Domestic ritual

The past decade has witnessed a huge expansion of research on the “archaeology of ritual,” but the field is still grappling with serious theoretical and methodological issues, concerning everything from the definition of “ritual” itself to the challenges of identifying ritual activity outside of designated sanctuary spaces. The present paper argues for a greater role for coroplastic studies in the ongoing scholarly discourse on defining and refining an archaeology of ritual. As the case study of Greco-Roman Egypt demonstrates, terracotta figurines provide valuable data for rituals embedded within the daily routines and living space of the household. A range of archaeological and textual data suggest that terracotta figurines may have taken part in at least three types of domestic ritual in Greco-Roman Egypt: (1) the veneration of cult images at domestic shrines; (2) the performance of magical rites; and (3) construction rituals for houses. The figurines in question thus provide important evidence for the interrelationship of “popular” and “official” religion.

This article offers new understanding to commoner ritual in central Mexico before the rise of the Aztec Empire through an examination of domestic ritual and everyday practice in
Early to Middle Postclassic (AD 900–1350) households in Xaltocan. It also seeks to better understand the ways in which elites negotiate and reinvent ritual traditions to gain and maintain power. In this study, I integrate multiple lines of evidence including ethnohistory, household archaeology and burials to understand the organization, practice and meaning of ritual among commoners before the rise of the Aztec Empire. I argue that pre-Aztec commoner ritual worked to foster solidarity, social continuity and collective memory and was intimately concerned with the protection of household members and the maintenance of household and universal equilibrium. While some of the symbolism and rituals documented in pre-Aztec domestic contexts appear similar to those depicted in Aztec contexts, I argue that state rituals held different meanings as Aztec elites adopted and transformed widely-held commoner rituals and symbols to craft an ideology that promoted their own political agenda. Ultimately, domestic- and state-level ritual should be seen as part of an ever-changing, but necessarily intertwined, historical and political process.

There is an astonishing amount of vestigial evidence suggesting a reverence, if not explicitly a worship, of the mysterious, transformative and fertile nature of the female – either human or divine. Prehistoric sites from around the globe are rife with figurines that are believed to be votive or protective representations of a goddess . India’s indigenous pre-Vedic cultures, such as that represented at Mohenjo-Daro and Harrapa  are one such culture demonstrating this early observance of the goddess . Our knowledge of pre-historic civilizations, such as these, is at best interpretive, so, when considering the origins and role of the goddess in India, we must necessarily turn to literate times. Since the 6th century CE, with the codification of the Devi-Mahatmya, worship of the Great Goddess in India has become widespread. What is lesser known, and far less documented is the devotion of the Kuldevi, or lineage goddesses, which although not uncommon in rural Hindu communities, is also represented in heterodox traditions such as that of the Jainas.

This paper examines interviews and discussions with Jain women about the kuldevi worship, first as accultured ritual practice and second, as a feminine-centered practice adopted in response to the doctrinal denial of salvation to females within orthodox Jainism.

To successfully face tourism and be able to be a strong enough canvas on which the West can project its longings, Balinese social and ceremonial structures needed to be strong – as they were and mostly still are. Drawing on my own research on urban ceremonial practice in the south of Bali and previous research, notably on Lansing’s work on rice cultivation and Picard’s study of tourism, I argue that Bali’s long history of irrigated rice-field culture is an important key to understanding the island's social functioning and touristic success.

As we see from Lansing's insightful presentation of the Green Revolution in Bali's agriculture (1991), even well-functioning cooperation and solidarity systems can be challenged by interventionist external policies. In 1979, international experts came to Bali and banned its traditional agricultural water- distribution practices: as all important agricultural events were accompanied by ceremonies, experts assumed that they were entirely irrational. A wheat-style agricultural management was imposed on Balinese rice- farmers, setting short-term individual management and gain goals. The success of the first years and the subsequent spectacular crash of Bali's agriculture could be seen as a mythical tale about the clash of the Wheat-Worldview and the Rice-Worldview. Lansing's comprehensive presentation of this story shows how whole highly useful systems may stay invisible until they are erased and their lack causes a chain reaction of disturbances.

