《尼山萨满》与萨满教

《尼山萨满》传说对萨满教的反映是多方面的。对萨满教由来的解释,对萨满祭祀“过阴”全过程的描写,满文神歌的大量保存等都在很大程度上展现了萨满教的思想、仪式、法术等方面。从宗教的角度看,《尼山萨满》传说不仅仅是一篇优秀的民间文学作品,而且是一部很好的萨满教“教科书”。她向人们展示的是一种形象生动、活灵活现的萨满教。     

“萨满”小释

“萨满”小释陈烨萨满教是一种古老而神秘的原始宗教。万物有灵观念奠定了它的基础,而萨满则是这一宗教文化的最具典型意义的代表。本文试对萨满的本质陈一管之见,以求教于方家。＂萨满＂,满－－通古斯语释为＂极度兴奋而狂舞的人＂。是不是所有因兴奋而狂舞的人都可以...     

多面的他者:16至20世纪中叶西方视野下的萨满形象

16至20世纪中叶,作为"他者"的萨满被西方人塑造成多种形象:中世纪时的异教徒、恶魔代言人;启蒙运动时期的骗子;人类学视野下的信仰原始低级宗教的人、精神错乱者、部落的精神分析师等。萨满形象的每一次转变,都与西方社会自身社会思想和文化潮流的风向密切相关。     

"尼山学"的奠基之作--读《萨满的世界:〈尼山萨满〉论》

"尼山学"是以<尼山萨满>传说为研究对象,并对其进行全面的综合研究的一门学科,它包括文学、语言学、历史学、宗教学、民俗学等方面的研究.<萨满的世界〈尼山萨满〉论>一书,对"尼山学"的研究对象、研究范围、研究方法、研究概况等方面进行了具有开拓性的大胆的描述,不仅论述了<尼山萨满>的价值、思想内容、艺术特色,<尼山萨满>手抄本的比较研究,<尼山萨满>与宗教、神歌、说唱文学、民俗的关系以及东北少数民族中流传的<尼山萨满>传说比较研究等方面,还附录了<尼山萨满>六种手抄本的译文,收入了俄国、意大利、中国等国家的学者在翻译出版<尼山萨满>手抄本时所写的全部序言,不愧为"尼山学"研究的奠基之作.     

关于萨满教的认识

什么是萨满教?尽管以萨满教名义所描述和解释的宗教现象在比较宗教学、民族学、人类学、民俗学的问题中一直占有一席之地,但对什么是萨满教,国内外学术界却没有一致的回答。对研究者来说怎样或在哪一方面可以把萨满教称之为宗教现象或不把它看作宗教现象是一直被探讨的问题。这种探讨之所以如此漫长且莫衷一是,常常是出于人们对宗教理解的方式不同而导致的。人们对萨满教的认识区别主要来自如下几种不同的宗教理解方式。在强调宗教信仰和宗教崇拜的对象(神)是各种宗教的中心与基础的学者中,通常把萨满教规定为具体信仰对象和信仰系统,于是萨…     

萨满神鼓探微

萨满教是广大北方地区众多民族曾广泛信奉的原始宗教。其历史文化内涵十分丰富,包括宗教、艺术、天文、医学、民俗等诸多方面的内容,是研究北方文化史必不可少的重要一环。近年,我们在我国的民族文化调查中,多次见到满族、鄂伦春族珍藏的萨满神鼓。它不仅是萨满跳神祭祀必不可少的主要神器和珍贵的传世文物,而且其实际功能及象征意义透露出萨满教观念中的某些深层意识。本文试就此作一初步的探索。     

萨满教跳神仪式语境下对助巫的文化解读

萨满主持的跳神仪式中,一般皆有助巫助其完成。助巫的协助是跳神行为特点、跳神服装和程序的复杂性的需要。以跳神术为核心的萨满术的宗教修习是一个漫长过程。助巫协助主巫完成跳神仪式是其进行宗教修习的重要方式,也是其被部族认同的过程。     

萨满教跳神仪式语境下对助巫的文化解读

萨满主持的跳神仪式中,一般皆有助巫助其完成。助巫的协助是跳神行为特点、跳神服装和程序的复杂性的需要。以跳神术为核心的萨满术的宗教修习是一个漫长过程。助巫协助主巫完成跳神仪式是其进行宗教修习的重要方式,也是其被部族认同的过程。     

萨满教对古代蒙古民族的影响

萨满教对古代蒙古民族的影响张艳秋一、萨满教产生的根源萨满教是原始宗教的一种晚期形式,形成于原始社会后期,具有明显的氏族部落宗教特点。萨满即“巫”的意思。萨满教认为世界分作三层：“天堂”为上界,诸神所居;“地面”为中界,人类所居;“地狱”为下界,鬼魔所...     

