The Map of Indigenous & African Texts

The traditional religions of sub-Saharan Africa. The green here is a handful of pre-1931 bilingual transcriptions (Callaway, Bleek–Lloyd) that record diviners’ own words; the great divination corpora (Ifá, Fa) survive as oral verse and reach English only in modern copyright.

The faiths carried across the Atlantic. Rastafari is the anomaly — young enough to have written and published its own scriptures; the Afro-Caribbean and Brazilian religions are initiatory and oral, held rather than printed, with no public-domain text to map.

The religions of Polynesia — the least ethically fraught pillar, because the tradition-bearers often held the pen themselves. Queen Liliʻuokalani translated the Kumulipo during her imprisonment; Māori and Hawaiian narrators shaped their own transcriptions.

The most delicate pillar. Public-domain ethnography exists, but several items are ceremonial texts the originating nations actively wish were not in circulation — copyright-free is not the same as ethically free. These are flagged, not celebrated.

Texts of this tradition the archive holds that have no chip on this map and no room placement — browsable here honestly; each awaits a reviewed binding or a structure-growth pass (the stays-reception rulings of the placement program, 2026-07).