Home of the Rain Gods.pdf

Weather, Climate, and Society, 2021

In Roca, Z., Spek, T., Terkeli, T., Plieninger, T., Höchtl, F. (eds.): European Landscapes and Lifestyles: The Mediterranean and Beyond. Lisboa: Edições Universitárias Lusófonas 2007: 285-304. Rain-making rituals is an important theme in all religious festivals in Greece, ancient and modern, because the religious rituals are performed by the farmers to ensure the forthcoming rain, so the crops may grow, and give a plentiful harvest. The early rains in autumn are of great importance as a preliminary to the sowing. From this perspective, rain-making rituals represent fertility-cult. Ancient and modern Greece represents two peasant communities, inhabiting the same landscape, with the same climate and almost the same technological level. Both communities show similarities in several ways, such as folk religion, which relates to the basic economic needs of the community. The sowing of cereals today extends from the middle of October to the end of December, depending of the rains. The best guide for the farmer has always been the rain, the condition of the soil and his own experience and weather-wisdom. The season of sowing was and is a time of great anxiety for the Greek farmer. Perhaps the rains will be delayed or will not come in the right amount, at the right intervals. People feel a greater need for ritual and magic on occasions when their own technical skills are limited. In ancient times, springs where representing water-nymphs. Today springs are dedicated the Virgin Mary, the Life-giving Spring. In ancient times the life-giving spring was also a female goddess, connected with Mother Earth, but she needed to be fertilized by a male god. The Mysteries at Eleusis was celebrated around the first of October, one month before sowing, to ensure rain to make the corn grow. During these ceremonies dedicated the Corn-mother, a magical formula “rain, conceive” was uttered and a water-pouring ritual was performed. Since there are some important characteristics connected with the rain-making rituals in Greece, ancient and modern, despite many changes in the dynamics of history, modern rituals as observed in rural Greece can give a clearer picture of the way ancient people perceived the way they could influence the gods to ensure their life-giving water. The paper will make a comparison between some important ancient festivals celebrated before sowing, and modern parallels, celebrated “to let it rain”.

Agricultural rituals are an important part of any cultivation process, especially in tribal societies. These are techniques that have been developed in every society for interacting with and influencing the supernatural spirits, so that there is bountiful produce. This paper discusses the rituals connected to shifting cultivation as practiced traditionally by the Garos of Garo Hills, Meghalaya. This paper focuses on the belief system of the few traditional believers who exist in West Garo Hills, since much of Garo Hills is now Christianized. The rituals used by the Garos encompass not only the annual propitiation of gods and goddesses of the fields, based on the agricultural calendar, but also include numerous beliefs and practices in everyday life. It stresses on the everlasting relationship existent between rituals and shifting cultivation, and between gods and mortals.

Religions, 2020

Human populations confront three distinct climate challenges: (1) seasonal climate fluctuations, (2) sporadic climate crises, and (3) long term climate change. Religious systems often attribute climate crises to the behavior of invisible spirits. They devise rituals to influence the spirits, and do so under the guidance of religious specialists. They devise two types of problem-solving rituals: anticipatory climate maintenance rituals, to request adequate rainfall in the forthcoming planting season, and climate crisis rituals for drought or inundations. The paper compares rainfall rituals in three different settings: Israel (Judaism), Northwest China (ethnic village religion), and Haiti (Vodou). Each author has done anthropological fieldwork in one or more of these settings. In terms of the guiding conceptual paradigm, the analysis applies three sequentially organized analytic operations common in anthropology: (1) detailed description of individual ethnographic systems; (2) compari...

Acta Mesoamericana 29, 2019, 2019

After a critical look at the prevalent concept of a ‘Watery Underworld’, with its implied focus on Hun-Hunahpu, the case is made for the concept of a Mayan ‘Tlalocan’ inhabited by the dead and intimately connected to the maize god as a culture hero. The aquatic dead are likely to have included the king as well as the officials and priests involved in the water management of the kingdom. Ethnographic sources show the presence of the dead, and particularly of dead rainmakers, in the terrestrial waters. Aquatic iconography is more in keeping with the idea of a Mayan ‘Tlalocan’ inhabited by the dead than with that of a ‘Watery Underworld’. Further, the Tonsured Maize God functioned as a prototype of the king in exercizing power within this aquatic realm.

Journal of Burma Studies, 1997

Cosmos: The Journal of the Traditional Cosmology, 17/2: 197-251 , 2005

Recovering Ancient Spiro: Native American Art, Ritual, and Cosmic Renewal, edited by Eric D. Singleton and F. Kent Reilly III, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 2020

Recent climate studies based on tree ring analysis reveal the onset of long-lasting and severe droughts in the Lower Arkansas Valley during the late fourteenth century. These multi-decadal climatic conditions contributed to transformations in political and ritual practice, which have been documented through archaeological studies. Environmental impacts in the Spiro region prompted a reorientation in ritual efforts resulting in the construction of the spirit lodge around AD 1400, but a continuation of long-standing practices that focused on apotropaic rituals. Climatic conditions appear to have been one factor in the collapse of the Spiro political economy and a widespread downturn in regional cultural developments.