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Jaggar,Thomas Augustus, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Jaggar,Thomas Augustus, Jr., 1871–1953, American geologist and volcanologist, b. Philadelphia, Ph.D. Harvard, 1897. One of the team of U.S. scientists (1902) who surveyed the eruptions in the West I...

Maori

(Encyclopedia)Maori mäˈōrē [key], people of New Zealand and the Cook Islands, believed to have migrated in early times from other islands of Polynesia. Maori tradition asserts that seven canoes brought their an...

Vancouver, George

(Encyclopedia)Vancouver, George, 1757–98, English navigator and explorer. He sailed on Capt. James Cook's second and third voyages. After 1780 he served under Admiral George Rodney in the West Indies, taking part...

Uruk

(Encyclopedia)Uruk ēˈrĕk [key], ancient Sumerian city of Mesopotamia, on the Euphrates and NW of Ur (in present-day S Iraq). It is the modern Tall al Warka. Uruk, dating from the 5th millennium b.c., was the lar...

harvest customs

(Encyclopedia)harvest customs, practices associated with the celebration of the gathering of agricultural crops. The gathering of the harvest—the climax of the year's labors wherever the soil is cultivated—has ...

Bhattacharya, Bhabhani

(Encyclopedia)Bhattacharya, Bhabhani bəbäˈnē bätəchärˈyə [key], 1906–88, Indian novelist, journalist, and translator. Bhattacharya was educated in India and England and taught and traveled in many parts ...

Shakti

(Encyclopedia)Shakti shŭkˈtē [key] [Skt.,=power], in Hinduism, name given to the female consorts of male deities. The Shakti personifies the dynamic, manifesting energy that creates the universe, while the male ...

folk dance

(Encyclopedia)folk dance, primitive, tribal, or ethnic form of the dance, sometimes the survival of some ancient ceremony or festival. The term is used also to include characteristic national dances, country dances...

Everest, Mount

(Encyclopedia)Everest, Mount ĕvˈərĭst, ĕvˈrəst [key], peak, 29,032 ft (8,849 m) high (as officially recognized by China and Nepal; rock height only, 29,016 ft/8,844 m), on the border of Tibet and Nepal, in t...

fertility rites

(Encyclopedia)fertility rites, magico-religious ceremonies to insure an abundance of food and the birth of children. The rites, expressed through dances, prayers, incantations, and sacred dramas, seek to control th...