In the pre-Christian Sámi era places in the nature were believed to be sacred and connected to different gods or the spirit world. The sacred places often had a sacred place name and several of the sacred place names are still here today. One of the sacred places were sáiva-lakes which were believed to be sacred lakes that had two lakebeds, where the second or lower lakebed were considered connected to the spirit world. Sáiva-lakes were considered to be great fishing lakes but there were some rules that the fisherman had to obey to such as there had to be complete silence while fishing otherwise the fish would disappear down to the second lakebed. The sáiva-lakes were also connected to sacrificial practises, there were both sacrifices to the lakes or to sieidi stones on the lake shore for fishing luck or as a thank you for the fishes received. There were also sometimes bigger sacrificial places with different animal bones, sieidi stones and sometimes metal objects.Little is known or written about sáiva-lakes and most descriptions of sáiva-lakes comes from historic sources. The aim of this thesis is to research and contribute to more knowledge about sáiva-lakes and sacred traditions by lakes and watercourses in Northern Scandinavia. The main focus is to study sáiva-lakes both from a sacred and a nature perspective as well as to analyse how sáiva-lakes relate to archaeological sites and other sacred places and place names in their surroundings.The theoretic perspective applied on the thesis is mainly new animism and phenomenology which is applied to give a perspective on the landscape and nature. The study is based on archaeological material, historic sources, field excavations done by the author and a GIS analysis. The study shows that sáiva-lakes were connected to sacrificial practises and that sáiva-lakes often have other sacred places and places names in areas around the lakes. In a larger perspective the study of sáiva-lakes shows the perspective of a cultural landscape, and the aspect of sacred traditions by lakes and watercourses.

The focus of this study is on the South Fork of the Teton River Canyon Settlement, a previously unevaluated historic settlement associated with the history of the Métis in Montana. The site is located along the South Fork of the Teton River, approximately thirty miles west of Choteau, Montana, and was once occupied by Métis families fleeing persecution for alleged involvement in the Northwest Rebellion of 1885. The study establishes precedent for the site's inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places and addresses the potential for the site's designation as a Traditional Cultural Property, despite the challenges inherent in such an approach.This study contributes to both existing documentation of the Métis narrative across the state of Montana and to the ongoing discussion among historic preservation professionals concerning the viability and possible revision of National Register Bulletin 38: Guidelines for Evaluating and Documenting Traditional Cultural Properties.

This dissertation begins with the hypothesis that sacred places and their stories are connected in complex ways. This refers to place-based sacred places; that is, places which gain their sacred qualities from their natural environment. The two main examples used are both located in the U.K.: Puzzlewood and the Forest of Dean, and Stonehenge. It is further theorized that the stories within these places are repositories of an ancient wisdom; a memory of what it means to live with a sense of the divine in nature. Paying attention to those stories, and to the presences found in these places, may engender a greater appreciation of the interconnectedness of the human world to the natural world and the sacred in nature. Thus an ethic of care for that storied place may develop, and a more harmonious relationship between people and the larger environment may come about. Such an ethic of care may be central in finding solutions to current environmental problems, and preventing future ones. Thus a new story about our relationship with the Earth, based on ancient wisdom, may become the conduit for a kinder, gentler future, where peace, social justice, and environmental care inform both cultural paradigms and individual worldviews. This fusion of stories, the sacred, and the sacred in nature as a way towards self-realization, the development of an ethic of care, and the vision a more harmonious future, is the unique contribution of this dissertation. Bringing together these diverse strands required a multidisciplinary approach with multiple methodologies, particularly phenomenology to account for experiences in or of sacred places, and hermeneutics to address the stories. In addition, there was a need to include some of the basics of system theory to explore both natural and social systems, and for philosophical inquiry to discuss spirituality and cosmology. Other elements of this dissertation include a background of the ways in which history is presented, how this contributes to the paradigms and worldviews found in the modern Western world, and how those paradigms affect thinking about sacredness in nature, as well as a discussion of why stories are central to all of our lives, and how places come to be imbued with stories. All of this is then set within a framework of the principles of the deep ecology movement. To bring all this together with a cohesive collection of methods, the concentric circles model was created and is explained. Additionally, this dissertation presents five criteria that could prove useful in assessing sacredness in place when such sacred sites are contested, as happens quite often. This too may help to protect (care for) these places. / Graduate / 0422 / 0322 / michelleabeauchamp@gmail.com

