The Spirit and the Gifts: Dako,Benjamin Morrell and Cargo in the Vitiaz Trading area,New Guinea

In 1830 an American trader, Benjamin Morrell, abducted Dako, the son of a prominent leader from Uneapa Island in the Bismarck Sea, took him to New York and, four years later, returned him to Uneapa. Dako's encounter with America and his return provides insight into the region half a century before colonization, and in particular into local mytho‐practical knowledge at that time. This enables us to discern subsequent transformations. Myths concerning an origin spirit and guardian of the dead, Pango, which then dominated Uneapa cosmology have since ‘disappeared’. This, we argue, is not because Pango has been superseded or suppressed, but because the parallel ‘white’ world over which the mytho‐practical Pango presided has become ever more manifest as Uneapa has been drawn into a colonial, post‐colonial and globalised world. Today, Pango refers predominantly to white people. Islander's experience of American ‘Pango’ was a shocking event at the time, but we show how trading with Pango established transformatory possibilities for reciprocal trading relations with the dead which remain the concern of today's Cult movement on the island.     

Conciencia nacional y devoción jacobea en el Poema de Fernán González

Jacobean devotion and national awareness are closely related in the Poema de Fernán González (PFG). The great advance of the Reconquest in the thirteenth century and the reevaluation of the past that it caused enabled the broad Hispanic perspective of the PFG. Spain is not only a distant and longed-for reality (“regnum Gothorum”) but a current political concept. This is the frame of the PFG's intense Castilian sentiment. Castile is the bastion of the Visigothic monarchy, which did not yield to the Muslims and was the foundation for the recovery of Spain. The territorial diversity becomes the outstanding feature of this country, in which the “Montaña” takes an important role. Confronting the proposal of the cult of Saint Millán by the Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla, the author of the PFG, aware of the damages that such a cult was causing to his monastery, clings to the Jacobean devotion that achieved a broad Hispanic scope.     

Portrayals of Non-North Koreans in North Korean Textbooks and the Formation of National Identity

This article examines the portrayal of non-North Koreans in North Korean textbooks to assess the influences on the formation of North Korean identity, and how such identity formation is important in Kim Jeong-il's retention of power. This study not only looks closely at textual representations; it also examines how political and ideological changes in North Korea had a critical influence on these texts. The study encompasses both lexico-grammatical analysis and the analysis of textual and visual images, based on an examination of six North Korean language textbooks published from 1954 to 2000. It demonstrates that North Korean identity is defined through the portrayal of non-North Koreans, particularly enemy others. The portrayal of non-North Koreans facilitates the formation of a solid North Korean identity – an identity that entails serving their political leaders, remaining vigilant against threats to their country, and liberating South Koreans from poverty and oppression by America and its puppet states.     

Eilert Sundt. A founding father of the social sciences in Norway

The cult of St Nicholas spread in Scandinavia and northern Rus' in approximately the same period, namely in the last decades of the 11th and the first decades of the 12th centuries. In spite of such a correspondence, the dissemination of the cult in the two adjacent regions has been treated as two separate phenomena. Consequently, the growing popularity of the cult in Scandinavia has traditionally been dealt with as an immanent part of the transmission of the Catholic tradition, and a similar phenomenon in northern Rus' has been discussed with reference to the establishment of Orthodox Christianity. By contrast, the evidence analysed in this article shows that the establishment of the cult of St Nicholas in the two regions was an intertwined process, in which the difference between Latin Christendom and Greek Orthodoxy played a minor role. The early spread of this particular cult thus suggests that, as far as some aspects of the cult of saints are concerned, the division between Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity in Northern Europe was less abrupt in the 11th and 12th centuries than has been traditionally assumed. This was due to the fact that the medieval cult of saints was not limited to the liturgy of saints, but was a wider social phenomenon in which political and dynastic links and cultural and trading contacts across Northern Europe often mattered more than confessional differences. When we leave the liturgy aside and turn to kings, princes, traders and other folk interacting across the early Christian North, then the confessional borders are less useful for our understanding of how some aspects of Christian culture were communicated across Northern Europe in the first two centuries after conversion.     

A Foreign Benefactor and a Domestic Liberator: the cults of Lenin and Mannerheim in Finland

Personality cult has usually been understood as a phenomenon of Caesarian or otherwise totalitarian or semi-totalitarian political cultures. However, there are many basically democratic regimes in which great statesmen, soldiers or artists (e.g. Parnell, Baden-Powell, Shakespeare, The Beatles etc.) have been eulogized or adored. Finland is no exception, where two controversial but interlinked political cult personalities, Lenin and Mannerheim, cropped up. This article examines their emergence, incompatible careers and conditions of politico-cultural use and misuse, ending up with an account of the recent situation in which imagined Lenin has disappeared from the scene and super-Mannerheim is about to rise. Also the ideational content and political messages of the two cults are disentangled in order to contribute to the contemporary history of Finnish ideas.     

论中世纪晚期英国的圣徒崇拜

在中世纪晚期,英国的圣徒崇拜盛行,成为民众宗教信仰的中心。与中世纪早期相比,晚期的圣徒崇拜已发生了一些变化,民众已经开始关注到自己,具有了自我取向与现实取向。这表明在中世纪晚期,英国民众的宗教信仰中出现了“个人主义”倾向,在物质力量增长的同时,英国民众的精神力量也在发展。     

正统性、地方化与文化的创制——潮州民间神信仰的象征与历史意义

从秦朝开始,潮州地区就与整个岭南地区一起,归属中原王朝的政治“版图”。但是,王朝教化与地域社会之间的契合,却经历了长期复杂的互动过程。在这一过程中,宋元之际和明末清初的变化尤其具有重要的意义。三山国王和双忠公是在潮州乡村庙宇中最经常见到的两个神祗。这两个神明信仰的形成及其象征意义的转换,与潮州地区数百年来王朝教化与地域社会复杂互动的契合过程有着密切的关系。     

The Marriage Well at Teltown: holy well ritual at royal cult sites and the rite of temporary marriage

This article discusses Lag an Aonaigh, the ‘Marriage Well’ of Teltown, and the unusual temporary marriage ritual that once took place there during the annual Lughnasa festival. The relationship of Lag an Aonaigh to the modern and ancient fairs (aonach and óenach), and to the broader cult of holy wells is considered, which it is suggested largely represents the local adoption of the Mediterranean healing-spring cult. The article investigates the possibility that this marriage rite was informed by lore of a divine wedding at Teltown, and by the inaugurations carried out at many royal centres that entailed the matrimonial symbolism of the king marrying the Goddess of the land. The relationship of this site to the broader landscape of Teltown, especially to the nearby Knockans linear earthwork is explored. This relationship is then used to analyse the landscapes of the other main ‘royal’ sites, where linear earthworks similar to the Knockans that terminate near springs or ponds are also found. It is considered that all of these earthworks may have been used in ritual processions involving the springs, or even as devices to segregate young men and women at these assemblies, and lead them to the spring to start their own ‘Teltown weddings’.     

An Iron Age II snake cult in the Oman peninsula: evidence from Bithnah (Emirate of Fujairah)

Excavations carried out by the French Archaeological Mission at Bithnah-44/50 (Emirate of Fujairah) have provided new data about Iron Age II cultic practices in the Arabian Peninsula centred on the symbol of the snake. The site includes a public building, various types of shrines, and a central area of offerings where the remains of animal sacrifices were buried in pits. These remains are presented and a preliminary account of the evolution of the site is given on the base of the site's stratigraphy.