Thesis (doctoral)--Zhongguo she hui ke xue yuan yan jiu sheng yuan, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 262-266)

Thesis (Ph. D. in Anthropology)--Vanderbilt University, Aug. 2007. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 112 p. : ill. (some col.), col. maps. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 100-102).

Since the nineteenth century, the provenances, functions, and defining characteristics of a group of Insular portable containers, commonly called house-, tomb-, or church-shaped shrines, have been of interest to a number of disciplines such as History of Art, Archaeology, and Museology. As nearly all Insular house-shaped shrines were found empty or in fragmentary states, their original contents are a continued point of scholarly debate. In response to these examinations and based in part on the seventh-century riddle on the Chrismal found in the Ænigmata of Aldhelm, bishop of Sherborne, this thesis proposes questions such as: what type of container is best categorised as an Insular house-shaped shrine, what were their original contents and functions, and do their forms and materials communicate any specific cultural message(s)? By engaging with the two core concepts of functionality and materiality, which are further informed through direct object handlings of select Insular portable shrines, this thesis examines the forms and materials used in their construction. Taking these questions and the historical conversation into account, this thesis draws on the terminology employed to denote sacral containers in Old Irish and Latin works, which include hagiography and penitentials, discussions on the Temple of Jerusalem within early medieval exegesis, depictions of Insular house-shaped shrines and analogous forms in stonework and other mediums, and antiquarian, archaeological, and anthropological accounts of the discovery of Insular house-shaped shrines to more fully examine the functions of these enigmatic boxes. In doing so, the place of Insular house-shaped shrines within early medieval art, both Continental and Insular, will be more fully outlined. Additionally, a working definition of what can constitute an Insular house-shaped shrine is developed by examining their materiality, form, and prescribed functional terms, such as ‘reliquary’ and ‘chrismal’. Finally, this thesis shows that the functions of Insular house-shaped shrines are best understood in an overlapping and pluralistic sense, namely, that they were containers for a variety of forms of sacral matter and likely were understood as relics themselves only in later periods, which modern antiquarians later used as meaning-making devices in their writings on the spread of the early medieval ‘Celtic’ Church.

With the figure of fox as the emblematic emissary, Inari—arguably the most popular Shinto deity in Japan—is often deemed polytheistic due to its diverse blessings, whether agricultural, commercial, or industrial, or all of these at once. In the common historical account, Inari worship began as an agricultural ritual and, affected by the soaring monetary economy from the seventeenth century onward, it attained other predicates. Through two main studies on Inari shrines, this dissertation refutes that limited narrative and demonstrates that the agricultural attribute was in turn accentuated with the monetary economy. One study revolves around the Mimeguri Shrine, enshrined in Tokyo at the turn of the eighteenth century by the magnate Mitsui family for their commerce. The other study deciphers the concatenation of the Coal Mountain Tutelary Shrine and Tōka Shrine, originally established in the late eighteenth century by the local feudal administration, Miike-han, for their coal production in the current Fukuoka prefecture. With these shrines, the respective commercial and coal enterprises were rendered agricultural as though contained within the dominant Tokugawa order, which idealized the rice-based economy. Nurturing in effect the profit of the Mitsui family and the extra revenue of Mike-han—constituting a surplus, as this dissertation argues—the Inari worships of the merchant and the regional administration produced labor times. The presence of those shrines in this study serves as the metonymy of a contradictory process whereby even a deity was “alienated” under the command of money as if were fooled by its own emissary, the fox.

Early Church member W. W. Phelps wrote, "Cumorah...is well calculated to stand in this generation, as a monument of marvelous works and wonders" (Latter-day Saints' Messenger and Advocate, November 1835, 2:221). With a stately monument of the Angel Moroni cresting its summit, and a yearly pageant commemorating salient events associated with the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, it is fulfilling the exact role that Phelps envisioned. However, the general population of the Church is relatively unfamiliar with the history of this significant Latter-day Saint landmark. The following thesis is an in depth study and documentation of certain historical aspects of the Hill Cumorah as a significant, sacred geographic location to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

No description available.