My investigation supports that Bali's ceremonial system is such a complex and highly useful system. Rice-field cultivation has shaped balinese ceremonial practices to make them strongly coherence- and cohesion-inducing. This appears to be true even today in urban settings, far away from rice culture. Balinese religious practice sustains strongly knit ceremonial and social solidarity networks, creates a multitude of ceremonial events, fosters ceremonial artistic and narrative performances, thus creates opportunities for the transmission of social, cultural and moral values. Regular ceremonial practice is still today Bali's social life's backbone and it's cultural continuity's lifeguard.

The lavish private and public ceremonies are an important part of Bali's touristic appeal. This luckily makes it is highly unlikely that an experiment similar to the Green Revolution one would take place again in Bali, targeting it's costly ceremonial practices, labelling them as irrational thus useless. The island attracts millions of tourists every year, making the tourism industry its main source of income and investments. While it does bring changes, touristic success contributes to the preservation of Bali's ceremonial practices, with all their visible and invisible benefits.To successfully face tourism and be able to be a strong enough canvas on which the West can project its longings, Balinese social and ceremonial structures needed to be strong-as they were and mostly still are. Drawing on my own research on urban ceremonial practice in the south of Bali and previous research, notably on Lansing's work on rice cultivation and Picard's study of tourism, I argue that Bali's long history of irrigated ricefield culture is an important key to understanding the island's social functioning and touristic success. As we see from Lansing's insightful presentation of the Green Revolution in Bali's agriculture (1991), even well-functioning cooperation and solidarity systems can be challenged by interventionist external policies. In 1979, international experts came to Bali and banned its traditional agricultural water-distribution practices: as all important agricultural events were accompanied by ceremonies, experts assumed that they were entirely irrational. A wheat-style agricultural management was imposed on Balinese rice-farmers, setting short-term individual management and gain goals. The success of the first years and the subsequent spectacular crash of Bali's agriculture could be seen as a mythical tale about the clash of the Wheat-Worldview and the Rice-Worldview. Lansing's comprehensive presentation of this story shows how whole highly useful systems may stay invisible until they are erased and their lack causes a chain reaction of disturbances. My investigation supports that Bali's ceremonial system is such a complex and highly useful system. Ricefield cultivation has shaped balinese ceremonial practices to make them strongly coherence-and cohesion-inducing. This appears to be true even today in urban settings, far away from rice culture. Balinese religious practice sustains strongly knit ceremonial and social solidarity networks, creates a multitude of ceremonial events, fosters ceremonial artistic and narrative performances, thus creates opportunities for the transmission of social, cultural and moral values. Regular ceremonial practice is still today Bali's social life's backbone and it's cultural continuity's lifeguard. The lavish private and public ceremonies are an important part of Bali's touristic appeal. This luckily makes it is highly unlikely that an experiment similar to the Green Revolution one would take place again in Bali, targeting it's costly ceremonial practices, labelling them as irrational thus useless. The island attracts millions of tourists every year, making the tourism industry its main source of income and investments. While it does bring changes, touristic success contributes to the preservation of Bali's ceremonial practices, with all their visible and invisible benefits.

