Transnational Migration and the Economy of Funerals: Changing Practices in Ghana

Migrants are increasingly leading transnational lives, impacting the institutions that shape local economies both in their place of residence and in their home communities. One example of this is the institution of funerals in developing countries. Funerals are becoming multi‐sited events as migrants from developing countries play important roles in the organization, financing and practice of funeral ceremonies in their home countries. Funerals thus give rise to flows of money, goods and people across national borders, ultimately affecting different economies around the world. This article uses a multi‐sited research design to follow the flows associated with a funeral held in a village in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Detailed data were collected simultaneously in four locations involved in the funeral, and a multiplier analysis was used to trace funeral spending in different locations and sectors. The analysis shows that funeral spending supports various economic sectors in Ghana and across the globe, reinforcing the nature of funerals as (partly) economic events, which should be included in economic analyses of remittances and migration. Funeral practices are modified in various ways to accommodate transnational elements. At the same time, funerals continue to act, even in a transnational context, as occasions for reaffirming ties and a sense of belonging; they form a way for home communities, both rural and urban, to keep migrants interested in them.     

太湖流域史前社会的礼器与礼制

史前太湖流域,礼器出现在社会初步分化的崧泽文化时期;良渚文化时期已经是一个分层的复杂社会,社会成员分化成为不同的等级、阶层,与此相适应,太湖流域史前社会出现了陶质、石质和玉质三种不同质地的礼器,并有着比较严格的使用制度,太湖流域史前社会的礼仪制度初步形成。     

食与礼--浅谈商周礼制中心饮食因素

在人类文明体系中,饮食具有自然与文化双重属性.作为维持人自身生命存在的基本手段,世界各民族对饮食的关注概莫能外;同时,作为人类自然本能高度理性化发展的结果,饮食传统--食物、烹饪、饭桌上的礼节及人们关于饮食的概念,又是一个民族特殊历史经验与生存环境的产物,它构成了民族文化传统中最显著的象征符号.①就此而言,中国古代文化,尤其是居于核心地位的礼制文化,对食物与烹饪所具有的超乎寻常的专注,就不能仅视作自然现象或归诸偶然原因.②     

试论龙山文化时代的人殉和人祭

龙山文化时期是中国从原始社会向阶级社会过渡的重要时代,生产力的飞跃发展带来了社会制度、生产关系的深刻变化。本文通过对龙山文化时代的人殉人祭遗存的考察,以探讨龙山文化时代的社会性质。     

Ritual Appropriation and Appropriate Ritual: Christian Healing and Adaptations of Asian Religions

This article analyzes the uses of the past for liberal Christians who borrow from Asian healing‐related practices such as yoga, Buddhist meditation and Reiki. It focuses on questions of historicity, both in the ways liberal Christians validate their syncretism by drawing connections to the Christian past, and in the way that longer histories of orientalism and colonialism shape current Christian interactions with Asian religions. Centred on the narratives of three North American Anglicans, and informed by attendance at their various healing services, meditation groups, yoga classes and Reiki sessions, this article is evidence of a wider liberal Christian embrace of difference via ritual. The article argues that these liberal Christians use “ritual proximity” to bring together symbols, acts and memories from various times and cultures, thus constructing new lineages of religious inheritance within webs of Christian ritual.     

Tradition and Christianity: Controversial Funerals and Concepts of the Person among the Paiwan,Taiwan

This essay focuses on the complex and dynamic relationships between tradition and Christianity among the Paiwan, an Austronesian‐speaking people in Taiwan. The ethnography comes from a village in which adherents of traditional religion and Presbyterians live in the same area, but in separate quarters. They have close kinship and marriage ties; however, the funeral constitutes a major area of controversy and tension. I juxtapose their contrasting representations of death and funerals to highlight their differences and trace the source of their conflict to the ideological domain of concepts of the person. I argue that the differences in their funerals can be explained by the differences in the ways the two groups articulate two versions of the person. Adherents of traditional religion emphasize the holistic side of the person by calling the spirit of the deceased to reunite with the living, whereas Presbyterians stress the individualistic side of the person and maintain the boundary between the living and the dead. I propose that it is the co‐existence of two distinct concepts of the person and the different ways of articulating those concepts which shape the dynamic but often contradictory relationship between tradition and Christianity.     

