They Are Preserved Forever: Visualising the Memorialisation of Archipelagic Religious and Community Identities

James Moore,Sarah Jane Gibbon

doi:10.3390/rel12110999

Abstract

In this article, we respond to the Special Issue theme by addressing the complexities of religious identities in archipelagic communities where the dual role of the sea as conduit and barrier has impacted the parish system, farming estates and community life. The focus is primarily on nineteenth and twentieth century testimonies and material evidence, approached within a broader chronological context going back to the Middle Ages. Using qualitative GIS mapping of the habitations of the people memorialised in two burial grounds in Orkney, we visualise the active role of the islander in constructing identities linking people and place at parish, community and personal levels. The results show that the people with memorial stones were buried within a long-established parochial structure but did not adhere to ecclesiastical norms, with district burial grounds being favoured over a single parish churchyard. We conclude that this approach demonstrates the complexities of identities within an island community and identify its applicability in other contexts combining material culture and historical documentation to investigate religious island identities.

Highlights

As Rainbird (1999) has discussed in detail, islands have long been viewed as distinct and different in Western thought, isolated from contact with other cultural groups and ripe for utilisation by researchers as natural experiments or cultural laboratories (Evans 1973, 1977)
In the process of visualising the material remains of religious memorialisation, we explore the variations between ecclesiastical structures and local and individual expressions of identity and belonging within a chronological context reaching back to the medieval period
In this paper we look at two of the burial grounds, Egilsay Parish churchyard and Scockness burial ground, because they are in the medieval parish of Egilsay and the medieval bishopric estate

Summary

Introduction

As Rainbird (1999) has discussed in detail, islands have long been viewed as distinct and different in Western thought, isolated from contact with other cultural groups and ripe for utilisation by researchers as natural experiments or cultural laboratories (Evans 1973, 1977) Such ideas have been rightly critiqued (e.g., Rainbird 1999, 2007) and reformulated (e.g., DiNapoli and Leppard 2018). As both authors are resident within the Orkney archipelago, and one of the authors has ancestors from Rousay and Egilsay, we reject the view of both the individual islands of Rousay and Egilsay and the larger group of Orkney islands as being culturally isolated This is not to deny that there is the scope for a degree of insularity, but rather to recognise that the sea provides both a means of connection as well as a barrier to movement and communication It is the sea which determines inter-island connectedness and separation more than the edge of the land

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion