  These may be shared with their own initiates or kept private 

Toque de santo
Santería's main public ritual is a drumming ceremony called the toque de santo, or tambor  Lasting for up to several hours, this is usually seen as an offering to the oricha, performed to gain their favor  The goal of the rhythms and songs is to summon the oricha to earth, at which point they can possess one of the participants  It is believed that the collective energy built up by the group is necessary in achieving this  In turn, the oricha are believed capable of soothing the grieving, healing the sick, blessing the deserving, and rebuking those who have behaved badly The toque de santo uses double-headed drums called batá, which are sometimes regarded as the central symbol of Santería  There are multiple types of batá: the iyá is the largest, the itótele is smaller, and the okónkolo is the smallest  For ceremonial purposes, these drums must be wooden; adding metal elements could offend Changó, who is associated with wooden artefacts, because of their links with his enemy, Ogun  They may however have brass bells associated with Ochún, known as chaworo, affixed to their rim  Before being used in ceremonies, these drums are baptized, after which they are referred to as a tambor de fundamento  This baptism entails washing the drums in omiero, making sacrifices to Osain, and affixing an afoubo, a small leather bag containing items including a parrot feather and glass beads, to the interior of the drum 

Practitioners believe that the consecrated batá contain a substance called añá, itself an avatar of Ochún  Many drummers avoid mentioning the añá in public and may not refer to it by name  Drums which have not been baptised are not viewed as containing añá, and are called tambores judìos ("Jewish drums")  Particular rhythms played on the drums may be associated with a specific oricha, a group of oricha, or all of the oricha  Those playing the batá are called batáleros  Santería drumming is male dominated; women are discouraged from playing the batá during ceremonies, although by the 1990s some women practitioners in the U S  had taken on the role  Practitioners explain the taboo with the view that menstrual blood can weaken the drum's añá, and that women playing these drums during ceremonies become infertile Praise songs are sung for the oricha, with specific songs associated with particular deities  The lead singer at such ceremonies is known as an akpwón  During the opening verse of the song, the akpwón may break into a personal prayer  The akpwón can switch from song to song quickly, with the drummers having to adapt their rhythm accordingly  A chorus of singers will respond to the akpwón, often while swaying back and forth  These choral responses may split into a two or three-part harmony  Dancing also takes place, with each oricha associated with a particular dance style  The dances at the toque de santo are believed to generate aché, strengthening the link between the realms of the oricha and humanity  Dancing either alone or first in front of the drums at the toque de santo is considered a privilege and is usually reserved for the most experienced initiate present  There are specific rules of engagement that are laid out for taking part in the toque de santo; dancing poorly at the ritual is considered an insult to the oricha 

Possession
Possession is important in Santería, and the purpose of the toque de santo is to call down an oricha to possess one of the participants  The possessed individual is referred to as the "horse", with the oricha having "mounted" them  According to practitioners, becoming possessed by an oricha requires an individual giving up their consciousness to the deity, and accordingly they often claim no memory of the events that occurred during the possession  Some have stated that reaching the mental state whereby an individual can become possessed takes much practice  The onset of the trance is marked by body spasms, termed arullarse Once an individual is possessed, they may be taken into an adjacent room where they are dressed in the ritual clothing pertaining to the possessing oricha, after which they are returned to the main room  As well as speaking in the Lucumí language, those possessed may then display gestures associated with a particular oricha; for instance, those believing themselves possessed by Ochún may wipe their skirt over other people, representing the waves of the ocean, while those regarding themselves as being possessed by Eleguá may steal from assembled participants  The possessed individual will then provide healing or dispense advice; sometimes a possessed person will reprimand others present, for instance for failing to carry out their ritual obligations, or issue them a warning  Some practitioners have also reported becoming possessed by an oricha in non-ritual contexts, such as while sleeping or walking through the streets, or during drumming performances carried out for non-religious purposes 

Healing and amuletic practices
Healing is important in Santería, and health problems are the most common reason why people approach a santero or santera for help  When operating as healers, practitioners are sometimes termed curanderos, or osainistas  Particular focuses of Santería healing include skin complaints, gastrointestinal and respiratory problems, sexually transmitted infections, and issues of female reproduction; some practitioners provide concoctions to induce abortion  Santería healers will typically use divination to determine the cause of an ailment before prescribing treatment Santería teaches that supernatural factors cause or exacerbate ailments  It claims that oricha may make someone sick, either as punishment or to encourage them to make a change in their life, often to become an initiate  The oricha must then be propitiated to stop, sometimes with the sick individual receiving initiation  Santería also holds that a spirit of the dead may attach itself to an individual and thus harm them  Adherents also often believe that humans can harm one another through supernatural means, either involuntarily, by giving them the mal de ojo (evil eye), or deliberately, through brujería (witchcraft)  The latter are often perceived as acting out of envy, utilising cursing techniques from Palo, for which they have employed material, such as hair or nail clippings, taken from their victim Herbalism is a major component of Santería healing practices, with healing plants, termed egwe, having an important role in the religion  Practitioners believe that each species of plant has its own aché which holds healing power; medicinal plants are deemed more powerful if harvested from the wild rather than being cultivated, for the latter can lack aché  Adherents often believe that different types of plant have different temperaments and personalities; some are shy or easily frightened and thus need to be approached with the appropriate etiquette 

To heal a patient, the santero/santera may also prescribe omiero, give them a cleansing bath, or provide them with a collares necklace  They may perform a ritual to transfer the sickness to an animal, sacrifice an animal to a specific oricha to request healing, or encourage an oricha to possess the sick individual and thus heal them  Different oricha are linked to the healing of specific ailments; Ochún is for instance usually requested when dealing with genital problems  People who are sick may undergo the rogación de la cabeza ("blessing of the head"), in which coconut water and cotton are applied to the head to feed the orí  Many practitioners will also encourage their clients to seek mainstream medical assistance, either from doctors or psychotherapists, with Santería healing seen as complementary to medical science Santería features protective talismans known as resguardos  These are created using herbs and blood and produced while in contact with the otanes  Resguardos are often given to small children, who are deemed particularly vulnerable to sorcery  Charms and amulets are also used as a general prophylaxis against illness; one example are ears of corn that are wrapped in purple ribbon and placed behind a doorway  Other rituals are designed to protect against sorcery, as for instance with the scattering of petals of the gálan de día in the house or the placement of okra by the door  In Cuba, protective rituals from Santería have often been invoked in hospitals to prevent the cambio de vida ("life switch"), a practice by which the ailments of a sick person are believed to be transferred to another individual, often without the latter's knowledge 

Divination
Divination is a central aspect of Santería, taking place before all major rites and being utilized by adherents at critical moments of their life  Three main divinatory techniques are employed: obi, dilogún, and Ifá  Highly skilled diviners are known as an oríate or italero/italera (male and female), and sometimes work in this role fulltime 

Clients approach these diviners for a divinatory consulta (consultation), usually to ask for advice about their health, family problems, or legal issues, and in doing so will pay the diviner a fee, the derecho  Attending a divination ritual in this way is commonly the first time that an individual encounters Santería so directly  During the session, offerings will be given to an overseeing oricha; the diviner will then cast small objects onto a board or table and interpret the way in which they fall  The diviner asks the client questions and seeks to answer them by making multiple throws  The diviner will ultimately determine which oricha will assist the client in dealing with their problems and outline what sacrifices will be appropriate to secure the aid of said oricha Obi, also known as biagué, involves the casting of four pieces of a dried coconut shell, with the manner in which they fall being used to answer a question  Any practitioner can utilise this technique, which is also used in Palo  Dilogún entails the casting of cowrie shells, and is considered more complex in that it requires a knowledge of the patakie stories  Dilogún typically involves a set of 21 cowrie shells, filed flat on their round side; these are fed with both omiero and blood  Like obi, dilogún is generally seen as being open to all practitioners of Santería, although some groups reserve it for postmenopausal women Ifá is the most complex and prestigious divinatory system used in the religion  It typically involves the casting of consecrated palm nuts to answer a question, with the nuts offering 256 possible configurations  Although Ifá also has a separate existence from Santería, the two are closely linked, sharing the same mythology and conception of the universe; the oricha of Ifá, Orula or Ọ̀rúnmila, has a prominent place within Santería  High priests of Ifá are known as babalawos and although their presence is not essential to Santería ceremonies, they often attend in their capacity as diviners  Many santeros are also babalawos, although it is not uncommon for babalawos to perceive themselves as being superior to most santeros  Unlike the more open policy for Santería initiates, only heterosexual men are traditionally allowed to become babalawos, although some babalawos are gay men, and since the 21st century a small number of women have also been initiated 

Funerals and mediumship
Funeral rites, called itulu, are designed to appease the soul of the deceased  As part of this, a funeral mass is held in a Roman Catholic church nine days after the individual has died to ensure that their soul successfully travels to the realm of the spirits  A year of additional rites for the dead individual follow, a period ended with the levantamiento de platos, the breaking of a dish, to symbolise the deceased's final departure from the realm of the living As well as having been influenced by Spiritism, Santería is often intertwined with Espiritismo, a Puerto Rican tradition focused on contacting the dead; this is particularly the case in areas such as New York and New Jersey  Sometimes the word "Santerismo" is used to refer to a blend between the two traditions  Various santeros or santeras are believed capable of communicating with spirits; seances conducted for this purpose are called misas espirituales ("spiritual masses") and are led by mortevas ("deaders") who are usually women  During these rituals, the medium may be possessed by a spirit of the dead, who then engages in healing practices or offers advice and warnings to those assembled  Adopted from Espiritismo, they are often included in initiation and funerary rites  An additional ritual found in Santería is the tambor para egún, a drum ceremony for the spirits of the dead Some practitioners whose approach to Santería is influenced by Espiritismo also create cloth dolls for deceased family members and spirit guides  The spirit is believed to enter and inhabit the doll, with some practitioners stating that they can see the inhabiting spirit  Sometimes the doll's clothing is changed to please the spirit, while offerings, such as glasses of water or fruit, are placed before them  These spirit dolls may also be passed down through the generations within a family 

History
Background
After the Spanish Empire conquered Cuba, the island's Arawak and Ciboney populations dramatically declined  To provide a new labor source for the sugar, tobacco, and coffee plantations they had established on Cuba, the Spanish then turned to buying slaves sold at West African ports  Slavery was widespread in West Africa; most slaves were prisoners of war captured in conflicts with neighbouring groups, although some were convicted criminals  The first enslaved Africans arrived in Cuba in 1511, although the largest numbers came in the 19th century  Cuba continued to receive new slaves until at least 1860, with full emancipation occurring in 1886  In total, between 702,000 and 1 million enslaved Africans were brought to Cuba  Most came from a stretch of Western Africa between the modern nation-states of Guinea and Angola  The great plurality were Yoruba, from the area encompassed by modern Nigeria and Benin; the Yoruba had a shared language and culture but were divided among different states  They largely adhered to Yoruba traditional religion, which incorporated many local orisha cults although with certain orisha worshipped widely due to the extent of the Yoruba-led Oyo Empire In Cuba, slaves were divided into groups termed naciones (nations), often based on their port of embarkation rather than their own ethno-cultural background; those who were Yoruba speakers, as well as Arara and Ibo people, were identified as the "Lucumí nation"  Enslaved West Africans brought their traditional religions with them to Cuba; some were from the priestly class and possessed knowledge of traditions such as Ifá  While hundreds of orisha were worshipped across West Africa, fewer than twenty became prominent in Santería, perhaps because many kin-based orisha cults were lost when traditional kinship networks were destroyed through enslavement  Orisha associated with agriculture were abandoned, probably because slaves had little reason to protect the harvests of slave-owners  Many myths associated with the oricha were transformed, creating kinship relationships between different oricha which were not present in West African mythologies  As Santería formed, separate West African orisha cults were reconstituted into a single religious system, one which had a newly standardized pantheon of oricha In Spanish Cuba, Roman Catholicism was the only religion that could be practiced legally  Cuba's Roman Catholic Church made efforts to convert the enslaved Africans, but the instruction in Roman Catholicism provided to the latter was typically perfunctory and sporadic  In Cuba, traditional African deities perhaps continued to be venerated within clubs and fraternal organizations made up of African migrants and their descendants  The most important of these were the cabildos de nación, associations that the establishment regarded as a means of controlling the Afro-Cuban population  These operated as mutual aid societies and organized communal feasts, dances, and carnivals  The Catholic Church saw these groups as a method for gradual evangelisation, through which they tolerated the practice of some African customs while stamping out those they most fiercely objected to  It is probable that in these groups, priests of different West African orisha interacted and began to develop a new system  In the late 18th and early 19th century new laws restricted the cabildos' activities, although their membership expanded in the 19th century 
The final decades of the 19th century also saw a growing interest in Spiritism, a religion based on the ideas of the French writer Allan Kardec, which in Cuba proved particularly popular among the white peasantry, the Creole class, and the small urban middle class  Ideas from Spiritism increasingly filtered into and influenced Santería 

Formation and early history
The earliest casas teaching Santería emerged in urban parts of western Cuba during the late 19th century  As a trained priesthood emerged, they ensured a level of standardisation among new initiates  Although it drew on older West African cults, Santeria was, as described by Clark, "a new religious system"  Urban-to-rural migration then spread Santería elsewhere in Cuba, and in the 1930s it probably arrived in Cuba's second largest city, Santiago de Cuba, which lies at the eastern end of the island Following the Cuban War of Independence, the island became an independent republic in 1898  In the republic, Afro-Cubans remained largely excluded from economic and political power, and negative stereotypes about them remained pervasive throughout the Euro-Cuban population  Afro-Cuban religious practices were often referred to as brujería (witchcraft) and thought to be connected to criminality  Although the republic's new constitution enshrined freedom of religion and Santería was never legislated against, throughout the first half of the 20th century various campaigns were launched against it  These were often encouraged by the press, who promoted allegations that white children were being abducted and murdered in Santería rituals; this reached a fever pitch in 1904 after two white children were murdered in Havana in cases that investigators speculated were linked to brujería One of the first intellectuals to examine Santería was the lawyer and ethnographer Fernando Ortiz, who discussed it in his 1906 book Los negros brujos (The Black Witchdoctors)  He saw it as a barrier to the social integration of Afro-Cubans into broader Cuban society and recommended its suppression  In the 1920s, there were efforts to incorporate elements of Afro-Cuban culture into a wider understanding of Cuban culture, such as through the Afrocubanismo literary and artistic movement  These often drew upon Afro-Cuban music, dance, and mythology, but typically rejected Santería rituals themselves  In 1942, Rómula Lachatañeré's Manuel de santería was published, representing the first scholarly attempt to understand Santería as a religion; in contrast to Ortiz, he maintained that the tradition should be seen as a religious system as opposed to a form of witchcraft  Lachatañeré was instrumental in promoting the term Santería in reference to the phenomenon, deeming it a more neutral description than the pejorative-laden terms such as brujería then in common use 

After the Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution of 1959 resulted in the island becoming a Marxist–Leninist state governed by Fidel Castro's Communist Party of Cuba  Committed to state atheism, Castro's government took a negative view of Santería  Practitioners experienced police harassment, were denied membership of the Communist Party, and faced limited employment opportunities  They required police permission to perform rituals, which was sometimes denied  The state nevertheless promoted art forms associated with Santería in the hope of using them to promote a unified Cuban identity  While espousing anti-racism, Castro's government viewed the promotion of a separate Afro-Cuban identity as counter-revolutionary Following the Soviet Union's collapse in the 1990s, Castro's government declared that Cuba was entering a "Special Period" in which new economic measures would be necessary  As part of this, it selectively supported Afro-Cuban and Santería traditions, partly out of a desire to boost tourism; this Santería-focused tourism was called santurismo  Priests of Santería, Palo, and Ifá all took part in government-sponsored tours for foreigners desiring initiation into such traditions, while Afro-Cuban floor shows became common in Cuban hotels  In 1991, the Communist Party approved the admission of religious members, and in 1992 the constitution was amended to declare Cuba a secular rather than an atheist state  This liberalisation allowed Santería to leave behind its marginalisation, and during the 1990s it began to be practiced more openly 

The second half of the 20th century saw a growing awareness of Santería's links with other orisha-worshipping religions in West Africa and the Americas  These transnational links were reinforced when the Ooni of Ife Olubuse II, a prominent Yoruba political and religious leader, visited Cuba in 1987  Cuba's government permitted the formation of the Yoruba Cultural Association, a non-governmental organization, in the early 1990s, while various practitioners of Santería visited Nigeria to study traditional Yoruba religion  A yorubización (Yorubization) process emerged, with attempts made to remove Roman Catholic elements from Santería; this process was criticised by those who saw Santería's syncretism as a positive trait The Cuban Revolution fuelled Cuban emigration, especially to the United States, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela  With an increased Cuban presence in the U S , Santería grew in many U S  cities, being embraced by Latino Americans as well as European Americans and African Americans  Some African Americans regarded it as an authentically African religion, especially when purged of Roman Catholic elements, sometimes perceiving it as a religious wing of the Black Power movement  A prominent exponent of this approach was the black nationalist activist Walter King  After being initiated in Cuba, he established a temple in Harlem before relocating with his followers in 1970 to a community in Sheldon, South Carolina, that they called the Yoruba Village of Oyotunji  Having a strained relationship with many other santeros and santeras, who accused him of racism, King gradually came to call his tradition "Orisha-Voodoo" rather than Santería  In the U S , Santería, along with Haitian Vodou, also proved an influence on the revival of Louisiana Voodoo in the late 20th century  One of the most prominent figures in this revival, Ava Kay Jones, had previously been involved in King's Orisha-Voodoo 

Demographics
The scholars of religion Anibal Argüelles Mederos and Ileana Hodge Limonta estimated that in the early 21st century around 8% of Cubans were initiates of Santería, which would amount to between 800,000 and 900,000 people  There are a greater number of people who are not initiates but turn to santeros and santeras for assistance on practical matters  In 1991, the Cuban anthropologist López Valdés suggested that about 90 percent of Cuba's population practiced some form of religion and that of that 90 percent, a greater number practiced one of the Afro-Cuban religions than "pure Catholicism"  In 2004, Wedel suggested that practitioners of Santería "greatly outnumber" those who practiced Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, or Judaism in Cuba Although also found in rural areas, in Cuba Santería has always been a primarily urban phenomenon, predominating in the north-west provinces of La Habana and Matanzas  While it has both Afro-Cuban and Euro-Cuban followers, Wedel noted that in the 1990s Santería was "more common in working-class, low-income neighborhoods dominated by Afro-Cubans " Wedel believed that men and women practice in roughly equal numbers  Some practitioners grow up in Santería as the children of initiates, although others only approach the religion as adults  While it accepts new followers, Santería is a non-proselytizing religion Emigration has spread Santería across most of Latin America and also to the United States and Europe  In Mexico, it established a particular presence in Veracruz and Mexico City, in Canada it centred in Toronto, while in Europe casas have been formed in Spain and Germany  Santería was present in the U S  by the 1940s, increasing its presence following the Cuban Revolution  Clustering in Florida, California, New Jersey, and New York, it attracted converts from varied ethnic backgrounds  U S  casas vary in their ethnic makeup, often reflecting broader racial divisions in U S  society  Based on his ethnographic work in New York City during the 1980s, Samuel Gregory noted that there Santería was not a "religion of the poor", but contained a disproportionately high percentage of middle-class people such as teachers, social workers, and artists  The American Religious Identification Survey of 2001 estimated that there were then approximately 22,000 practitioners in the U S , although in the mid-1990s the scholar Joseph Murphy suggested that hundreds of thousands of people in the country had engaged with Santería in some form, often as clients 

Reception
By the late 1980s, Santería had received considerable interest from established Christian churches, health professionals, and social scientists  Some initiates mistrusted academics and were thus either vague or deliberately misleading in their answers to the latter's questions, although the 1990s saw non-Cuban ethnographers seeking initiation into the religion, thus blurring the distinction between practitioner and anthropological observer  The religion was also explored in other media; the Cuban filmmaker Gloria Rolando released the film Oggún in 1992  Various songs have referenced Santería and its oricha; the Cuban American singer Celia Cruz for example recorded a version of "Que viva Chango" ("Long Live Chango"), while a Cuban band called themselves Los Orichas  Santería's influence can also be seen in the names of the Cuban liquor Santero and the state-owned machete factory Ogún Christian views of Santería have been largely negative, and in Cuba, it has faced much opposition from the Roman Catholic clerical establishment over the centuries  Many Cuban intellectuals and academics also take a dim view of Santería  Opposition to the religion is also evident outside Cuba  When the International Afro-Caribbean Festival in Veracruz was launched in 1994, it showcased art and ritual by Mexican santeros/santeras, although this brought public protests from Roman Catholic organizations, who regarded such rites as Satanic, and animal welfare groups, who deemed the sacrifices to be inhumane  The festival's organizers yielded to the pressure, cutting the Santería elements of the festival by 1998  Pervasive stereotypes link Santería to criminal activity, and its rituals for self-protection have been adopted by various groups involved in narcotics trafficking within the U S  Santeros and santeras are often accused of financially exploiting their initiates and clients—an accusation sometimes made by other practitioners of Santería itself  Various practitioners have also found that their involvement in Santería has strained their relationship with spouses or other family members who are not involved, and in some cases adherents have abandoned Santería to join other religious movements such as Pentecostalism 
Passage 3:
Fezara people
Fezara is an ethnic group of Sudan, who emigrated from Arabia to Egypt, and then to Sudan  The number of persons in this ethnic group is about 200,000  Most members of this ethnic group are Muslims  This ethnic group speaks Sudanese Arabic 
Passage 4:
Migene González-Wippler
Migene González-Wippler is a Puerto Rican new-age author and a leading expert on the Afro-Caribbean religion of Santería 

Education
González-Wippler was born in Puerto Rico and has degrees in psychology and anthropology from the University of Puerto Rico, and from Columbia University, from where she earned a Ph D  in cultural anthropology 

Career
In addition to her solid background in social sciences she has also worked as a science editor for the Interscience Division of John Wiley, the American Institute of Physics, and the American Museum of Natural History, and as an English editor for the United Nations in Vienna, where she resided for many years    She is a cultural anthropologist and lectures frequently at universities and other educational institutions    She writes about Santeria-its practices, beliefs and organization 

Bibliography
El libro completo de magia, hechizos, y ceremonias
El libro de las sombras
Keys to the Kingdom: Jesus & the Mystic Kabbalah
Book of Shadows
The Complete Book of Amulets & Talismans
Luna, Luna: Magia, poder y seducción
La Magia de las piedras y los cristales
Sueños: Lo que significan para usted
Amuletos y Talismanes
La magia y tú
What Happens After Death: Scientific & Personal Evidence for Survival
Santería: La Religión
Dreams and What They Mean to You
The Complete Book of Spells, Ceremonies & Magic
Las llaves del reino: Jesús y la cábala cristiana
Kabbalah For The Modern World
Angelorum: El libro de los ángeles
Santería: mis experiencias en la Religión
Peregrinaje: la vida después de la muerte
 Santería: the Religion: Faith, Rites, Magic, Llewellyn Publications: 2002 ISBN 9781567183290
Cabala para el mundo moderno
 Powers of the Orishas: Santeria and The Worship of Saints
Context 3:  The article, in the language of the Court, passes without the limit of the monopoly  [citation omitted] That is to say the patentee or his assignee having in the act of sale received all the royalty or consideration which he claims for the use of his invention in that particular machine or instrument, it is open to the use of the purchaser without further restriction on account of the monopoly of the patentees 

Accordingly, the Court ruled that "we hold that in the class of machines or implements we have described, when they are once lawfully made and sold, there is no restriction on their use to be implied for the benefit of the patentee or his assignees or licensees "Subsequent Supreme Court cases following the doctrine of the Adams case include:

Motion Picture Patents Co  v  Universal Film Mfg  Co , 243 U S  502 (1917) 
Straus v  Victor Talking Machine Co , 243 U S  490 (1917) 
Ethyl Gasoline Corp  v  United States, 309 U S  436 (1940) 
United States v  Univis Lens Co , 316 U S  241 (1942) 
Aro Mfg  Co  v  Convertible Top Replacement Co , 365 U  S  336 (1961) 
Quanta Computer, Inc  v  LG Electronics, Inc , 553 U S  617 (2008) But see:

United States v  General Electric Co , 272 U S  476 (1926) 
General Talking Pictures Corp  v  Western Electric Co , 304 U S  175 (1938) 
Passage 6:
Jones v  Cunningham
Jones v  Cunningham, 371 U S  236 (1963), was a Supreme Court case in which the court first ruled that state inmates had the right to file  a writ of habeas corpus challenging both the legality and the conditions of their imprisonment  Prior to this, starting with Pervear v  Massachusetts, 72 U S  475 (1866), the court had maintained a "hands off" policy regarding federal interference with state incarceration policies and practices, maintaining that the Bill of Rights did not apply to the states  Subsequently, in Cooper v  Pate (1964), an inmate successfully obtained standing to challenge the denial of his right to practice his religion through a habeas corpus writ 
Passage 7:
Cheff v  Mathes
Cheff v  Mathes, 199 A 2d 548 (Del  1964), was a case in which the Delaware Supreme Court first addressed the issue of director conflict of interest in a corporate change of control setting  This case is the predecessor to future seminal corporate law cases including: Unocal Corp  v  Mesa Petroleum Co , Revlon v  MacAndrews, and Paramount v  Time 