The world of the late antique Mediterranean is characterized by its saints’ shrines—structures that housed the tombs, relics, and other objects associated with holy entities. These shrines—these distinct places—differed in size, status, and degree of ecclesiastical and bureaucratic recognition, but together formed a widespread network of pilgrimage destinations, arenas of miraculous healings, and gathering points for bodies both human and divine, alive and dead, afflicted and non-afflicted. In facilitating such mingling, the shrines served as earthly, localized sites of holiness and saintly intervention, and yet were also involved in broader social, theological, and economic affairs. This dissertation focuses on one late antique shrine—that of Saints Cyrus and John, which likely reached its height of usage and popularity in the sixth and seventh centuries CE. Once located at Menouthis (modern Abuqir) near the Canopic mouth of the Nile (just outside of Alexandria), the shrine is now characterized by its near-absolute lack of material remains. For that reason, it has not been subjected to the types of material analyses performed on comparative sites with extant remains. Moreover, the only literary accounts of the shrine are attributed to a single author: Sophronios, the patriarch of Jerusalem (c. 560-638 CE). Sophronios’ writing is vivid, however, and he depicts the shrine as a vibrant, visceral space of material, bodily, and faunal entanglements. Blood gushes, tumors burst, and figs appear. Snakes call to one another, attendants hasten, crowds gather, and camel feces are revealed as a saint-sanctioned cure for leprosy. A center for sensory encounters of every kind, the shrine literally overflows with human, animal, and material occupants. Sophronios’ texts therefore invite a material, synesthetic analysis of the space, context, and participants of the shrine. This dissertation utilizes methods from studies in the materiality of religion (including so-called “new materialisms”) in order to: 1) build a material analysis of the shrine of Saints Cyrus and John based on its literary sources, and 2) model how scholars might better grapple with late antique pilgrimage sites (both extant and non-extant) and the materia of divine healing. Individually, the dissertation chapters offer separate ways of reassessing and reconstructing the shrine of Saints Cyrus and John. Taken together, they constitute a methodological intervention in the broader study of late antique saints’ shrines.

The present dissertation has as object of study the pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Divina Pastora, which happens in the city with name similar to the Saint, located in the state of Sergipe. Had as goal analyze, through ethnographic study, the ritualistic and symbolic dimensions of this religious event, observing it as a ritual process, highlighting certain aspects of the system of representations, beliefs, values and ideas expressed not only through words but mainly through ritual actions performed by pilgrims. During the fieldwork, the achievement of direct observation and interviews allowed to reach an insertion densest at the practices and representations experienced by pilgrims. Thus, was possible to understand the motivations that prompted the devotees to leave in walk to meet their patron saint and the meanings attributed to their devotional act. For analysis of the rituals was used as reference the studies of Victor Turner. / A presente dissertação tem por objeto de estudo a peregrinação ao Santuário de Divina Pastora, que acontece no município de nome homólogo ao da Santa, localizado no Estado de Sergipe. Teve como objetivo analisar, por meio de estudo etnográfico, as dimensões simbólicas e ritualísticas do referido evento religioso, observando-o como um processo ritual, destacando certos aspectos do sistema de representações, crenças, valores e ideias expressos não somente através de discursos, mas, principalmente, através de ações rituais realizadas pelos peregrinos. No trabalho de campo a realização de observação direta e entrevistas permitiram alcançar uma inserção mais densa nas práticas e representações vivenciadas pelos peregrinos. Assim, foi possível compreender as motivações que instigaram os devotos a partir em caminhada ao encontro de seu santo protetor e os sentidos atribuídos ao seu ato devocional. Para análise dos rituais tomou-se como referência os estudos de Victor Turner.

Journeying to sacred places is an ancient yet contemporarily popular tradition in the Hindu society of India. At the outset of this thesis, the philosophical foundations and general patterns of pilgrimage practice in West Bengal, India, where fieldwork was conducted, are discussed. Case studies of three West Bengali pilgrimage centres — Tarakeswar, Navadvip and Tarapith, which are Śaiva, Vaiṣṇava and Śākta sacred places, respectively — reveal the considerable diversity in the regional pilgrimage tradition. In analysing each of these centres, ethnographic data on the social and economic organisation of specialised religious places, roles of sacred specialists, beliefs regarding the deities, patterns of ritual, and social characteristics and behaviour of pilgrims are presented. The literature on pilgrimage is reviewed in search of theoretical tools for the task of generalising about pilgrimage, inclusive of the evident diversity. Analysis and criticism of existing theories indicates that analysts have focused on limited aspects of pilgrimage practice which conform to disciplinary boundaries rather than seeking the patterned consistencies which define the full institution. Comparison of the three case studies reveals that the variation in religious patterns in the centres relates to wider traditions of religious culture in Bengal: the several strands of pilgrimage tradition generally replicate the sub-traditions of Bengali Hinduism and patterns of belief and practice in any sacred place are closely associated with the religious tradition of the regional cult which dominates that centre. It is possible, however, to identify two levels at which the diversity of the pilgrimage institution is founded in systematic conceptual unity. Both levels concern the meaning of pilgrimage within prevalent patterns of Bengali Hinduism. The explicit meaning of pilgrimage in the conscious thought of participants emphasises the journey to the deity's terrestrial abode in search of interaction with the divine. Implicit within this patterned behaviour are important Hindu metaphysical concepts — the implicit ideology of pilgrimage — which invest pilgrimage with meaning derived from abstract Hindu religious thought.