Cet ouvrage examina une cérémonie particulière aux Kwagul de Colombie Britannique: le rituel d'initiation hamatsa. Basée sur une recherche effectuée en pays kwagul et enrichie de nombreuses données ethnographiques, la thèse s'appuie au niveau théorique : sur des travaux récents de Lévi-Strauss et de Turner. Afin d'atteindre la structure du rituel per se, nous, l'expurgeons de ses gloses et exégèses. Ses mythologies implicite, et explicite sont analysées. La première réfère à la vision du monde kwagul et à son ethos. L'éthos kwagul est constitué d'un ensemble de thèmes rituels qui tous relèvent du principe de transformation de la mort en la vie. La vision du monde kwagul est à l'image d'un monde zoo ou anthropomorphique doté d'une unique cavité appelée par les kwagul, la bouche. C'est par l'intermédiaire de celle-ci que les transformations s'opèrent. L'analyse des codes culinaires déployés dans les mythes et les rites dévoile que la mort et la Création sont exprimées par des métaphores orales. La mythologie explicite composée du paradigme mythique Baxbakwalanuxsiwae est analysée sur une période d'un siècle, confirmant certaines caractéristiques de l'évolution des mythes. Le mythe exprime une exogamie démesurée à laquelle s'oppose sa limite inférieure; le rapprochement trop étroit d'un frère et d'une soeur que les Bella Bella et les Kwagul illustrent dans la phase finale de leurs mythes et de leurs rites. La métaphore cannibalique est analysée sous l'angle de la parenté; elle circonscrit le champ de l'alliance acceptable par la culture. La femme est perçue alors comme le médiateur entre les humains et les ogres surnaturels. Evoquant le thème de la grande naissance, les différentes séquences du rituel hamatsa sont analysées chronologiquement. Au cours de son initiation, afin de surpasser sa "mort", l'initié devait manger la "mort". A la mort symbolique du novice correspond une naissance symbolique suivie d'une socialisation réelle. La comparaison mythe/rite permet finalement de conclure que la démarche rituelle ne répète pas systématiquement la démarche de la pensée mythique, mais au contraire l'inverse. Cette inversion est due à l'emploi du morcellement et de la répétition qui fait que le rite remonte le mythe à contresens. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

This thesis deals with the construction of ideal female reader inscribed on the Czech edition of the magazine Harper's Bazaar. The theoretical part handles the important findings in the field of semiotics. The semiotic analysis itself is the crucial part of my work. Within the wide angle of field of semiotic processes character and its function, mentions the various concepts and theories that are linked to this issue. Chapter which binds to the functioning of the secondary semiotic system, in other words, the myth is based on the work Mythologies by Roland Barthes. Mythological analysis is crucial for the practical part. The theoretical framework also deals with studies on "inscribed" readers from Colin Sparks and Michelle Campbell that was one of the main motivations for creating this text. It analyzes important aspects of the theory of coding and decoding Stuart Hall. Last but not least, refers to the sociology of knowledge through the work of Social Construction of Reality from a pair of authors Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann. Practical part includes mythological analysis of the individual sections in selected publications between years 2002 and 2014. Also it doesn't focus only on the text itself, but also on the selected accompanying visuals. It deals with the Czech myths and legends. It...

This thesis explores the ways in which Lady Jane Wilde, writing under the pen name of Speranza, established ethos among a poor, uneducated, Catholic populace from whom she was socially and religiously disconnected. Additionally, it raises questions as to Lady Wilde's exclusion from the roster of Irish literary voices who are commonly associated with the Irish Literary Revival, inasmuch as Lady Wilde played a critical, inceptive role in that movement. Lady Jane Wilde, mother of Oscar Wilde, was an ardent nationalist who lived in Victorian Ireland. She contributed thirty-nine poems and several essays to the Nation newspaper—a nationalist publication—under the nom de plume of Speranza, which is Italian for "hope." However, her audience consisted largely of the Irish peasantry, who were for the most part poor, uneducated, and Catholic. The peasantry had little tolerance generally for members of the Protestant ascendancy who had held them in subjugation under the Penal Laws for so long. Lady Wilde, however, was wealthy, educated, and Protestant. Nevertheless, she claimed that she represented the "voice" of the Irish people. This thesis explores the notion that Lady Wilde gained popularity and trustworthiness among Irish commoners by fashioning herself after the Celtic Sovereignty goddesses in her dress, her motto and pen name, and her poetry. Also, by connecting herself with Irish folklore, Lady Wilde played an unsung role in the development of the Irish Literary Revival—a late nineteenth and early twentieth century movement that sought cultural sovereignty for Ireland in the face of English political rule. Despite her central role in the nationalist movement and her inceptive place in the Irish Literary Revival, though, Lady Wilde has been largely excluded from twentieth century historical texts and anthologies. Possible reasons for this exclusion are raised in this thesis, as well as a call for current and future critics to restore Lady Wilde to her rightful place as an important voice in Irish national and literary history. The first appendix of this thesis include selections from among Lady Wilde's poetry as they first appeared in the Nation newspaper and were later published in a compilation titled Poems, by Speranza. The second appendix contains the full text of a discourse analysis conducted on Lady Wilde's poetry in an effort to further strengthen the argument that she mimicked the role of the Celtic Sovereignty in her poetry.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Santiago de Compostela, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [239]-259) and index.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Santiago de Compostela, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [239]-259) and index.