Ritual and State Making in Precolonial Rwanda

African Archaeological Review - The interlacustrine states and kingdoms were some of the most influential African kingdoms that arose during the Late Iron Age, after AD 1000. As agrarian tribal...     

Being Ritual in Mesolithic Britain and Ireland: Identifying Ritual Behaviour Within an Ephemeral Material Record

Acceptance of ritual as a valid interpretation of Mesolithic behaviour has slowly emerged over the past decade; the ‘silly season’ heralded by Mellars (Antiquity 83:502–517, 2009) has not materialised, though in Ireland and Britain difficulties persist in defining what might constitute ‘ritual’ away from the graveside. New discoveries from both the development-led and academic sectors enable Mesolithic archaeologists to better establish which elements of the archaeological record can be interpreted as ritual. This paper seeks to identify further strands of ritual behaviour, incorporating evidence from sites without organic remains. We consider the evidence for ritual at the site and feature scales, and in the special treatment of objects—an often overlooked body of data in understanding ritual. Thus the material signature of ritual will be questioned, and ways in which Mesolithic ritual can be rehabilitated and expanded will be explored.     

The Purification of the Body in Tantric Ritual Representation

Indo-Iranian Journal -     

仪式与艺术的关系

仪式是人类学的一个重要范畴,也是人类精神生活中一种重要的活动,它具有象征特性、符号特性和场域特性,作为人类一套独特的话语,仪式是人类解决现实矛盾的一种超现实手段,仪式的这些特性与艺术有着惊人的相似之处。     

Ritual frames of mind

Gesch, Patrick F. Initiative and Initiation: A Cargo‐Cult Type Movement in the Sepik against its Background in Traditional Village Religion. St. Augustin, West Germany: Anthropos Institute, 1985. xv + 347 pp. including appendices, references, plates, and index. DM 68.00 paper.

MacAloon, John J., ed. Rite, Drama, Festival, Spectacle: Rehearsals Toward a Theory of Cultural Performance. Philadelphia: ISHI Publishers, 1984. viii + 280 pp. including chapter reference notes. $32.50 cloth.

Schechner, Richard. Between Theater and Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985. xiv + 342 pp. including chapter reference notes, bibliography, and index. $35.00 cloth.

Volkman, Toby Alice. Feasts of Honor: Ritual of Change in the Toraja Highlands. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1985. xi + 216 pp. including appendices, glossary, bibliography, and index. $21.50 paper.     

Ritual and interpretation: the early medieval case

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.     

良渚文化礼仪用玉的文化特征

良渚文化是中国新石器时代长江下游地区的一种重要的考古文化类型 ,以出土大量制作精美的玉器而闻名 ,尤以大型玉制礼器著称。礼器 ,通常指用于祭祀、丧葬、宴飨、朝聘、婚冠等礼仪活动的各类器物。考古研究发现 ,礼器的应用于新石器时代就已出现 ,不过当时只用于祭祀和丧葬等活动。玉制礼器的产生大约在距今 6 0 0 0至距今4 0 0 0年间 ,多发现于辽河流域的红山文化 ,黄河流域的大汶口、龙山文化、长江下游的良渚文化中。其中良渚文化礼仪用玉尤为典型。它们大部分出土于浙江反山、瑶山、上海福泉山、江苏武进寺墩、新沂花厅、赵陵山等遗址…     

祭祀仪式“反结构”的“不完整倒置性”——基于上果村壮族“祭太阳”仪式的讨论

云南西畴县上果村壮族"祭太阳"仪式在"反结构"阈限期内具有"不完整倒置性"现象。在上果村的传统文化和村民生活结构中,"祭太阳"仪式的"反结构"具有生活的逻辑性和合理性。"祭太阳"仪式中男性与女性"不完整倒置"的反结构现象蕴涵了上果村传统地方知识、壮族两性文化和仪式结构功能共同支配下的稳定性与流动性。