Facts
Holland Furnace Company manufactured home furnaces  The company's marketing strategy involved door-to-door sales, which employed a large workforce  This model, if not unique to Holland Furnace, was nevertheless unusual   From the standpoint of Arnold Maremont, a businessman who had been purchasing Holland Furnace stock, it was unprofitable  These practices also implicated Holland Furnace in charges of unfair trade practices   (An investigation of these practices by the Federal Trade Commission had already been pending for a year at the time of the events underlying the decision in Cheff )  Sales representatives for Holland would go door to door posing as official inspectors  Claiming to be employed by the homeowner's utility or by the local government, these salesmen would disassemble the furnace, refusing to reassemble it for lack of spare parts  Holland's core business lay in replacement boilers 
Cheff-Landwehr family group had effective control over the company, with 18 5% of Holland stock  Cheff, a family member, was Holland's Chief Executive Officer  From 1948-1956, Holland's sales declined by 25%  Management attributed the sharp drop to a boom in sales following World War II, which could not be sustained in later years  Maremont, an owner of an automotive parts manufacturing business, approached Cheff in 1957 to discuss the possibility of a merger between the two companies  Cheff was not interested in a business combination   Rebuffed, Maremont purchased 6% of Holland stock on the open market  Cheff ordered an investigation of Maremont, and learned that Maremont had engaged in corporate takeovers and liquidation of several companies  (At the resulting trial, Cheff would testify that Maremont was not well regarded among local area businessmen )  Cheff and Maremont met a second time, by which time Maremont owned 11% of Holland Stock  Maremont told Cheff that Holland's door-to-door sales tactic was obsolete and should be abandoned in favor of a wholesaler marketing strategy 
Upon learning of Maremont's plans, Cheffs and Holland's board of directors agreed that Maremont posed a threat to Holland's continued existence   Holland's board would claim that Maremont's threat caused many of Holland's employees to quit in anticipation of the threatened takeover  With the stated aim of eliminating Maremont's threat to Holland's existence, the Holland board of directors authorized the repurchase of Maremont's holdings of Holland stock at a price above the prevailing market stock price  Essentially, the board authorized the payment of greenmail to Maremont 

Business Judgment RuleThe Delaware Supreme Court first had to determine whether Holland's directors were protected from judicial scrutiny of their actions under the business judgment rule   While the business judgment rule typically protects corporate officers from judicial scrutiny of their actions, the rule could be limited if judges found a conflict of interest   In the case of Holland Furnace, the board's purchase of shares with corporate funds prevented a hostile takeover (which could have been in the best interest of the company) while also maintaining their control of the company  Thus, the court had to decide whether the Board was so conflicted that they should not be afforded Business Judgment Rule protection 

Threat to Corporate Policy"The question then presented is whether or not [the board] satisfied the burden of proof of showing reasonable grounds to believe a danger to corporate policy and effectiveness existed by the presence of the Maremont stock ownership  It is important to remember that the directors satisfy their burden by showing good faith and reasonable investigation; the directors will not be penalized for an honest mistake of judgment, if the judgment appeared reasonable at the time the decision was made "

Judgment
The court held that the directors were protected by the business judgment rule, because they held a good faith belief that Maremont posed a threat to Holland's continued existence  Testimony established the board's understanding of Maremont's reputation for acquiring businesses and liquidating them, and that Maremont's apparent intentions negatively affected Holland's work force 
Therefore, after Delaware's holding in this case, a director could rebut any inference of a conflict of interest, and remain protected by the business judgment rule, if they showed that they held a good faith belief that they were pursuing a "business purpose" that would benefit the corporation 

Aftermath
The court's findings mention - and minimize - the FTC investigation of Holland Furnace  The court, endorsing Holland's board, also notes that Holland's downward sales-trend reversed itself in 1957, the year that Maremont was bought out  What the court does not mention is that Holland's fortunes suffered another reversal - this one fatal  Holland's sales were in excess of $31 million in 1958, but dropped to $1 1 million by 1965  That year, Holland stock reached a high of $1 63 per share, compared to a closing price of $11–1/8 per share in October 1957  Holland Furnace, listed in editions of Moody's Industrial Manual for the years covering the events of this case, did not appear in 1966 
Holland Furnace faced charges of unfair trade practices that were known prior to the decision in Cheff v  Mathes  As a result of their investigations into the sales practices of Holland Furnace, the FTC issued a "cease and desist order" against the company, an order upheld by the United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit  Ultimately, Holland Furnace and Mr  Cheff were held in contempt for violating the order by continuing to engage in unfair trade practices  Mr  Cheff went to jail for 6 months The unsavory character of Arnold Maremont is a key factor in the court's decision  During proceedings leading up to the court's decision in Cheff, Mr  Cheff testified as to Maremont's reputation, that: "Throughout the whole of the Kalamazoo-Battle Creek area, and Detroit too, where I spent considerable time, he is well known and not highly regarded by any stretch "
Arnold Maremont, who died in 1978, involved himself in pursuits other than business  According to his obituary in The New York Times, Maremont was both a patron of the arts and a visionary for social justice  A governing life member of the Art Institute of Chicago and a former trustee of the Lyric Opera and Ballet Theater, Maremont was the first Illinois industrialist to back a law ending employment discrimination against African Americans  As chairman of the Illinois Public Aid Commission in the early 1960s, he campaigned for publicly supported birth control for welfare families 

See also
Weinberger v  UOP, Inc  457 A 2d 701 (Del  1983)
Unocal v  Mesa
Passage 8:
Gates v  Collier
Gates v  Collier, 501 F 2d 1291 (5th Cir  1974), was a landmark decision of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that brought an end to the trusty system as well as flagrant inmate abuse at Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman Farm, in Sunflower County, Mississippi  It was the first case in a body of law developed in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals holding that a variety of forms of corporal punishment against prisoners constituted cruel and unusual punishment and a violation of Eighth Amendment rights  This case was also the first broad-scale intervention by a court in the supervision of prison practices In Gates v  Collier, the Court of Appeals found certain forms of corporal punishment violate the Eighth Amendment, including "handcuffing inmates to the fence and to cells for long periods of time,     and forcing inmates to stand, sit or lie on crates, stumps, or otherwise maintain awkward positions for prolonged periods "

Parchman Farm
The Mississippi State Penitentiary, commonly known as Parchman Farm, was founded in 1904 and consisted of 20,000 acres of delta  The prison was styled after plantations, emerging in the South during the Jim Crow era  It's estimated that throughout its history, about 90% of Parchman's prisoners were black men After the Civil War, Mississippi was still dependent upon black labor to sustain its farms and plantations  As a result, the state passed a series of laws that made vagrancy a crime; African Americans had to constantly carry papers around showing proof of employment, and if they were found without documentation they would be arrested  Pig laws also played a role in the convictions of many Parchman Farm inmates  Pig laws made any kind of minor larceny a serious crime, for stealing something like a soda would typically result in five years of jail  Convict leasing was another discriminatory system used in which African Americans would be leased to do work rather than sent to jail, essentially taking the place of slavery Parchman Farm had black camps that were overseen by a white sergeant  Below the white sergeant were black trusties, who had been convicted of murder and allowed to carry a gun  The state rationalized this system economically, for hiring inmates to carry out duties rather than civilian guards meant money was being saved "The Penitentiary Board at the time was composed of 5 individuals appointed by the Governor with consent of the Senate for 4-year terms, appointed the superintendent, who was vested with exclusive management and control of the prison system in all aspects, including the care and treatment of inmates and the hiring, control and discharge of 150 civilian employees" Oshinksy, the author of Worse than Slavery, once stated in an interview with The Washington Post that "Parchman Farm was basically the leading cash cow for the state of Mississippi " They were adding hundreds of thousands of dollars and then millions of dollars to the state treasury, and thus were a huge economic asset" 

Roy Haber
In 1970, Roy Haber, a civil rights lawyer, was recruited along with other lawyers to "bring some law and order to the South" Haber first came to Parchman in 1970 after quitting his New York City divorce practice to speak with Matthew Winter, a prisoner who had been convicted of murder  Haber's initial visit to Parchman was made in order to determine whether or not Winter had been adequately represented in court  After his first meeting with Haber, Winter was threatened and beaten by trusties Haber took statements from Parchman inmates about conditions at the prison, which was not easy at first; many prisoners were afraid of facing retribution from prison officials Some of his most "damning" evidence included a document that ran over fifty single-spaced pages with a list of murders, rapes, beatings, and tortures at Parchman between 1969 and 1971 

Racial discrimination and inmate abuse
At Parchman Farm, punishments up until the 1970s were representative of slavery  "The prisoners were housed in large barracks that were rundown and filthy, with 100–120 in one room"  Each camp had open ditches that held raw sewage and medical waste  When Judge Keady of the District Court Case visited Parchman on multiple occasions, he witnessed "filthy bathrooms, rotting mattresses, polluted water supplies, and kitchens overrun with insects, rodents, and the stench of decay " Parchman was known to be dangerous and deadly  Aside from its inhumane conditions, shootings and beatings were carried out regularly, murders failed to be documented and the maximum-security unit was a torture chamber Allegations of abuse between 1969 and 1971 include:

