Abstract:

This article draws on food studies, religious history, and research on Equiano's religious orientation to argue that Equiano's Interesting Narrative describes a creolized African and Methodist asceticism in relation to food and ritual practice. His introduction to the Moravian-Methodist love feast before his conversion resonates with his earlier textual recollections of commensality and feasting practices in his eastern Nigerian homeland. Equiano's early textual descriptions of feasting rituals suggest that he was attracted to Methodism because of his experiences through the Middle Passage and his memories of feasting practices, purification rites, and sacrifices and offerings from his childhood in Igboland. Equiano's experiences of sacrifice and his portrayals of hunger and hunger strikes as a form of resistance on the slave ships mark his choice of religious and ascetic orientation. His reclamation of the ocean as a free Black sailor, an Atlantic Creole, contributes to his interest to a temperate Methodist orientation and inner-worldly asceticism.

摘要：

本文借鉴食物研究、宗教历史和对艾奎亚诺宗教取向的研究，认为艾奎亚诺的有趣叙事描述了与食物和仪式实践相关的克里奥尔式非洲和卫理公会禁欲主义。他在皈依之前对摩拉维亚卫理公会爱情盛宴的介绍与他早期在尼日利亚东部家乡的共餐和宴会习俗的文字记忆产生了共鸣。艾奎亚诺早期对宴会仪式的文字描述表明，他之所以被卫理公会所吸引，是因为他在中间航道的经历以及他对童年伊博兰的宴会习俗、净化仪式以及祭祀和供品的记忆。艾奎亚诺的牺牲经历以及他对饥饿和绝食抗议作为对奴隶船的抵抗形式的描述标志着他对宗教和禁欲主义取向的选择。作为一名自由的黑人水手、大西洋克里奥尔人，他开垦海洋，这增强了他对温和的卫理公会倾向和内心世俗禁欲主义的兴趣。