敦煌“伴虎行脚僧图”的渊源探讨

佛教传入中国最重要的问题是外来宗教如何在中国传统思想支配下为民众所接受.作为佛教艺术也不例外,出现了许多与儒教和道教思想相融合的题材,或者纯粹中国式的题材.从最新调查的材料“伴虎行脚僧图”入手,对其形成和演变以及与“玄奘取经图”的关系进行一些探讨,对研究佛教艺术的中国化、世俗化有其重要意义.     

THE MONEY THAT GROWS ON TREES

From a paean of praise to the innovator : When you first brought these trees and told us we should grow them, we scoffed at you and said ‘We have plenty of trees already; what use are these new ones?’ But now we see we were wrong: money grows on those trees. On the indivisibility of systems : No one part of the model-system is more important than any other part. We may consider each model as a vital link in a communications system. We may identify feedback effects. Every change in technology or change in aspiration levels will lead to a re-appraisal of the environment. Every movement of knowledge over space will need to be checked against environment and environment itself will change as a result of the decisions made. Changes in social structure may lead to changes in organizational behaviour and so on.     

Conservation and Restoration of a Cultural Forest Landscape: Protecting the Forests Created by Moriori on Chatham Island

Moriori agroforestry practices led to the creation of forests dominated by an introduced tree, kōpi (Corynocarpus laevigatus). Kōpi trees produce an edible drupe which was essential to the successful settlement of Rēkohu (Chatham Island). It is also only on kōpi trees that Moriori created a unique art form, called rākau momori, marking the trees with anthropogenic, animal and abstract images. The remaining stands of old growth forest which include kōpi trees and rākau momori are in varying states of decline and until recently were not identified as a cultural landscape. The acknowledgement of the forests as cultural landscapes has resulted in changes to the conservation and management practices of these spaces. The current management practices have been designed following paleo-ethnobotanical research (palynology and anthracology), ethnography and archaeological excavations which suggest Moriori planted and managed the forests until they were abandoned following an invasion in 1835.     

The application of the tree-ring chronologies in assessing ecological requirements of Metasequoia glyptostroboides growing in southern Poland

Metasequoia glyptostroboides is considered to be a species highly resistant to harmful environmental factors. For this reason it has been introduced to the cities. The climate of Krakow differs from that in its natural range in China. The research was focused on 40-year-old trees, planted in Kraków on fertile alluvial soils with a low level of ground water, in the vicinity of the steelworks. During the period of the highest level of air pollution in the 1970s and 1980s, the radial increment of investigated trees showed an increasing trend. At the end of the 1980s, when the emissions were reduced, a decreasing trend in radial growth was recorded. Throughout the entire period of their life the investi-gated trees have shown high homogeneity of short-term growth reactions. The sensitivity chronology of the trees was characterized by a high representativeness and a strong high-frequency signal. This may indicate that the investigated trees have shown a large sensitivity to climatic factors. The positive effect on the radial growth of Metasequoia had a cold September in the previous year, and also a cold January, April and May in the year of ring formation. Positive impact on the growth of trees had also the high precipitation occurring in April and August, as well as high air humidity in the spring of the year of ring formation. In the period 1974–2011 fifteen signature years were found. The analysis of the climatic conditions in these years confirms the results of the statistical analyses.     

黔中屯堡人祖籍“南京应天府石灰巷”考辨——兼与云南“南京柳树湾高石坎”比较

黔中屯堡人多指认自己的祖籍是“南京应天府石灰巷”,家谱族谱中可看到各省都出现“石灰巷”的地名。在对南京自明代以来地名考察后发现,这是清代以后才出现的地名,兼与云南移民指认家乡为“南京柳树湾高石坎”相比较,我们认为屯堡后裔通过对祖先“调北征南”光荣使命的颂扬,下意识地将调北填南、充军放逐等“次等来源”进行改造,“征南将士”被看成这一族群的“共同血统”,这种身份意识强化了屯堡人的祖宗崇拜。帝辇之下的“南京应天府石灰巷”,就成为屯堡人的“共同家乡”,它更象是一个由话语构建的“精神故乡”。     

Insect faunas associated with the Fossil remains of Pinus sylvestris L. in blanket peat from Northeast Scotland

Pine stumps have been found preserved in blanket peats at altitudes of up to 793 m OD in Scotland. Radiocarbon dating by other researchers has demonstrated that these sites were not all contemporary, but most fall within the mid‐Holocene period. Palynological, dendrochronological and stable isotope analyses have previously been carried out on these fossil pine stumps, but not palaeoentomological analysis. This paper reports on the results of an analysis of the fossil beetle remains from two of these sites in the Cairngorms, Monaltrie Moss and a moss on the Mar Lodge estate. The insect faunas indicate that acidic wetland was colonised by pine trees, which developed into mature woodland. The dominance of saproxylic (deadwood) faunas in comparison to those associated with healthier trees suggests that the woodland was always under stress. The pine fauna at Mar Lodge was replaced by montane wetland species once the pine trees died out.     