Bogard, William: compelled to stand in the daytime and sit at night for three entire days without interruption on a coke crate 
Collins, Matthew: murdered by trusty J C  Dunnican on order of Ollis Hitt 
Goodwin, Frank: "jumped on" and had an ear ripped off by inmate Danny Williamson 
Hayes, Jessie: shot by trusty John Horn for refusal to engage in homosexual acts 
Humes, George: handcuffed to bars, on tiptoes for two days without food, water, or bathroom facilities 
Marino, Hilliard: hair cut and pulled out while forced to kneel on the concrete floor, assaulted with others in MSU with brass knuckles, causing blindness and constant pain 
Nathan, Walter: handcuffed and hung from tree 
Tackett, Bob: another inmate named Cantrell kicked out one of his eyes which was lost; that he was beaten by a trusty 
Waldie, Donald: Required to maintain a mid-suspended position which one assumes during course of doing push-ups, and at that time was guarded by J D  Gilmer, who shot above or below him if he moved 
Wells, William: fatally shot by Sgt  West 
Williams, Jessie: fatally shot by Walter Griffin, a trusty, on orders of Obar, the driver of the vehicle 

District court case
On February 8, 1971, Nazareth Gates, Willie Holmes, Matthew Winter, and Hal Zachary filed a class action against the Superintendent of the Penitentiary, the members of the Mississippi Penitentiary Board and the Governor of the State  "The plaintiffs charged that ‘deplorable conditions and practices’ at Parchman deprived them of rights guaranteed by the First, Eighth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution" Thomas D  Cook was the penitentiary superintendent accused of committing the actions, and was replaced in February 1972 by John Collier, who was substituted and appointed in his stead as a defendant 
"28 U S C  §§ 1331 and 1343, the plaintiffs allege that the defendants, by their methods of prison administration, have deprived the inmates of rights, privileges and immunities secured to them by the First, Eighth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments and by 42 U S C  §§ 1981, 1983, 1985 and 1994  The complaint stated that African American inmates had been segregated and discriminated against based on their race, which is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment  The complaint aimed for injunctive relief to remedy the alleged misconduct of the defendants and a declaratory judgment that the continuation of certain practices and conditions at the penitentiary is unconstitutional" According to a section of the Preliminary Statement, "On August 23, 1971, the United States was allowed to intervene as plaintiff pursuant to 42 U S C  § 2000h-2 [2] The complaint in intervention alleges that the defendants have, contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment, maintained a system of prison facilities segregated by race; and, additionally, the defendants have failed to provide the inmates with adequate housing, medical care, and protection from assault from other prisoners; that the conditions of the sewerage disposal and water systems create an immediate health hazard, and that prison officials have permitted the custodial staff, including inadequately trained armed trusties, to inflict cruel and unusual punishment upon inmates in violation of the Eighth Amendment  The United States seeks injunctive relief to remedy the alleged misconduct of defendants" In October 1972, Judge William Keady found for the plaintiffs, calling Parchman Farm an "affront to modern standards of decency" and its living quarters "unfit for human habitation " He ordered an end to all unconstitutional conditions and practices 

Fifth Circuit decision
The state of Mississippi appealed this decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, though the Fifth Circuit ended up agreeing with the lower court's earlier decision  Racial segregation of inmates was abolished as well as the trusty system Subsequently, other states utilizing the trusty system, such as Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas were also forced to abolish it under the Gates v  Collier rulings 

See also
Louisiana State Penitentiary
Cummins Unit - Arkansas and Texas
Pervear v  Massachusetts
Holt v  Sarver
Ruiz v  Estelle - Texas
Hope v  Pelzer
Passage 9:
WN Hillas &amp; Co Ltd v Arcos Ltd
WN Hillas & Co Ltd v Arcos Ltd [1932] UKHL 2 is a landmark House of Lords case on English contract law where the court first began to move away from a strict, literal interpretation of the terms of a contract, and instead interpreted it with a view to preserve the bargain  The Court ruled that judges may imply terms into a contract based on the past dealings of the parties rather than void the agreement 
Lord Wright stated in this case that people who give good consideration can bind themselves to a duty to negotiate in good faith, but this view was controversially rejected in a later House of Lords case, Walford v Miles (1992) Hillas & Company were merchants purchasing timber from Arcos  Hillas and Arcos reached an agreement to purchase 22,000 standards of timber, under the specific condition that they should also have the option of entering into a contract with Arcos to purchase 100,000 standards the following year with a 5% reduction on price  Arcos refused to sell them the 100,000 standards the following year  Hillas was successful at trial, which Arcos appealed successfully to the Court of Appeal 

See also
G Scammell & Nephew Ltd v Ouston [1941] 1 AC 251
Smith v Hughes (1871) LR 6 QB 597
Hartog v Colin & Shields [1939] 3 All ER 566
Frederick E Rose (London) Ltd v William H Pim Junior & Co Ltd [1953] 2 QB 450

Notes
External links
Full text of decision from Bailii org
Passage 10:
Fletcher v  Peck
Fletcher v  Peck, 10 U S  (6 Cranch) 87 (1810), was a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in which the Supreme Court first ruled a state law unconstitutional  The decision created a growing precedent for the sanctity of legal contracts and hinted that Native Americans did not hold complete title to their own lands (an idea fully realized in Johnson v  McIntosh) 

Yazoo lands sales
Following the Treaty of Paris ending the American Revolution, Georgia claimed possession of the Yazoo lands, a 54,000 sq mi (140,000 km2) region of the Indian Reserve, west of its own territory  The land later became the northern part of the states of Alabama and Mississippi 
In 1795, the Georgia legislature divided the area into four tracts  The state then sold the tracts to four separate land development companies for $500,000, about $0 014 per acre, a bargain even at 1790 prices  The Georgia legislature overwhelmingly approved this land grant, known as the Yazoo Land Act of 1795  However, it was later revealed that the Yazoo Land Act had been approved in return for bribes in a scandal known as the Yazoo Land Scandal  The voters rejected most of the incumbents in the next election; the new legislature, reacting to the public outcry, repealed the law and voided the transactions made under it 
Robert Fletcher and especially John Peck were speculators in the Yazoo lands  Fletcher bought a tract of land from Peck after the 1795 act was repealed  Fletcher, in 1803, brought a suit against Peck, claiming that Peck had not had clear title to the land when he sold it 
There was collusion between the two  Both would have their land secured if the Supreme Court decided that Native Americans did not hold original title  Fletcher set out to win the case 

Court ruling
The Supreme Court unanimously (with a separate concurring opinion written by William Johnson) ruled that the legislature's repeal of the law was unconstitutional  John Marshall wrote that the sale was a binding contract, which under Article I, Section 10, Clause I (the Contract Clause) of the Constitution, cannot be invalidated even if it is illegally secured 
The ruling lent further protection to property rights against popular pressure and is the earliest case of the Court asserting its right to invalidate state laws which are in conflict with or are otherwise contrary to the Constitution  A later Chief Justice, William H  Rehnquist, wrote that Fletcher v  Peck "represented an attempt by Chief Justice Marshall to extend the protection of the contract clause to infant business" 

See also
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 10
Yazoo land scandal



ground_truth: West African descendants

prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: Which case was brought to court first Miller v. California or Gates v. Collier ?

