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Ritual
Kinds of Ritual Terms modified by Ritual Selected AbstractsROCK ART AND RITUAL LANDSCAPE IN CENTRAL SPAIN: THE ROCK CARVINGS OF LA HINOJOSA (CUENCA)OXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 1 2003MARGARITA DÍAZ-ANDREU Summary. In this article the rock art carvings of La Hinojosa in central Spain are examined. Their connection to a major transit route recorded at least from the medieval period is explored, as well as their location in a valley located at the confluence of two primary river basins in the Iberian Peninsula separated by less than five kilometres. It is argued that this singularity of the landscape seems to have been perceived by the people who marked the stones. From the 17 decorated rocks recorded in La Hinojosa valley, three were exceptionally elaborately decorated. They were situated at regular intervals in the valley. The site with the greatest number of motifs, the large rock of San Bernardino, occupies a central location. This site is also exceptional because of the transformations which the rock shows throughout the day, pointing to a narrative in which cups and anthropomorphs seem to have a primary role. It is suggested that gender may have constituted one of the main guidelines of the narrative, given the apparent replacement of feminine by masculine human representations throughout the day. [source] PIGS FOR THE GODS: BURNT ANIMAL SACRIFICES AS EMBODIED RITUALS AT A MYCENAEAN SANCTUARYOXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 2 2004YANNIS HAMILAKIS Summary. The archaeology of animal sacrifice has attracted considerable attention, although discussions on the meanings and social effects of the practice in different contexts are rather under-developed. In the Aegean, classical antiquity has provided abundant literary, zooarchaeological and iconographic evidence (and has inspired some excellent studies) but it has also overshadowed discussion on sacrifice in other periods. Until recently, it was assumed that burnt animal sacrifices (i.e. the ritual burning of bones or parts of the carcass, often taken to be offerings to the deities) were absent from the pre-classical contexts. Recent studies have shown this not to be the case. This article reports and discusses evidence for burnt animal sacrifices from the sanctuary of Ayios Konstantinos at Methana, north-east Peloponnese. It constitutes the first, zooarchaeologically verified such evidence from a sanctuary context. The main sacrificial animals seem to have been juvenile pigs, which were transported as whole carcasses into the main cultic room; non-meaty parts were selected for burning whereas their meaty parts were first consumed by humans and then thrown into the fire (some neonatal pigs may have been thrown into the fire whole). The article integrates zooarchaeological, other contextual, and comparative archaeological evidence and explores the social roles and meanings of sacrifice in the Mycenaean context and more broadly. It is suggested that, rather than focusing on possible continuities of the practice through to the classical period (an issue which remains ambiguous), sacrifice should be meaningfully discussed within the broader framework of the archaeology of feasting, and more generally food consumption, as a socially important, sensory embodied experience. The evidence from Ayios Konstantinos may reveal a hitherto eluding phenomenon: small-scale, sacrificial-feasting ritual in a religious context, conferring cosmological and ideological powers on few individuals, through the participation in an intense, embodied, transcendental experience. [source] MYTHOLOGY AND TRACES OF RITUALSACTA ARCHAEOLOGICA, Issue 1 2009Article first published online: 5 JUL 2010 First page of article [source] Review article: The dangers of polemic: Is ritual still an interesting topic of historical study?EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE, Issue 4 2002Geoffrey Koziol Philippe Buc, The Dangers of Ritual: Between Early Medieval Texts and Social Scientific Theory. Gerd Althoff, Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter: Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde. Frans Theuws and Janet L. Nelson (eds). Rituals of Power from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Joëlle Rollo-Koster (ed), Medieval and Early Modern Rituals: Formalized Behavior in Europe, China and Japan. [source] Ritual and interpretation: the early medieval caseEARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE, Issue 2 2000Philippe Buc In dealing with early medieval ,rituals' (whatever this category may mean), historians have to take into account that they were written about, staged, and participated in by members of a culture that was steeped in interpretation, and especially by the exegetical dialectic between letter and spirit. The consequences for narrative techniques, and therefore for our approach to the sources depicting ,rituals' are plural. The narratives can heighten or de-emphasize the ,ritualness' of an event, as well as heighten or hide conflict (or consensus) within the ritual event, regardless of what actually happened. Rituals in texts, therefore, should seldom be taken at face value. Such techniques suggest that often enough the textual rendition (or even imagination) of a solemnity had more political impact than its performance. [source] Territorial Behaviour and Communication in a Ritual LandscapeGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 2 2001Leif Sahlqvist Landscape