Ritual Art Research Articles

The Kebo Ketan ritual art as a communication process in delivering the message of social cohesiveness in the Sekaralas village community, Ngawi, East-Java

The <i>Kebo Ketan</i> ritual art as a communication process in delivering the message of social cohesiveness in the Sekaralas village community, Ngawi, East-Java

The League of Endarkenment: Hakim Bey and the Way of Disappearance into Nature

AbstractAmong his later works, Peter Lamborn Wilson—known to many as Hakim Bey—began performing ritual art pieces in Upstate New York, which he referred to as acts of “Endarkenment.” This paper explores Endarkenment from the beginning of its organic growth in the fertile soil of The Temporary Autonomous Zone, to its blossoming as fully‐realized ritual art, nourished by Bey's intention of returning enchantment back to the land. Through parallels in the works of antiquity, Surrealism, Georges Bataille, Giordano Bruno, Djuna Barnes, and others, an adumbration of the body of Endarkenment comes into view at the very moment of its disappearance into Nature, giving an idea of what Endarkenment could be as a fully realized form of internal transformation.

Devakkooth: A Ritual Dance Art from an Islet in North Malabar

Many rituals in North Malabar can be read as complex cultural spaces that articulate subaltern concerns to a certain extent. However, rituals also perpetuate hegemonic ideologies dictated by and embedded within the caste system. Theyyam, a traditional ritual art in North Malabar, carries ritualistic elements of worship and penance along with the convergence of various forms like dance, painting and music. In Theyyam, a traditional ritual art in North Malabar, the female impersonation of the Mother Goddess and female deities occurs in the transvestite ritualistic performances by men. Devakkooth, or the dance of the goddess, a ritual art performed in an islet or thuruth, is widely regarded as the only Theyyam performed by women from the Malaya community, where women impersonate the goddess. Devakkooth is different from other performing arts because of its performance style and self-reflexivity on the thuruth culture. This article discusses key aspects of Devakkooth: the myth, the song of the performance, body movements, geographical specialities and its cultural and ritualistic self-reflexivity. This paper explores the unique aspects of Devakkooth as a female performance artistic dance ritual.

First Peoples’ knowledge leads scientists to reveal ‘fairy circles’ and termite linyji are linked in Australia

In the past, when scientists encountered and studied ‘new’ environmental phenomena, they rarely considered the existing knowledge of First Peoples (also known as Indigenous or Aboriginal people). The scientific debate over the regularly spaced bare patches (so-called fairy circles) in arid grasslands of Australian deserts is a case in point. Previous researchers used remote sensing, numerical modelling, aerial images and field observations to propose that fairy circles arise from plant self-organization. Here we present Australian Aboriginal art and narratives, and soil excavation data, that suggest these regularly spaced, bare and hard circles in grasslands are pavement nests occupied by Drepanotermes harvester termites. These circles, called linyji (Manyjilyjarra language) or mingkirri (Warlpiri language), have been used by Aboriginal people in their food economies and for other domestic and sacred purposes across generations. Knowledge of the linyji has been encoded in demonstration and oral transmission, ritual art and ceremony and other media. While the exact origins of the bare circles are unclear, being buried in deep time and Jukurrpa, termites need to be incorporated as key players in a larger system of interactions between soil, water and grass. Ecologically transformative feedbacks across millennia of land use and manipulation by Aboriginal people must be accounted for. We argue that the co-production of knowledge can both improve the care and management of those systems and support intergenerational learning within and across diverse cultures.