The following are given passages.
Context 4:   However, poet and author Katha Pollitt notes, "It is hard to classify Anne Tyler's novels   They are Southern in their sure sense of family and place but lack the taste for violence and the Gothic that often characterizes self-consciously southern literature   They are modern in their fictional techniques, yet utterly unconcerned with contemporary moment as a subject, so that, with only minor dislocations, her stories could just as well have taken place in twenties or thirties "It is also difficult to classify Tyler in terms of themes; as she herself notes, "I don't think of my work in terms of themes   I'm just trying to tell a story "  Tyler goes on to say, "Any large 'questions of life' that emerge in my novels are accidental—not a reason for writing the novel in the first place but either (1) questions that absorb my characters, quite apart from me, or (2) on occasion, questions that may be thematic to my own life at the moment, even if I'm not entirely aware of them  Answers, if they come, come from the characters' experiences, not from mine, and I often find myself viewing those answers with a sort of distant, bemused surprise "

Characters and detailed descriptions
In Tyler's works, the characters are the driving forces behind the stories and the starting point for her writing:  "I do make a point of writing down every imaginable facet of my characters before I begin a book, trying to get to know them so I can figure out how they'll react in any situation     My reason for writing now is to live lives other than my own, and I do that by burrowing deeper and deeper     till I reach the center of those lives "The magic of her novels starts with her ability to create those characters in the reader's mind through the use of remarkably realistic details   As early as 1976, Pollitt described her skill in this way: "Tyler [is] polishing brighter and brighter a craft many novelists no longer deem essential to their purpose: the unfolding of character through brilliantly imagined and absolutely accurate detail "  Twelve years later, Michiko Kakutani, in her review of Breathing Lessons, extolled "her ability to select details that reveal precisely how her characters feel and think" and her "gift for sympathy, for presenting each character's case with humor and compassion "  Kakutani later went on to note that "each character in Saint Maybe has been fully rendered, fleshed out with a palpable interior life, and each has been fit, like a hand-sawed jigsaw-puzzle piece, into the matrix of family life " Carol Shields, also writing about her characters, observes: "Tyler has always put her characters to work  Their often humble or eccentric occupations, carefully observed and threaded with humor, are tightly sewn to the other parts of their lives, offering them the mixed benefit of tedium and consolation, as well as a lighted stage for the unfolding of their dramatic selves  She also allows her men and women an opportunity for redemption "Tyler has clearly spelled out the importance of her characters to her stories:  "As far as I'm concerned, character is everything  I never did see why I have to throw in a plot, too "  In an earlier (1977) interview, she stated that "the real joy of writing is how people can surprise one  My people wander around my study until the novel is done  It's one reason I'm very careful not to write about people I don't like  If I find somebody creeping in that I'm not really fond of, I usually take him out "  Pollitt had even earlier noted how Tyler's characters seem to take on a life of their own that she doesn't seem to totally control: "Her complex, crotchety inventions surprise us, but one senses they surprise her too "

Realism through details
Just as Tyler is difficult to categorize as a novelist, it is also challenging to label her style  Novelist Cathleen Schine describes how her "style without a style" manages to pull the reader into the story: "So rigorous and artful is the style without a style, so measured and delicate is each observation, so complex is the structure and so astute and open the language, that the reader can relax, feel secure in the narrative and experience the work as something real and natural -- even inevitable "  The San Francisco Chronicle made a similar point: "One does not so much read a Tyler novel as visit it  Her ability to conduct several conversations at once while getting the food to the table turns the act of reading into a kind of transport "  Reviewer Tom Shone put it this way: "You're involved before you ever notice you were paying attention " Joyce Carol Oates, in her review of The Amateur Marriage, perhaps described the phenomenon best: "When the realistic novel works its magic, you won't simply have read about the experiences of fictitious characters, you will have seemed to have lived them; your knowledge of their lives transcends their own, for they can only live in chronological time  The experience of reading such fiction when it's carefully composed can be breathtaking, like being given the magical power of reliving passages of our own lives, indecipherable at the time of being lived "

Focus on family and marriage
While Tyler herself does not like to think of her novels in terms of themes, numerous reviewers and scholars have noted the importance of family and marriage relationships to her characters and stories  Liesl Schillinger summarized: "Taken together, the distinct but overlapping worlds of her novels have formed a Sensurround literary record of the 20th century American family—or, at least, of the proud but troubled archetypal families that     interested her most " New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani has been reviewing Tyler's novels for over 25 years  She has frequently noted Tyler's themes with regard to family and marriage  Reviewing Noah's Compass, Kakutani states that "the central concern of most of this author's characters has always been their need to define themselves in terms of family — the degree to which they see themselves as creatures shaped by genetics, childhood memories and parental and spousal expectations, and the degree to which they are driven to embrace independent identities of their own "  This is an example of where Anne Tyler got some of her characteristics from, being able to be independent and get to know herself through her writing 
Reviewing Saint Maybe, Jay Parini describes how Tyler's characters must deal with "Ms  Tyler's oddball families, which any self-respecting therapist would call 'dysfunctional'      An inexplicable centripetal force hurls these relatives upon one another, catches them in a dizzying inward spiral of obligation, affection and old-fashioned guilt—as well as an inexpressible longing for some perfect or "normal" family in a distant past that never really was   Almost every novel by Anne Tyler begins with a loss or absence that reactivates in the family some primordial sense of itself " Larry McMurtry wrote, "in book after book, siblings are drawn inexorably back home, as if their parents or (more often) grandparents had planted tiny magnets in them which can be activated once they have seen what the extrafamilial world is like      sooner or later a need to be with people who are really familiar – their brothers and sisters – overwhelms them "Novelist Julia Glass has similarly written about Tyler's characters' families: "What makes each story distinctive is the particular way its characters rebel against hereditary confines, cope with fateful crises or forge relationships with new acquaintances who rock their world "  In the same way, Glass mentions the frequent role of marriage struggles in her work: "Once again, Tyler exhibits her genius for the incisive, savory portrayal of marriage, of the countless perverse ways in which two individuals sustain a shared existence "  McMurtry puts it this way, "The fates of [Tyler's] families hinge on long struggles between semiattentive males and semiobsessed females  In her patient investigation of such struggles, Miss Tyler has produced a very satisfying body of fiction 

Passage of time and the role of small, chance events
The role of the passage of time and its impact on Tyler's characters is always present   The stories in many of her novels span decades, if only by flashbacks   Joyce Carol Oates emphasized the role of time in this manner: "[Tyler's novels] move at times as if plotless in the meandering drift of actual life, it is time itself that constitutes "plot": meaning is revealed through a doubling-back upon time in flashes of accumulated memory, those heightened moments which James Joyce aptly called epiphanies  The minutiae of family life can yield a startling significance seen from the right perspective, as Tyler shows us "  With regard to those minutiae, Tyler herself comments: "As for huge events vs  small events: I believe they all count   They all reveal character, which is the factor that most concerns me     It does fascinate me, though, that small details can be so meaningful "Kakutani described Saint Maybe in a similar manner: "Moving back and forth among the points of view of various characters, Ms  Tyler traces two decades in the lives of the Bedloes, showing us the large and small events that shape family members' lives and the almost imperceptible ways in which feelings of familial love and obligation mutate over the years "  Again in her review of Breathing Lessons, Kakutani perceives that "she is able, with her usual grace and magnanimity, to chronicle the ever-shifting covenants made by parents and children, husbands and wives, and in doing so, to depict both the losses – and redemptions – wrought by the passage of time "
Tyler herself further weighs in upon how small events can impact relationships: "I love to think about chance -- about how one little overheard word, one pebble in a shoe, can change the universe     The real heroes to me in my books are first the ones who manage to endure "

Criticism
Tyler is not without her critics   The most common criticism is that her works are "sentimental," "sweet," and "charming and cosy "  John Blades, literary critic for the Chicago Tribune, skewered The Accidental Tourist (as well as all her earlier novels) as "artificially sweet" and "unrealistic "  The Observer's Adam Mars-Jones stated, in his review of The Amateur Marriage: "Tyler seems to be offering milk and cookies "  Kakutani has also occasionally bemoaned a "cloying cuteness," noting that "her novels—with their eccentric heroes, their homespun details, their improbable, often heartwarming plots—have often flirted with cuteness "In a 2012 interview, Tyler responded to such criticisms: "For one thing I think it is sort of true  I would say piss and vinegar for [Philip] Roth and for me milk and cookies  I can't deny it     [However] there's more edge under some of my soft language than people realize "  Because almost all of Tyler's work covers the same territory—family and marriage relationships—and are located in the same setting, she has come under criticism for being repetitive and formulaic   Reviewing The Patchwork Planet, Kakutani states: "Ms  Tyler's earlier characters tended to be situated within a thick matrix of finely nuanced familial relationships that helped define both their dreams and their limitations; the people in this novel, in contrast, seem much more like lone wolves, pulled this way and that by the author's puppet strings     Ms  Tyler's famous ability to limn the daily minutiae of life also feels weary and formulaic this time around     As for the little details Ms  Tyler sprinkles over her story     they, too, have a paint-by-numbers touch  They add up to a patchwork novel that feels hokey, mechanical     and yes, too cute Tyler has also been criticized for her male characters' "Sad Sack" nature and their "lack of testosterone "  Tyler has disagreed with this criticism: "Oh that always bothers me so much   I don't think they are wimps   People are always saying we understand you write about quirky characters, and I think, isn't everybody quirky? If you look very closely at anybody you'll find impediments, women and men both "

