The Ålandic Clay Paw Rite, the Question of Seals and Conventions of Interpretation (original) (raw)
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Journal of Arctic Studies , 2021
The essay examines the "shamanic rereading" of ancient and modern rock art（petroglyphs). Analyzing writings that deal with rock art of Southern Africa and Native America，the author shows how surrounding intellectual fashions affected scholarly approaches to the interpretation of ancient and modern petroglyphs. Originally scholars and writers viewed rock art from a materialistic viewpoint as a manifestation of hunting magic. Yet，since the 1980s—1990s, the petroglyphs have been increasingly reinterpreted in spiritual terms. The author argues that such change of perspective was informed by the decline of positivism in humanities and social sciences, the ascent of post-modernism，and the emergence of the large New Age thought collective and print media in the 1970s—1990s. To better root themselves in history，the latter widely appropriated archaeology for their spiritual practices（e.g. whistling bottles, various stone age figurines), mainstreaming the "ancient wisdom” into the general culture. Many archaeologists began to cast rock art as a manifestation of shamanic practices and related spiritual experiences. Particularly，the essay analyzes the scholarship of those authors who spearheaded a so-called entoptic interpretation (David Lewis-Williams, Jean Clottes, and David Whitely）that spiritualized rock art. Lastly, the author shows how such scholarly reassessment trickled down into popular media and interpretive tourist sites.
Pásztor, E., ed., Shamanism and Nature Worship Past and Present Sámánizmus és természethit régen és ma. Bajai dolgozatok 23 (Keskeny és Társai 2001 Kft., Budapest), Baja – Budapest, 58-99. ISBN 978-615-80206-7-1, HU ISSN 0324-3966., 2019
This chapter deals with spiritual life in the Stone Age, briefly in the Upper Paleolithic period, in more detail in the Neolithic and Eneolithic. The chapter deals with some paintings and engravings from caves, such as the engraving of a mysterious creature with part of the human body part of the animal body from the cave of Les Combarelles (France). This engraving could prove a belief in the unity of man and animal. The important grave of a shaman, the sorcerer from Brno, Francouzská Street was mentioned, which included, among other things, a puppet of a man from ivory. Some unique ceramic statuettes of animals from the locality Dolní Věstonice and Pavlov (South Moravia) were intentionally damaged. The parts of these statuettes could be used in hunting rituals. So called command staffs have a number of explanations. Their use as drumsticks for ritual drums cannot be excluded. The hole against the handle could be used to "banish the evil forces". It is a epoch of religious ideas that can be classified as animism, animatism and demonism. These religious ideas survive to the Neolithic, when these religious wayif thinking evolve into a period of prototheism. Remarkable is a small ritual vessel in the shape of a goat but with a human face. Numerous ceramic anthropomorphic statuettes and images on vessels of the Linear Pottery culture were described (Vedrovice), and especially the female statues of the Moravian - East-Austrian group of Painted Pottery culture from Moravia, which were anonymously depicted as idols of the cult of fruitfullness and fertility. Anthropomorphic vessels could also be used for rituals. Described is a vessel depicting a woman with miniature containers in hands from the settlement Těšetice-Kyjovice, where the rondel was excavated. Kernos and pseudokernos (Střelice, Hluboké Mašůvky, Moravia etc.) could also be used for rituals. Interestingly, there is evidence of the use of masks in religious ceremonies (eg Liubcova, Banat; Uivar, Romania). Significant is the discovery of a simple rondel as a multifunctional gathering place at Prašník, Piešťany District (south-west Slovakia). Between the entrances facing the cardinal points, there are three large features (4 x 3 = 12) in each quadrant along the inner edge of the ditch. Four are also seasons. What are the 12 great features (12 months or something else)? The Eneolithic is characterized by the transformation of Neolithic prototheism into the earliest period of polytheism. Some statuettes were made including details such as clothing or body ornaments. It is possible that they already depict goddesses, priestesses (eg Vesnus of Hluboké Mašůvky) and priests or chiefs. There are also very rich graves of chiefs with copper pectorals (Štramberk-Kotouč, Moravia; Velvary, Bohemia) and tiaras (Vörs, Hungary). 56 Rituális tevékenység az újkőkorban és a rézkorban Szlovákia területén célra, különleges alkalmak során használták. Sámánok alkalomszerűen használhatták a föld alatti rejtett helyeket. Talán olyan szertartásokat végeztek itt, amelyet nem szántak az egész közösségnek. A szikla-vagy földhasadékok és a barlangok nem csak szimbolikus, de valóságos átjárók a föld alatti világba, és mint ilyen, szakralizált hellyé vált (Pavlů-Zápotocká 2007, 61). A természet ciklusainak misztikumát tükrözték a bonyolult rítusok, melynek során véres és vértelen áldozatot ajánlottak fel a természeti isteneknek. Feltételezhető, hogy az indoeurópai mitológia, mágia és vallás eredete a neolitikumban gyökerezik. Ez volt az időszaka sok isten születésének és halálának. Hamarosan megformálódott a gondolata a Magna Mater típusú, földanya és termékenység istennőknek. A rézkorban a "szent hit" fokozatosan átváltozik egy korai politeizmusba (sokistenhitbe), és a menny-föld és alvilág hármassága kezd kikristályosodni. A vegetatív típusú természeti istenek tiszteletére ren-dezett szertartásokat talán rendszeresen megtartották a természet újjászületésekor vagy a mezőgazda-sági munkák kezdésekor tavasszal. A rondellákban talán az égitestek megfigyelésével határozták meg a szertartások időpontját (. Ezeknek a szertartásoknak fontos szereplői voltak a sámánok. A modern gondolkodás számára a bemutatott rituális tevékenységek példái talán különösek és kegyet-lenek, de ezek mélyen gyökereznek az őskori emberek gondolatvilágában és visszatükrözik a társadalom-ról és az őket körülvevő világról alkotott gondolataikat.