УКРАЇНСЬКІ ПАРЕМІЇ В ЕТНОГРАФІЧНОМУ ДОРОБКУ СТЕПАНА НОСА

The article, based on the study of the updated works of S. D. Nos and archival documents, analyzes the scientific work of the scientist in the field of ethnography and folkloristics on the example of the study and use in his works of Ukrainian folk proverbs, which are systematized according to genre: proverbs and sayings, beliefs and omens, riddles, fairy tales. It is noted that proverbs and sayings, which the scientist used when preparing his scientific works, were the most used in the work of the ethnographer. It is emphasized that numerous proverbs and sayings are used in works on traditional calendar and family rites, ethnology, ethnomedicine, national cuisine, in particular in his works such as «About diseases and how to prevent them», «To the ploughman», «In every nation own nature» etc. It has been established that the largest number of proverbs, sayings, parables, superstitions and fairy tales are available in the handwritten researches of S. D. Nos, which are stored in archival institutions and library departments, as well as on the pages of the journal «Osnova» and «Chernihiv provincial gazettes». Prose and poetic paremies, which reflect the everyday life and traditions of the Ukrainian people, song creativity, ritual art, which testify to the ethnographer’s deep knowledge of Ukrainian society, its history and culture, are considered.

The Sense of Resisting Power in the Performance of the Makidi Kooththu (Art Form) - A Study

The Makidi Kooththu is a significant art form in Sri Lankan traditional Art Theatre. This argues the disputes among the people who arrived and the people who already there in a ritual form. In the later period, it has grown up to the level of a space which is incorporating people even from the social power space, and debating at the performance level. This has the feature of exposing the power that cannot be able to interpret the opposition directly, converting and presenting it as a ritual art form creation in their cultural space. The important mechanism used here is to allow the audience to have conversation during the performance level of Kooththu and to make them think. The ritual form which is in practice among people is one of the strategies used by them to expose this sense of resisting power. This Makidi Kooththu is a People's stage device which is created in a ritual art form theatre in order to curtail the power. The factors such as the way the ritual form is managed and the manner the power is resisted are analysed here.

Philosophical Conception of Stable Verse Forms (Based on Yeghishe Charents’s Poetry Analy-sis)

The article is dedicated to the analysis of stable verse forms in the poetry of great Armenian poet Yeghishe Charents (1897-1937), introducing the structural opportunities for the development of the theme and the idea with some philosophical logic. It has long been criticized that the structure of these verse forms has a clear logic, the roots of which come from ancient and medieval ritual art. Many of the stable forms of Roman poetry (sonnet, triolet, rondel, rondeau, etc.) arose from widespread national dance songs that were popular in medieval Europe, inheriting the lengthy stanza of three parts typical to them, which, in its turn, is associated with the triad often encountered in antique tragedies and odas (strophe, antistrophe and epode). Triolet, sonnet and rondeau resemble ancient superstrophe in their structure, showing the same logic of the development of the theme. Stable forms from Eastern poetry (ruba’i, ghazal, mukhammaz, etc.) also have sound principles of structure and rhyme, which contribute to the expression of their philosophical content. The poetry of Yeghishe Charents, rich in stable verse forms, provides a vast opportunity to demonstrate the philosophical conception of the connection between their form and content.

Action and seduction

Action and seduction

READING THEYYAM AS AN ARCHIVE OF THE SUBALTERN COMMUNITY OF NORTHERN KERALA

Theyyam is a ritual art form exclusive to Northern Kerala, performed by the Scheduled Castes &amp; Scheduled Tribes. It is the socio-religious movements that gave them a platform to put forth their problems and change the attitude and treatment of upper castes towards them. Until then, it was a medium for them to present the trauma and victimhood long endured by their community under casteism. This is well fabricated in various elements surrounding Theyyam, such as Thottam Pattu. Theyyam also projects the kinds of ritual and spiritual practices of their community. So, this research attempts to read Theyyam as an archive of the subaltern community by borrowing the Archive concept defined by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in her essay 'The Rani of Sirmur: An Essay in Reading the Archives.' As the art form is linked with religious beliefs, it has survived over the years, recognising the community's struggles under casteism and their heroic figures. Thus, this research also attempts to have a close reading of each element surrounding it.