Work habits
Over the last couple of decades, Tyler has been quite forthcoming about her work habits—both in written articles and in interviews   She is very disciplined and consistent about her work schedule and environment   She starts work in the early morning and generally works until 2 pm   Since she moved to the Roland Park neighborhood of Baltimore, she has used a small, orderly corner room in her house, where the only distractions are the sounds of "children playing outside and birds "  She has noted that at the beginning of her day, taking the first step—that is, entering her corner room—can be difficult and daunting   She begins her writing by reviewing her previous days' work and then by sitting and staring off into space for a time   She describes this phase of writing as an "extension of daydreaming," and it focuses on her characters Over the years Tyler has kept files of note cards in which ideas and observations have been recorded   Characters, descriptions, and scenes often emerge from these notes   She says the act of putting words to paper for her is a "very mechanical process," involving a number of steps: (1) writing first in long hand on unlined paper, (2) revising long hand versions, (3) typing the entire manuscript, (4) re-writing in long hand, (5) reading into a tape-recorder while listening for "false notes," (6) playing back into a stenographer's machine using the pause button to enter changes   She can be quite organized, going so far as to map out floor plans of houses and to outline the chronology of all the characters in a given novel In 2013, Tyler gave the following advice to beginning writers: "They should run out and buy the works of Erving Goffman, the sociologist who studied the meaning of gesture in personal interactions   I have cause to think about Erving Goffman nearly every day of my life, every time I see people do something unconscious that reveals more than they'll ever know about their interiors   Aren't human beings intriguing? I could go on writing about them forever "

Bibliography
Novels
If Morning Ever Comes (1964)
The Tin Can Tree (1965)
A Slipping-Down Life (1970)
The Clock Winder (1972)
Celestial Navigation (1974)
Searching for Caleb (1975)
Earthly Possessions (1977)
Morgan's Passing (1980)
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982)
The Accidental Tourist (1985)
Breathing Lessons (1988)
Saint Maybe (1991)
Ladder of Years (1995)
A Patchwork Planet (1998)
Back When We Were Grownups (2001)
The Amateur Marriage (2004)
Digging to America (2006)
Noah's Compass (2009)
The Beginner's Goodbye (2012)
A Spool of Blue Thread (2015)
Vinegar Girl (2016)
Clock Dance (2018)
Redhead by the Side of the Road (2020)
French Braid (2022)

Other
Tumble Tower (1993) A children's book illustrated by her daughter Mitra Modarressi
Timothy Tugbottom Says No! (2005) A children's book illustrated by Mitra Modarressi

Uncollected stories
Although Tyler's short stories have been published in The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post, Redbook, McCall's, and Harper's, they have not been published as a collection  Her stories include:

"A Street of Bugles," The Saturday Evening Post, November 30, 1963
"Dry Water," The Southern Review, Spring 1965
"I'm Not Going to Ask You Again," Harper's, September 1965
"As the Earth Gets Old," The New Yorker, October 29, 1966
"The Genuine Fur Eyelashes," Mademoiselle, January 1967
"The Tea-Machine," The Southern Review, Winter 1967
"The Feather Behind the Rock," The New Yorker, August 12, 1967
"Who Would Want a Little Boy?" Ladies Home Journal, May 1968
"The Common Courtesies," McCall's, June 1968—and The O  Henry Prize Stories 1969
"With All Flags Flying," Redbook, June 1971—and The O  Henry Prize Stories 1972
"Spending," Shenandoah, Winter 1973
"The Base-Metal Egg," The Southern Review, Summer 1973
"Neutral Ground," Family Circle, November 1974
"Half-Truths and Semi-Miracles," Cosmopolitan, December 1974
"A Knack for Languages," The New Yorker, January 13, 1975
"The Artificial Family," The Southern Review, Summer 1975
"The Geologist's Maid," The New Yorker, July 28, 1975
"Some Sign That I Ever Made You Happy," McCall's, October 1975
"Your Place Is Empty," The New Yorker, November 22, 1976—and Best American Short Stories 1977
"Holding Things Together", The New Yorker, January 24, 1977
"Average Waves in Unprotected Waters," The New Yorker, February 28, 1977
"Foot-Footing On," Mademoiselle, November 1977
"Uncle Ahmad," Quest, November–December 1977
"Teenage Wasteland," Seventeen, (1983)

Film adaptations
The Accidental Tourist (1988)
Breathing Lessons (TV) (1994)
Saint Maybe (TV) (1998)
A Slipping-Down Life (1999)
Earthly Possessions (TV) (1999)
Back When We Were Grownups (TV) (2004)

Awards
Tyler has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1983 for Morgan's Passing (1980):

Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction
nominated, American Book Award for Fiction
nominated, National Book Critics Circle Award for Fictionfor Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982):

Finalist, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Finalist, PEN/Faulkner Award
Finalist, American Book Award for Fictionfor The Accidental Tourist (1985):

1985 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction
1986 Ambassador Book Award for Fiction
Finalist, Pulitzer Prize for Fictionfor Breathing Lessons (1988):

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1989)
Time's "Book of the Year"for Ladder of Years (1995):

Finalist, The Orange Prize for Fiction 1996for Digging to America (2006):

Finalist, The Orange Prize for Fiction 2007for A Spool of Blue Thread (2015):

Finalist, The Man Booker Prize 2015
Finalist, The Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2015for Redhead By the Side of the Road (2020):

Longlist, The Man Booker Prize 2020for Lifetime achievement:

Finalist, The Man Booker International Prize 2011
The Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence 2012
Passage 6:
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is a 1982 novel by Anne Tyler, set in Baltimore, Maryland  It is Tyler's ninth novel  In 1983 it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Faulkner Award  Tyler considers it her best work 
The book follows the lives of three siblings: Cody, Ezra, and Jenny, and explores their experiences and recollections of growing up with their mother, Pearl, after the family is deserted by their father, Beck  The novel ends with Pearl's funeral, and a surprise occurrence 
The novel examines how siblings may share the same events yet experience them differently; e g  Cody remembers his childhood as a harsh time  He blames himself for his father abandoning him and considers himself left to the mercy of an angry mother who favors Ezra  Meanwhile, Ezra remembers his childhood fondly and creates a nostalgic family-themed restaurant 

Plot
Pearl Tull is a rigid perfectionist  She has three children with her husband, traveling salesman Beck, who abandons the family  After Beck leaves, Pearl struggles to maintain a front as if nothing is wrong at all  Cody, the oldest, is wild and adventurous, but is envious of his brother Ezra, who he believes is Pearl's favorite  As they grow up, this plays out in endless pranks  Ezra is passive, and never tries to get back at Cody  He is nurturing and sweet, traits that often interest Cody's girlfriends, furthering Cody's resentment  Ezra goes to work at a restaurant, which he later manages and ultimately inherits, while Cody becomes a wealthy and successful efficiency expert  When Ezra becomes engaged to Ruth, his star cook, Cody becomes obsessed with luring her away, and ultimately succeeds, but his marriage to Ruth is not easy  Ezra never recovers, and remains at home with Pearl; he is a caregiver, both for Pearl and his customers, but this is underlain by sadness 
Jenny is the third child and the most scholarly of the Tulls, but in college, she marries on an impulse with unhappy results  Only in her third marriage to a man with six children whose wife has abandoned him does she find stability in family life and in her successful, if harried, career as a pediatrician 
A recurring scene in the novel involves Ezra's unsuccessful attempts to bring the family together for a meal at his "Homesick Restaurant", reflecting his desire to unite and mend the family  At Pearl's funeral, Beck returns to the family for the first time  However, they  never seem to be able to get through a single dinner without conflict, this time with Cody facing down his father, causing Beck to leave in the middle of the dinner  Ultimately, the entire family searches the town to find Beck, eventually bringing him back to the restaurant to finish their meal together 

Reviews
Benjamin DeMott, wrote in his 1982 New York Times book review:  "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is a book to be settled into fully    Funny, heart-hammering, wise, it edges deep into truth that's simultaneously (and interdependently) psychological, moral and formal - deeper than many living novelists of serious reputation have penetrated, deeper than Miss Tyler herself has gone before  It is a border crossing    
"On its face Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is a book about the costs of parental truancy  None of the three Tull children manages to cut loose from the family past; each is, to a degree, stunted; each turns for help to Pearl Tull in an hour of desperate adult need; and Pearl's conviction that something's wrong with each of them never recedes from the reader's consciousness  But no small measure of the book's subtlety derives from its exceptional - and exceptionally wise, the word bears repeating - clarity about the uselessness of cost accounting in human areas such as these    The behavior and feelings of all three are linked somehow with the terrible, never-explained rupture: their father's disappearance    But it's also the case that what is best in each of these people, as in their mother, has its roots in the experience of deprivation that they jointly despise   We arrive at an understanding that the important lessons taught by adversity never quite make themselves known to the consciousness of the learners - remain hidden, inexpressible 
"What one wants to do on finishing such a work as Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is maintain balance, keep things intact for a stretch, stay under the spell as long as feasible    We're speaking, obviously, about an extremely beautiful book "John Updike, in his 1982 review in The New Yorker, wrote, “[Anne Tyler's] art needed only the darkening that would give her beautifully shaped sketches solidity    In her ninth novel, she has arrived at a new level of power ”Margaret Manning of The Boston Globe thought that Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is "a book that should join those few that every literate person should read    You surface from this marvelous novel as if from the bends, lungs nearly bursting, tears rattling on the page "
Passage 7:
Steven Zwicker
Steven Nathan Zwicker (born June 4, 1943) is an American literary scholar and the Stanley Elkin Professor in the Humanities in Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St  Louis 