"The opening and closing of spaces has been extensively documented at an ethnographic level in the Andes. At the archaeological level however, we have numerous examples of the first type and not many testimonies of abandon of a particular enclosure or settlement. In Juella, Quebrada de Humahuaca, Jujuy, we have a unique context that includes the closure of a door, a burial of an unborn in the occupation floor, and the intentional burial of some objects. In the context of an occupation restricted to the Regional Developments Period, we consider that the material found and analyzed here is related to rituals and ceremonies of the closure and symbolic death of this space. From radiocarbon dates obtained from this particular event and its relationship to the overall site context, we believe that this event not only had to do with the abandonment of the structure, but is closely related to the site as a whole, and to the time of the Inca conquest of the region as well.
Las ceremonias de apertura y cierre de espacios han sido ampliamente documentados a nivel etnográfico en el mundo andino. A nivel arqueológico sin embargo, contamos con numerosos ejemplos del primer tipo y no tantos que testimonien el abandono de un determinado recinto o asentamiento. En trabajos realizados en Juella, Quebrada de Humahuaca, Jujuy, nos encontramos ante un singular contexto que incluye el tapiado de una puerta, la inhumación sobre el piso de ocupación de un nonato y el entierro intencional de algunos objetos. Consideramos, en el marco de una ocupación restringida al Período de Desarrollos Regionales, que la materialidad hallada, y aquí analizada, se encuentra relacionada con rituales y ceremonias ligadas al cierre y a la muerte simbólica de este espacio. A partir de la obtención de diversos fechados radiocarbónicos, que incluyen uno de este evento particular, y su relación con el contexto general del sitio, pensamos que este acontecimiento no solo tuvo que ver con el abandono del recinto, sino que se encuentra íntimamente ligado con el del sitio en su totalidad, al tiempo que este último se relaciona con la conquista inkaica de la región."

Excavations conducted at Pampas Gramalote, an early Initial Period fishing village located in the Moche valley, have focused on the social dynamics of the site and on ritual activities performed by its inhabitants. Human burials and a number of caches, mostly composed of local shells, sea lion and shark bones, were found along with domestic structures. This evidence suggests that marine resources in formative Andean cultures had an importance beyond subsistence. Sea products appear to have had a crucial role in early local cosmology and religion. These early beliefs might have been bases for later maritime-oriented Moche and Chimu ideologies.

"In this
paper it is argued that in the thirteenth century, during the Regional Development Period, new social groups
emerged from the aggregation of people from smaller scattered communities into new spaces. In the Quebrada
de Humahuaca, Jujuy, Argentina, during this process of identity formation social practices led these communities
to develop and establish permanence through time. Celebrations and rituals were fundamental in stimulating and
maintaining social ties and cohesion in the community. An extraordinary find from the Juella site is particularly
relevant: 17 complete and semi complete pots found buried in the occupation floor. To understand the social
practices and relations involved in this context a supra-domestic space of production, consumption and storage
of chichi is postulated. This would have been a context of sharing and celebration where various activities took
place, promoting relationships of commonality and shared life experiences, and so forming a communal identity
rather than generating or promoting social differences."

This poster examines the variation in domestic ritual practices in Postclassic Central Mexico, using data from the Basin of Mexico, the Toluca Valley, and Morelos. I use cluster analysis to identify patterning in censer and figurine use, based on the functional attributes of these artifact classes (use mechanics for censers, subject matter for figurines). These clusters are then compared spatially and temporally to identify patterns based on ethnicity and the expansion of the Aztec Empire. The results show a potential division in ritual practices between primarily Nahua and primarily Oto-Pamean subregions, as well as an expansion of the Nahua pattern during the Late Postclassic.

Sebestény, Anikó (2013). L'offrande domestique à Bali – Un ancrage quotidien dans le monde, in : Françoise Hatchuel (ed.) Transmettre ? Entre anthropologie et psychanalyse, regards croisés sur des pratiques familiales, L'Harmattan, Paris. pp. 97-128.

This review highlights archaeological investigations of precontact and historic house sites in Polynesia, a region noted for its diversity of chiefdoms in terms of scale and elaboration. Anthropological and historical perceptions of the Polynesian household have shifted over time, influencing the ways in which the household has been defined in archaeology. Early research emphasized houses as a unit of study within settlement pattern archaeology and as a means of delineating formal variability between sites and communities. Current studies stress a more holistic view of the household as a nexus of economic, social, and ritual activities. Diverse theoretical perspectives, such as the analytical concept of house societies, feminist archaeologies, landscape approaches, and agent-based models, have led to new archaeological approaches engaged with both the material and the nonmaterial aspects of the house and, in particular, how social relations structure the household. Current prominent themes include functional identification of house sites, understanding social variability, articulation of the household with the community, and comparative analyses of social complexity.