As a child growing up in 1930s New York, Jamsie Z. is followed around by a vision he calls Uncle Ponto. A shrill, foulmouthed, and viciously cynical imp with blood-red eyes, Ponto is Jamsie's companion in rage against his criminal parents. When Jamsie...

The term ‘possession’ has been applied to Africa, the African diaspora (especially Brazil and the Caribbean), the Middle East, the Pacific, and sometimes South and Southeast Asia in contexts in which humans are said to be temporarily...

Possession refers to some of the fierce dances still practiced today in India, mainly in the Kerala region, called Thirai Attam and Teyyam. The spirit supposedly possessing the dancer is that of a hero, not a demon, and the term "devil...

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. (English) A sparrow in hand is worth a pheasant that flies by. (French) A sparrow in the hand is better than a pigeon on the roof. (German) A thousand cranes in the air are not worth the one sparrow in the...

// n. A general name for any relation between two noun phrases by which the second in some sense ‘belongs to’ the first. Possession is expressed in two main ways: (1) by a possessive construction, in which both NPs involved typically form a...

Believe that you have it, and you have it. (Roman) Better to have than to wish. (German) Have a thing yourself, or else do without it. (Irish) ‘I have’ is a better bird than ‘If I had’. (German) To have is better than not to...

Possession is having some degree of control over something else. In all cases, to possess something, a person must have an intention to possess it. A person may be in possession of some property (although possession does not always imply ownership)....