To Re-Enact Is to Remember: Envisioning a Shamanic Research Protocol in Archaeology
Land of the shamans: Archaeology, cosmology and landscape, 2018
Increasingly, western scientific disciplines and indigenous ways of knowing and being, or Indigenous science, are being brought together. Indigenous science refers to the place-based, holistic and spiritual knowledge system and wisdom traditions of indigenous peoples. Issues of climate change, sea rise, extreme weather events, food equity and global health challenges necessitate context-driven research that causal research cannot address on its own. The question is, how to consciously link the ways of knowing to ensure validity, reliability, ethical standards and vigor to both systems. Here, Indigenous Science perspectives are presented in a dynamic and reciprocal relationship of contextualisation with landscape archaeology, performance and community education with the goal being the potential transformation of all parties involved. Like an initiation, this article progresses through several deepening levels of contemporary shamanism, each connected with the honouring of prehistoric sacred sites including the Kurgans (burial mounds) of Karakol Valley, Altai Republic; and petroglyphs in southeastern Alaska. Our final aim is to present considerations for a shamanic-scientific research protocol.
Recent, non-anthropocentric explorations of the interaction between human and non-human animals have resulted in many groundbreaking studies. In this 'animal turn', zooarchaeology, which deals with and has access to the material traces of animals that existed alongside humans over the last 2.5 million years, could occupy a privileged and influential position. Despite some encouraging efforts, however, zooarchaeology's ability to contribute to these discussions is heavily limited by the subdiscipline's firm footing within anthropocentric ontologies and reductionist epistemologies. This paper outlines a framework for a new social zooarchaeology that moves beyond the paradigm and discourse of 'subsistence' and of representationist and dichotomous thinking, which have treated non-human animals merely and often exclusively as nutritional or symbolic resources for the benefit of humans. Building on alternative zoontologies which reinstate the position of non-human animals as sentient and autonomous agents, this framework foregrounds the intercorporeal, sensuous and affective engagements through which humans and non-human animals are mutually constituted. These ideas are illustrated with two case studies focusing on human-whooper swan interactions in the Danish Later Mesolithic, based on the faunal assemblage from the site of Aggersund in North Jutland, and the whooper swan remains found associated with the Grave 8 at Vedbaek.
Hunter-gatherer religions and rituals have fascinated the western world almost since the first contacts between European and small-scale non-farming societies and cultures. In part this interest has been fueled by the perceived exoticism of the foragers' beliefs and practices; partly by administrative/religious concerns; and also for more purely intellectual reasons. Early encounters with and descriptions of Siberian shamans, for example, were widely broadcast in eighteenth-century Western Europe, where they influenced artists such as Mozart and Goethe (Flaherty 1992). Spanish missionaries in the Americas, starting with the Columbus expeditions, recorded detailed information on indigenous beliefs and practices, recognizing this knowledge as valuable in promoting conversions to Catholicism (e.g., Pané [1494-6] 2006; Geiger and Meighan [1812-5] 1976; Boscana [1822] 1978)-in the process inventing systematic ethnological research and ethnographic reporting. Academic concerns reflect numerous disciplines, including anthropology (e.g., Kroeber 1907), sociology (e.g., Durkheim [1912] 2001), the history of religion/religious studies (e.g., Eliade 1972), folklore and mythology (e.g., Gayton and Newman 1940), ethnobotany and pharmacology (e.g., Schultes 1977), psychiatry (Silverman 1967), and archaeology (e.g., Price 2001; Ross and Davidson 2006). Huntergatherer religions-at least as re-interpreted in contemporary western terms-also figure prominently in the New Age/self-realization and alternative medicine and psychiatric movements (e.g., Senn 1989). The result is a very broad body of literature, ensuring that this topic will be researched and debated long into the future.