The thesis is an ethnographic account of the belief system surrounding disease and curing among the Kuna Indians of San Blas, Panama. It is an attempt to describe this system in its own terms, and to interpret its meaning by attending to the various symbolic, ritual, and social contexts in which it finds expression. Above all, the ethnography strives to understand Kuna theories of disease causation and cure. Theoretical assumptions and methodological suggestions have been borrowed from the anthropological sub-fields of ethnoscience, symbolic anthropology, and sociolinguistics. The ethnography is loosely organized around the natural progression taken by the Kuna when they discover that someone has fallen ill, diagnose his illness, and then set about devising strategies for restoring him to health. Earlier chapters scrutinize the component parts of this belief system, and these are brought together in a synthetic manner in the penultimate chapter. The ultimate theoretical objective is to demonstrate that cultural symbols can only be properly understood when viewed within the natural context in which they are used. The final chapter deals with cultural and social change in San Blas, with special emphasis on the island of Ustuppu, over the past 70 years.

The Roman festival of the Lupercalia is one of the most discussed issues in the field of pre-Christian Roman religion. Hardly a year goes by without an article on the subject appearing in a major Classics journal. But the festival presents a range of issues that individual articles cannot address. This thesis is an attempt to present a modern analysis of the phenomenon of the Lupercalia as a whole, including literary, archaeological and historical evidence on the subject. The first section presents the ancient sources on the Lupercalia, and is divided into five chapters, each analysing a particular aspect of the festival: fertility, purification, the importance of the wolf and the foundation myth, the mythology of Arcadian origins, and Caesar's involvement with the Lupercalia of 44 BC. The second section places the Lupercalia in a wider context, discussing the festival's topography and the course of the running Luperci, its relationship to other lustration rituals, and its position in the Roman calendar, ending with an appraisal of the changes it underwent in late Antiquity. The third section employs methods from linguistics, anthropology and comparative religion to show that the Lupercalia involved a ritual of initiation, which was also reflected in the Roman foundation myth. The central chapter of this section discusses the methodology used in comparative Indo-European mythology, and offers a case study that parallels the god of the festival (Faunus) with Rudra of Vedic Hinduism. The last chapter considers other parallels with Indian religion, especially the relationship between flamen and brahmin. The thesis challenges a number of established theories on the subject and offers new evidence to show that the festival has Indo-European origins, but also that it played an important role throughout Roman history.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University. BLDSC no. DX213068.

Using as a case example an ownership dispute over a Gitksan origin story depicted on the carved doors of University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology (MOA), this thesis contributes to an understanding of the ways in which hereditary prerogatives are being exercised in new contexts on the Northwest Coast and the political ramifications this entails for both museums and traditional systems of ownership. Drawing on interviews, archival materials, and published sources, this thesis details the ongoing history of the 'Ksan doors, from their commissioning in the early-1970s, as both an architectural feature of MOA and an example of contemporary Northwest Coast art, to their emergence as the focal point of an ownership dispute twenty years later that was escalated, if not precipitated, by a 1991 interpretive-dance performance of the origin story that they depict that involved Hereditary Chief Kenneth B. Harris. The claims and actions of Chief Harris and a Gitksan woman named Dolly Watts (whom many identify as the source of the dispute) are considered both ethnographically and historically, with a final emphasis on how MOA has in this case become a forum around and through which cultural meanings and identities are being asserted.