Biography
Zwicker is an expert on Restoration-era English literature and politics and is the author of Dryden's Political Poetry: The Typology of King and Nation (1972), Politics and Language in Dryden's Poetry: The Arts of Disguise (1984), and Lines of Authority: Politics and English Literary Culture, 1649-1689 (1993)  He has edited six volumes and published more than two dozen essays in journals and volumes in the United States and abroad 
Zwicker was born in San Diego, California  He received his BA from the University of California, Los Angeles (1965) and his MA (1966) and PhD (1969) from Brown University  He was a Woodrow Wilson Scholar at Brown University when he earned his PhD  He has been a member of the Washington University faculty since 1969 

Bibliography
Works
Dryden's Political Poetry: The Typology of King and Nation  Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 1972 
Politics and Language in Dryden's Poetry: The Arts of Disguise  Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984 
Lines of Authority: Politics and English Literary Culture, 1649-1689  Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993 

As editor or contributor
Politics of Discourse: The Literature and History of Seventeenth-Century England  Edited by Kevin Sharpe and Steven N  Zwicker  Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987 
The Cambridge Companion to English Literature, 1650-1740  Edited by Steven N  Zwicker  Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998 
Refiguring Revolutions: Aesthetics and Politics from the English Revolution to the Romantic Revolution  Edited by Kevin Sharpe and Steven N  Zwicker  Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998 
John Dryden: A Tercentenary Miscellany  Edited by Susan Green and Steven N  Zwicker  San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 2001 
Reading, Society, and Politics in Early Modern England  Edited by Kevin Sharpe and Steven N  Zwicker  Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003 
The Cambridge Companion to John Dryden  Edited by Steven N  Zwicker  Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004 
Passage 8:
Gwyn Avenue–Bridge Street Historic District
Gwyn Avenue–Bridge Street Historic District is a national historic district located at Elkin, Surry County, North Carolina  The district encompasses 124 contributing buildings and 1 contributing site in a predominantly residential section of Elkin   They were primarily built between about 1891 and 1955 and include notable examples of Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, and Bungalow / American Craftsman architecture  Notable buildings include the Elkin Presbyterian Church (1937, 1944, 1950, 1955, 1961), First Baptist Church (1955, 1968), Alexander Martin Smith House (1893–1897) designed by George Franklin Barber, the Gwyn-Chatham-Gwyn House (c  1872, 1911, 1936), Richard Gwyn Smith House (c  1918), and Mason Lillard House (c  1910) It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007 
Passage 9:
Mrs  Ted Bliss
Mrs  Ted Bliss is a 1995 novel by American author Stanley Elkin, published by Hyperion Books  It concerns the last eventful years in the life of an old widow  Elkin won the 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award in the fiction category for this work 

Plot
Mrs  Dorothy Bliss is an old woman in her early 80s living alone in a retirement community near Miami Beach, Florida, after her husband's death due to cancer  She was born in Russia and is Jewish  Her mother bribed an immigration officer and added three years to her age on legal documents in order that she could start working in Manhattan's Lower East Side after their immigration  Her husband, Ted Bliss, had a butcher shop in Chicago and together they had three kids  Her oldest son dies of cancer at a young age and after her husband's retirement, the couple moved to Florida  She is obsessed with cleaning and also keeps records of the gifts given to her grandchildren in order to keep track and stay impartial with everyone The single life of Mrs  Bliss is now filled with expectations of finding a romance or a partner but eventually she is disappointed and heartbroken  She gets involved with Alcibiades Chitral, a drug lord who operates in her neighborhood, and starts using her and her husband's car as a front for his activities  The story keeps introducing various new men in her life, such as Hector Camerando, a jai alai pro who helps Mrs  Bliss with some tips on dogs, and Tommy Auveristas, an imposter  Junior Yellin, a once upon a time lover with whom Mrs  Bliss had had a passionate encounter in her husband's butcher shop, also makes a re-entry into her life  She eventually dies when Hurricane Andrew hits Miami and brings massive destruction 

Publication
Following Elkin's death on 31 May 1995 at age 65, the novel was released posthumously on 7 September 1995  Elkin had published ten novels, five short-story collections, and various novellas and non-fiction articles in various magazines and papers during the course of his writing career, which began in the 1950s 

Review and reception
Kirkus Reviews writes that Elkin makes readers believe that the novel has a plot when drug dealers are introduced in it  However, "there isn't so much a plot as an accumulation of detail about Mrs  Bliss"  Elkin's "long poetic sentences about seemingly mundane minutiae" later bring substance to the character of Mrs  Bliss  Walter Goodman, a television critic for The New York Times, mentions in his review that "[the book] may not be Stanley Elkin's best, but it is a smart, generous, melancholy, funny, even elegiac work by a prodigious practitioner"  Publishers Weekly writes that "Elkin is at his best here, blessed with the gift of one-liner insight and a definite, if reluctantly exercised, ability to tug on a reader's heartstrings" 

Awards
Elkin won the 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award in the fiction category for the novel  The book was nominated along with Independence Day (by Richard Ford),  Galatea 2 2 (by Richard Powers), Moo (by Jane Smiley), and The Tent of Orange Mist (by Paul West)  Elkin had earlier won in the same category for his 1982 novel George Mills 
Passage 10:
George Mills (novel)
George Mills is a 1982 novel by American author Stanley Elkin, published by E  P  Dutton  The novel, set in five parts, tells the family history of succeeding generations of characters named George Mills  The story covers more than 1,000 years from the First Crusade in Europe to the Ottoman Empire to present-day America  Elkin won the 1982 National Book Critics Circle Award in the fiction category for the novel  Elkin mentioned George Mills as one of his favorite novels  The novel is considered Elkin's "longest and most complexly organized work" : 189

Plot
The first George Mills sets out on a journey with his lord on the First Crusade  But he eventually gets lost in the Netherlands and reaches a salt mine in Poland  His lord at the mines is Guillalume, who teaches him some life lessons  Mills becomes aware of what is written in his fate and this helps him understand the walks of life in this world in a better manner  Despite having the knowledge of what would happen in the future, his timidity and powerlessness does not bring out any situation-changing effects  
The novel covers the history of succeeding family members named George Mills and all of them are aware of their fates and equally feeble and ineffective in changing their circumstances  The 43rd Mills encounters King George IV and is assigned on a diplomatic mission to Constantinople, where he first joins the Janissaries but later ends up in the Ottoman Sultan's harem doing household chores  He escapes from there and reaches America  The present-day Mills in America is a caretaker of an old woman named Judith Glazer in St  Louis, who is in the final stages of terminal cancer  Mills accompanies Glazer to Mexico and upon her death participates in her funeral together with her family 

Publication
Elkin worked for over seven years writing George Mills and by the end of its completion, he felt exhausted and insisted this would be his last fictional work  But after watching a British news report of how terminally ill children had a memorable experience at Disneyland, he wrote his next novel, The Magic Kingdom (1985), and dedicated it to his son who had died young from a medical ailment after lengthy treatments George Mills was published on 25 October 1982  In 1989, Elkin mentioned that several sections of George Mills had been adapted from the 1936 novel Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner  He also mentioned that in writing the novel, he came to realise "that I was a novelist, that anything I say is a part of this novel is a part of this novel" : 194

Review and reception
Kirkus Reviews called the novel "a leaky collection of parts rather than one whole strong book" but said it was required reading for connoisseurs of comic fiction  The New York Times reviewer Leslie Epstein complimented "the novel's fine writing, flashes of humor and memorable heroine", but felt that the plot was "out of control"  Brad Owens of The Christian Science Monitor praised the novel for its "energetic entertainment" and said that it "sometimes overpowers its more serious intentions" 

Awards
Elkin won the 1982 National Book Critics Circle Award in the fiction category for the novel   The novel was nominated along with Levitation: Five Fictions (by Cynthia Ozick), Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (by Anne Tyler),  The Color Purple (by Alice Walker), and Shiloh and Other Stories (by Bobbie Ann Mason)  Elkin also won the award in 1995 for his novel Mrs  Ted Bliss 



ground_truth: Miller v. California