Ancient olive DNA in pits: preservation,amplification and sequence analysis

The olive tree (Olea europaea) was domesticated by vegetative propagation of selected wild individuals with superior fruit. Later, new cultivars were established repeatedly from feral trees or from crosses between wild, feral, and domesticated trees. Thus the genetic background of many contemporary domesticated lines is a mixture of ancient cultivars and local wild trees. Ancient DNA may illuminate the complicated process of olive domestication because such DNA sequences provide data about ancient genomes that existed closer to the domestication events. Well preserved DNA must be available for such studies, even though in the Mediterranean region, where olive cultivation took place, the climatic conditions are not favorable for DNA preservation. To select for well preserved pits we measured their proportions of lignin by IR spectroscopy, and correlated this with parameters of DNA quality such as template length in an olive-specific repeat array, and template quantity as determined by real-time PCR amplification. Archaeological pits that passed these tests did contain high quality ancient DNA. We present the first ancient olive DNA sequences and compare them to modern wild, feral and domesticated lines.     

Common Roots and Entangled Limbs: Earth First! and the Growth of Post-Wilderness Environmentalism on California's North Coast

Conflicts over the protection of redwood trees on California's North Coast are often depicted as following the trajectory of the radical wing of the larger American environmental movement, in which "radical" refers to the sharpness of the boundary drawn and defended between human despoliation and pure nature or "wilderness." Earth First!—an environmental organization characterized by their slogan, "No compromise in the defense of Mother Earth!"—is often depicted as simply the leading edge of this deepening rift between nature and culture. I argue, on the contrary, that the Earth First! branches on California's North Coast should be understood as making bold, if incomplete, attempts to cast off the problematic nature–culture dichotomy and to define social justice and ecological health as struggles with a common root. By moving beyond wilderness, the North Coast Earth First! offers the promise of a truly radical movement, by which I mean one which truly confronts capital's interlinked degradation of both natural and human communities. This article examines the efforts by the North Coast Earth First! to inscribe a new community of activists and timber-workers joined in the struggle to contest corporate claims on the redwood forest. It explores the ambiguous effects of activists' "embodied" and "home-based" practices on this budding alliance, particularly the ways in which such practices also have alienated workers by redefining the redwood forest as the exclusive property of the activists' themselves.     

Tree Densities Last Century on the Lowland Gippsland Plain,Victoria

Tree densities in the mid 1800s were calculated for 16 areas on the lowland Gippsland plain, Victoria, using data on historical maps. The plotless, closest individual method was used on map data, which listed the distance and compass bearings of trees from allotment corners. Densities ranged from 2 to 59 trees per hectare, with most estimates below 30 trees per hectare. Sparsest trees were in and near areas mapped as ‘open plains’ and the densest tree cover was on seasonally flooded river flats. Whilst it seems prudent to treat such figures as indicative rather than precise, this simple method holds considerable promise for obtaining quantitative estimates of tree densities before widespread clearing.     

The visibility of past trees and woodland: testing the value of insect remains

The reconstruction of woodland history is important in relation to archaeological, ecological, biogeographical and evolutionary problems, and insect remains are a significant source of relevant information. Fully natural interglacial and Holocene ‘waterlogged’ deposits assumed to have formed in woodland generally contain abundant macrofossils of both plants and insects indicative of trees. In contrast, British archaeological deposits rich in macrofossil remains of trees often lack, or contain very few, tree-associated insects. To cast light on this contradiction, assemblages of insect (Coleoptera and Hemiptera) remains from a range of modern deposits with various spatial relationships to woodland and trees have been analysed. The proportions of tree-associated insects varied greatly. There was a general trend from higher values in woodland and near to isolated trees of species supporting a rich insect fauna, to low or zero values where there were no trees. However, low values sometimes occurred in woods or near trees, so that rarity of tree-associated insects in archaeological deposits does not always carry the implication of a treeless environment. Further investigation is suggested, with emphasis on the importance of identifying isolated trees, scrub and hedges as a resource for humans and wildlife in the past.