PhD Thesis, 2019
ABSTRACT This thesis provides an analysis of Unangax̂ (Aleut) mummification in the context of their other methods of body deposition. It explores the hypothesis that whalers and their families belonged to an ancient shamanistic whaling complex that existed throughout coastal regions that practiced whaling. This thesis presents an explanation pertaining to the reasons behind mummification and serves as an organized compilation of the most pertinent past and recent data regarding Unangax̂ mortuary customs and rituals. A multidisciplinary approach is used that combines social anthropological theory, archaeological data, and ethnohistorical records. The known methods of precontact body deposition are evaluated in contrast to mummification. It is suggested that mummification proved to be the most complex of these methods and was reserved for the whaling elite and perhaps others of high rank in Unangax̂ communities. A comparative approach based on ethnographic analogy further explores the metaphysical relationship between hunter and whale. The geographical boundary for this study is also widened because mummification was practiced in regions contiguous to the Aleutians. Literature pertaining to the passage between life and death focuses on the liminality of the soul. This concept is presented as one of the prime elements in understanding mummification. The interpretation offered in this thesis builds on a recent approach to this topic, which suggests that individuals were deliberately mummified so they could remain in a state of persistent liminality in order to be preserved for their power. The findings of this thesis suggest that mummification in the Aleutians was a key aspect to whaling. Whalers needed courage and power, and this was accomplished through the use of mummified bodies of whalers and their lineage members that secreted in caves to be used as magical talismans. This ancient whaling complex is examined through the paradigms of liminality and shamanism. Members were initiated into a spiritual and dangerous world, which thereby elevated their status in the community. It is proposed that whalers also performed the mummification. This interpretation advances the study Unangax̂ mortuary rituals and sets the stage for further research.
2017
This book discusses both ancient and modern shamanism, demonstrating its longevity and spatial distribution, and is divided into eleven thought-provoking chapters that are organised into three sections: mind-body, nature, and culture. It discusses the clear associations with this sometimes little-understood ritualised practice, and asks what shamanism is and if tangible evidence can be extracted from a largely fragmentary archaeological record. The book offers a novel portrayal of the material culture of shamanism by collating carefully selected studies by specialists from three different continents, promoting a series of new perspectives on this idiosyncratic and sometimes intangible phenomenon.
In order to understand ritual in the past, archaeology has long relied on theories developed in other disciplines. While these theories, which often rely on written or oral information, have added many important dimensions to our interpretation of the archaeological record, they have often proven difficult to successfully articulate with the archaeological sources. Moreover, archaeology has tended to remain on the receiving end of the formulation of social theory, and has only rarely participated in the theoretical development and critique. In this article we argue that we see a central role for archaeology to contribute to the development of ritual theory. Through two case studies from Scandinavian prehistory we illustrate how the application of a practice-based ritual theory allows us to more firmly connect the theoretical framework to our archaeological sources. This connection not only leads us toward a synchronization of materials, methods and theories, but it also allows us to engage in the broader interdisciplinary theoretical discussion about ritual. The specific challenges posed by the archaeological sources and the archaeological process of interpretation point to new questions relating to the application of theoretical frameworks, and may even suggest some solutions.
The power of the paw. Multi-species perspectives on the bear claw burial tradition in a long-time perspective in South Norway, 2023
Abstract: This chapter explores the issue of object and animal agency through a contextual analysis of bear claws in Iron Age cremations in South Norway (Sør-Norge). Bear claws were identified in 130 cremations, mainly dated within the Roman and Migration periods (1–550 CE). The presence of bear claws is independent of economic status, age, or gender. They occur in male, female, and mixed cremations, occasionally also with children. Most burials contain only one claw. Rather than representing chiefs, shamans, or warriors as previously assumed, the archaeological evidence suggests that individuals cremated with bear claws were also farmers, herders, and hunters. Drawing on Norwegian folklore and a multi-species perspective, I employ a retrospective approach and investigate relations between humans, livestock and bears in the context of hunting and transhumance, arguing that bear claws were powerful agents, utilised for ritual and safeguarding purposes.