research in the last decade, in human geography as well as in anthropology and archaeology, has often been polarized, either according to traditional geographical methods or following the principles of a new, symbolically orientated discipline. This cross,disciplinary study in prehistoric Östergötland, Sweden, demonstrates the importance of using methods and approaches from both orientations in order to gain reasonable comprehension of landscape history and territorial structure. Funeral monuments as cognitive nodes in a prehistoric cultural landscape are demonstrated as to contain significant elements of astronomy, not unlike what has been discussed for native and prehistoric American cultures, e.g. Ancestral Pueblo. A locational analysis with measurements of distances and directions was essential in approaching this structure. A nearest neighbour method was used as a starting,point for a territorial discussion, indicating that the North European hundreds division could have its roots in Bronze Age (1700,500 BC) tribal territories, linked to barrows geographically interrelated in cardinal alignments. In the European Bronze Age faith and science, the religious and the profane, were integrated within the framework of a solar cult, probably closely connected with astronomy in a ritual landscape, organized according to cosmological ideas, associated with power and territoriality. Cosmographic expression of a similar kind was apparently used even earlier, as gallery,graves (stone cists) from the Late Neolithic (2300,1700 BC) in Östergötland are also geographically interrelated in cardinal alignments. [source] Taking the Sincerity Out of Saying Sorry: Restorative Justice as RitualJOURNAL OF APPLIED PHILOSOPHY, Issue 2 2006CHRISTOPHER BENNETT abstract In this paper I take seriously von Hirsch's view that sanctions imposed on offenders need to be compatible with their dignity, and argue that some versions of restorative justice , notably that defended by Braithwaite , can put offenders in the humiliating position of having to make apologies that they do not believe in in order to avoid further bad consequences. Drawing on recent work by Duff I argue that this problem can be avoided by conceiving of restorative justice as an apologetic ritual. This view gives some ground to von Hirsch but presents a view of criminal justice that is distinctively restorative. I conclude by drawing out the differences between my account and that of Duff. [source] Ritual and Realism in Early Chinese ScienceJOURNAL OF CHINESE PHILOSOPHY, Issue 4 2002May Sim [source] Ritual, Discourse, and Community in Cuban Santería: Speaking a Sacred World by Kristina WirtzJOURNAL OF LATIN AMERICAN & CARIBBEAN ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2008Elina I. HartikainenArticle first published online: 19 NOV 200 No abstract is available for this article. [source] Musical Ritual in Mexico City: From Aztec to NAFTAJOURNAL OF LATIN AMERICAN & CARIBBEAN ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2005Mark Pedelty [source] Ritual, Discourse, and Community in Cuban Santería: Speaking a Sacred World , By Kristina WirtzJOURNAL OF LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 1 2008JANET MCINTOSH [source] From Ritual to Art: The Aesthetics and Cultural Relevance of Igbo SatireJOURNAL OF LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 1 2007Paul Simpson From Ritual to Art: The Aesthetics and Cultural Relevance of Igbo Satire. Christine Nwakego. Ohale. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2003. x. 180 pp. [source] Law, Culture, and Ritual: Disputing Systems in Cross-Cultural Context.LAW & SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 4 2007By Oscar G. Chase No abstract is available for this article. [source] A Colonial Lexicon: Of Birth Ritual, Medicalization, and Mobility in the CongoMEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2001Janice Boddy . Colonial Lexicon: Of Birth Ritual, Medicalization, and Mobility in the Congo. Nancy Rose Hunt. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999. xii+475 pp. [source] Ethnicity and Shared Meanings: A Case Study of the "Orphaned Bones" Ritual in Mainland China and OverseasAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 4 2009Bernard Formoso ABSTRACT Several theories of ethnicity emphasize the analysis of intergroup relations. They neglect, however, the conflation of ideas and values structuring these relations,notably the cross-cultural aggregates of shared cultural meanings that underlie forms of cooperation and competition between interacting groups. In this article, I explore this kind of process through a multisite ethnography of the Xiu gugu ("refining of orphaned bones"), a ritual that the Chaozhou people of northeast Guangdong province, an ethnic subgroup of the Han, perform periodically. The celebration of this rite in Chaozhou is compared to versions resulting of the ritual in Malay Muslim and Thai Buddhist contexts. In the latter case, close conceptions of malevolent death underlie a fascinating interethnic cooperation, with most of the unfortunate dead whose bones are "refined" during the Chaozhou ritual being Thai. [source] Ritual, Risk, and Danger: Chain Prayers in FijiAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 1 2004MATT TOMLINSON Abstract Rituals that defuse immediate senses of danger can perpetuate senses of powerlessness. Ambiguous language used in defensive rituals can heighten people's senses of the risks they are confronting and also compel people to perform those