Identity and Suyu Affiliation in the Inca EmpireBy means of two discrete examples, this study attempts to show that the Incas forged imperial identities using the division of Andean space in four suyus, or Tawantinsuyu. In the case of the cult of the sun at Titicaca, groups from all four suyus participated. Through the resettlement of people from all four, the Incas generalized the solar cult to the entire empire. The other case deals with the cults to the snow-covered mountains of Arequipa, called huacas pacariscas. In this instance only mitimaes from the same suyu where the mountain was located participated. It is noteworthy that —as in the region surounding Cuzco— the suyu division in the larger territory was related to sacred places on the landscape, and in the instances explored here, to the most sacred sites in the Andean territory. / Mediante dos casos concretos se intenta demostrar que los incas forjaban identidades imperiales en base a la división de su territorio en cuatro suyus, llamada Tawantinsuyu. En el primer caso se trata del culto al Sol en la isla de Titicaca, en el cual participaban mitimaes procedentes de los cuatro suyus. A través de la reubicación de personas procedentes de los cuatro suyus, los incas generalizaron este culto a todo el imperio. El otro caso se refiere al culto rendido a los nevados de Arequipa, llamados huacas pacariscas. Estos cultos fueron mantenidos sólo por mitimaes del suyu en que se ubicaba el nevado, forjando identidades también a un nivel local. Además, hay que destacar que, al igual que en la región del Cuzco, la división en suyus se relacionaba con los lugares sagrados y, en este caso, con los sitios sagrados más importantes del territorio andino.

Šarīf al-Raḍī, auteur incontournable pour qui souhaite étudier la poésie arabe à travers son histoire, peut difficilement être catalogué. En effet, bien qu’il ait profité des courant littéraire qui l’ont précédé, ce poète précoce, critique littéraire, juriste, linguiste et émir du hadj a petit à petit développé son propre genre poétique à travers les ḥiğāziyyāt, composant ainsi des poésies d’amour autour des lieux saints du pèlerinage. Cette étude visera donc dans un premier temps à comprendre ce qui fait l’originalité de ce genre en son temps pour enfin tenter de saisir la portée de l’influence des ḥiğāziyyāt sur la poésie arabe des siècles qui ont succédé à notre poète. / Šarīf al-Raḍī, major writer whose work has to be studied by anyone interested in Arabic poetry throughout time, can hardly be classified. While he took advantage from past literary movements, this poet, who started writing at an early age and became a literary critic as well as a linguist, a jurist and the emir of hajj, gradually developed a new poetical genre through his ḥiğāziyyāt. He thus composed love poems that revolve around the sacred places of pilgrimage. This study aims at understanding what made this genre unique in its time before trying to grasp the scope of the ḥiğāziyyāt’s influence on Arabic poetry in the following centuries.

RESUMÉ V ANGLICKÉM JAZYCE Since the 1980s, a revival of religious traditions, whose continuity was disrupted considerably in the Soviet-era Russia, has been in motion in the entire area of Siberia and Central Asia, among the so called 'rooted nations'. While major religious groups, such as buddhism and islam, could successfully pick up the threads of their religious traditions thanks to their written resources; religions based mainly on oral transmission are facing the opposite situation, shamanism not being an exception. Intense tension coming from the spirituality of their own ethnic traditions, which spontaneously opened after many years of the Communist secularization, in the case of shamanism hit the barriers of how to adequately re- establish the disrupted traditions (lack of living bearers and experts on their own traditions, initiated and uninitiated shamans, and other ceremony specialists, ignorance of symbolism). The whole process of rebirth, revival or revitalisation of shamanism is entirely consistent with the context of current issues concerning constituent societies, which naturally carries the legacy of Soviet culture. Political and economic changes in the post- Soviet space also enabled the bearers of traditions to become open to a wide range of new influences from abroad. Revitalization...