rituals again in the future. In this article, I illustrate this argument by examining Fijian Methodist masu sema (chain prayers), which are conducted to defuse the dangers that beset society, including curses from demonic ancestors. I argue that Fijian cultural themes of present-day human powerlessness are generated largely by competition between Methodist and chiefly authorities. "Chain prayers" are attempts to negate the power of dangerous ancestors, but in requesting God's help, ritual participants cast themselves as powerless. Verbal ambiguity in chain prayers gives "demons" lives of their own, compelling their future circulation. [source] Like Water for Chocolate: Feasting and Political Ritual among the Late Classic Maya at Xunantunich, BelizeAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 4 2001Lisa J. LeCount Subtle differences in the context of feasting and manners of food consumption can point to underlying levels of civil and social competition in state-level societies. Haute cuisine and high styles of dining are characteristic of societies with fully developed civil and social hierarchies such as Renaissance Europe and the Postclassic Aztec. Competitive yet socially circumscribed political and social organizations such as the Classic lowland Maya may have prepared elaborate diacritical meals that marked status, but the nature of feasting remained essentially patriarchal. Ancient Maya feasting is recognizable through archaeologically discernible pottery vessel forms that were used to serve festival fare such as tamales and chocolate. Comparison of ceramic assemblages across civic and household contexts at the site of Xunantunich, Belize, demonstrates that drinking chocolate, more so than eating tamales, served as a symbolic cue that established the political significance of events among the Classic Maya. [feasting, ancient Maya, pottery analysis, chocolate] [source] The cachet dilemma: Ritual and agency in new Dutch nationalismAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 1 2010OSKAR VERKAAIK ABSTRACT In 2006, the Dutch government introduced a naturalization ceremony for foreigners wishing to become Dutch citizens. Local bureaucrats who organize the ceremony initially disapproved of the measure as symbolic of the neonationalist approach to migration. I analyze how their criticism is undermined in the process of designing the ritual, the form of which continues to express a culturalist message of citizenship, despite organizers' explicit criticism or ridicule. Using the concept of "cultural intimacy," I show how nationalism builds on a shared embarrassment among local bureaucrats, from which the new citizens are excluded by way of the ceremony. [source] Ritual and (im)moral voices: Locating the Testament of Judas in Sakapultek communicative ecologyAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 3 2009ROBIN ANN SHOAPS ABSTRACT In this article, I examine el Testamento de Judas (the Testament of Judas), an annual letter "from" Judas Iscariot to the townspeople of Sacapulas, Guatemala. Drawing on a conceptual framework that synthesizes Bakhtinian concepts of voice and speech genres, I argue that the characteristics of the Testament of Judas serve to create idealized "voices" that reflect stances toward its content and audience. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the Testament can only be understood against the backdrop of Sakapultek Maya communicative ecology, including ritual wedding counsels, which constitute the Testament's moral instructional complement, and the quotidian genre of "gossip,scolding."[voice, genre, moral discourse, ritual, Maya, Judas, Guatemala] [source] The Curse of Nemur: In Search of the Art, Myth, and Ritual of the Ishir by Tigio EscobarAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 3 2009FRANCI WASHBURN No abstract is available for this article. [source] Ritual and Its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity by Adam B. Seligman, Robert P. Weller, Michael J. Puett, and Bennett SimonAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 3 2009MATT TOMLINSON No abstract is available for this article. [source] State Ritual in Late Imperial ChinaRELIGION COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2009Ihor Pidhainy Until recently scholars have tended to view the Chinese imperial tradition from a human-centred perspective. However, in the last two decades, the importance of ritual and state religion in imperial China has become better appreciated and more fully explored. This article focuses on research of late imperial China, from the tenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century, with a particular focus on the last two dynasties: the Ming (1368,1643) and Qing (1644,1911). This article is divided into four sections: a definition of Chinese ritual and its essential texts; its relationship to other religious ritual systems (Buddhism, Daoism and folk religions); an examination of three central reign periods: Hongwu (Zhu Yuanzhang, reign 1368,1398), Jiajing (Zhu Houcong, reign 1521,1567), and Qianlong (Hongli, reign 1735,1796); and the aesthetics of state ritual, including literature, art history and music. [source] Syncretic Persons: Sociality, Agency and Personhood in Recent Charismatic Ritual Practices among North Mekeo (PNG)THE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 3 2001Mark Mosko This paper explores the syncretic accommodations made by North Mekeo (PNG) villagers arising from recent historical encounters with Catholic (Sacred Heart) missionaries over issues of ritual authenticity and effectiveness, personhood, and agency in a wider field of Christian evangelism and globalisation. Through a careful examination and comparison of pre-existing ritual notions and practices (e.g., sorcery techniques, mortuary ritual performance, gender rituals) and the recent trends of commodification and enthusiastic Catholic charismatic performance, what might appear to be incongruous religious beliefs and practices are shown to possess numerous remarkably compatible similarities at the level of explicit cultural categorisation and ritual enactment. In accord with long-standing anthropological arguments, recent North Mekeo syncretism thus consists of an integrated, albeit transformed rather than ,confused', mixing of indigenous and exogenous religious elements. Further, in this analysis of recent Melanesian religious change syncretism implies a novel conceptual convergence between syncretic processes and the dynamics of personhood, sociality and agency as construed in the framework of the ,new Melanesian ethnography'. [source] EDITORIAL: The Journal of Sexual Medicine through Ritual and SpontaneityTHE JOURNAL OF SEXUAL MEDICINE, Issue 6 2007Irwin Goldstein MD Editor-in-Chief [source] Risk, Ritual and PerformanceTHE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, Issue 1 2000Leo Howe Performance approaches to the interpretation of ritual highlight process, presence, strategy and uniqueness. They are often favourably contrasted to textual approaches said to emphasize meaning, structure and stability. However, this sharp distinction can be maintained only by ignoring the notion of inscription, which is central to text. Inscription is a political process which involves risk, strategy and struggle. Moreover, commonly performance approaches neglect questions of risk in ritual action. Ritual is often seen as suppressing risk, but many rituals are events involving high risk. This article considers various Balinese rituals in which risk is a prominent feature, and suggests ways in which a focus on risk may aid our understanding of ritual. [source] Ritual, Stories, and the Poetics of a Journey Home Among Latino CatholicsANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Issue 1 2009DAVID P. SANDELL ABSTRACT This essay centers on a storyteller's performance of ritual in stories to draw associations between the life of the Biblical Mary with her son Jesus and the subjectivities and dispositions of people living in impoverished conditions. The storyteller explores these subjectivities and dispositions, characterizing the exploration as a journey. She also defines an ethical position where the self meets otherness,both sacred and cultural,to engender positive human relations. The essay combines the storyteller's performance with the author's to reproduce the effects, advance the ethics, mitigate the politics of representation, and provide an understanding of the journey's end,a place called home. [source] The Use of Strontium Isotope Analysis to Investigate Tiwanaku Migration and Mortuary Ritual in Bolivia and PeruARCHAEOMETRY, Issue 1 2004K. J. Knudson Strontium isotope analysis is applied in South America for the first time in order to investigate residential mobility and mortuary ritual from ad 500 to 1000. While Tiwanaku-style artefacts are spread throughout Bolivia, southern Peru and northern Chile during this time, the nature of Tiwanaku influence in the region is much debated. Human skeletal remains from the site of Tiwanaku and the proposed Tiwanaku colony of Chen Chen have been analysed to test the hypothesis that Tiwanaku colonies, populated with inhabitants from Tiwanaku, existed in Peru. Strontium isotope analysis supports this hypothesis by demonstrating that non-local individuals are present at both sites. [source] Enterprise Ritual: A Theory of Entrepreneurial Emotion and ExchangeBRITISH JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2008David Goss Unlike most other areas of social science, emotion has been a neglected concept within entrepreneurship research. Where it has appeared, it has usually been a marginal or subsidiary concern, subordinated to the more rational aspects of information processing and decision-making. This article draws upon ideas from social exchange, interaction ritual and discourse theory to propose a model that integrates the processes of social interaction, emotion and cognition. The model supports a set of conjectural propositions about the role of emotions in shaping entrepreneurial behaviour and suggests a number of new opportunities for research in this area. [source] On Altar Constructions with Square Bricks in Ancient Indian RitualCENTAURUS, Issue 1-2 2002Toke Lindegaard Knudsen First page of article [source] Discipline and the Arts of Domination: Rituals of Respect in Chimborazo, EcuadorCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 1 2005Barry J. Lyons Mestizo and indigenous authorities on 20th-century highland Ecuadorian haciendas exercised authority through culturally hybrid practices of ritual discipline. Rather than opposing force to persuasion, I argue that hacienda discipline used coercion as part of a strategy of persuasion. This argument is tied to a social-structural as well as cultural notion of hegemony: By regulating internal social relations, authorities linked their power to the notion of morality and "respect" held by subordinates, thereby also shaping the latter's understanding of resistance. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||