Images of transformation in the Lower Amazon and the performativity of Santarém and Konduri pottery

This article analyses Amazonian objects of the Santarém and Konduri styles (1100–1600 AD), many of them with images of beings in transformation, adopting a framework that goes beyond an emphasis on the visual to recuperate pragmatic aspects of the rituals in which the objects were involved, apprehended through the formal properties and affordances of the artifacts themselves. Different rules are identified in the construction of these artifacts, some displaying anthropomorphic beings that transmute into zoomorphic beings, others that are revealed through the manipulation of artifacts or through a change in perspective enabled by a change in viewing angle. Composite bodies also constitute an important focus of attention. While the Santarém objects are distinguished by the standardization and reproduction of their design, suggesting a social intensification of a set of practices, the chimerical Konduri figurations point to a relationship closer to the paradoxical dynamic of ritual art, which works to reveal and conceal simultaneously.

Does Art Bring Us Together? An Empirical Approach to the Evolutionary Aesthetics of Ellen Dissanayake

Over the last several decades Ellen Dissanayake has developed an evolutionary theory of art that views all art as having evolved for the function of promoting group cohesion. This theory is not without its critics, yet it has received little empirical attention. In this article I propose a more modest formulation of Dissanayake’s hypothesis and proceed to test it using a cross-cultural analysis. I rely on the ethnographic databases of the electronic Human Relations Area Files (eHRAF) as well as the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) to compare proxies for group cohesion with measures of ritual art, a subset of art that I theoretically define. While my results cannot decisively prove or disprove Dissanayake’s hypothesis, they do lend empirical support to her views. This is promising not only for her views but for outlining ways of empirically testing other views in evolutionary aesthetics.

A post-colonial instance in globalized North Malabar: is teyyam an “art form”?

The ritual of the teyyams, in north Kerala, has been referred to as “art form,” “folk art,” “ritual art,” and such, not only by tourist guides and leaflets, but also by academic works and, more and more, in the everyday speech of local communities.1 In this article we intend to question the adequacy of such categorizations, in light of plausible definitions of art and folklore, and investigate the motivations for such classifications, considering the correlations of social and political power in post-colonial circumstances. We defend a need for an integrated, informed and careful address to the cult of the teyyams (like any other post-colonial reality) and argue that the post-colonial discourse, despite its advantages over colonial rhetoric, can still be improved upon. It can be improved upon by acknowledging, besides the obvious consequences of the colonialist cultural and political heritage, the traces of the local, more ancient or discrete influences, interlaced with the later colonial heritage, and can provide clues for understanding of the present in its complexity. The example of the teyyams is not a random choice but rather a specific example in which the history of the relations of power, which continues from pre-colonial times, is visible on the one hand in local political discussions, and on the other hand has been fully inscribed, as tension and transgression, into the ritual in a metaphorical way.

Diaspora, religion, and identity: the case of Theyyam in the Indian diaspora

ABSTRACT Globalization associated with development in information and communication technologies ushered diasporas to play an important role in marketing the homeland culture globally. Among the many traditional Indian art forms that are getting visible transnationally today is the Theyyam. Theyyam is a traditional ritual art form of worship observed in the Kannur and Kasargod districts of Northern Kerala state in India. It is the folk God for North Malabaris which is accompanied by dance and other rituals. There are approximately four hundred varieties of Theyyams and several of them are performed in the diasporas. This article argues that when the Theyyam is performed transnationally, the true essence of the ritual art form changed compared to its performance in the original settings and thereby opens up for commodification. Ethnographic data for this study derives from in-depth interviews with Theyyam artists, informal conversations with Theyyam devotees and villagers besides observation of Theyyam performances.

Kajian Semiotika Tuturan Mantra Tradisi Pertunjukkan Jaranan di Desa Perangat Baru Kecamatan Marangkayu Kabupaten Kutai Kartanegara Provinsi Kalimantan Timur

Literature is an expression of the human person in the form of experiences, thoughts, feelings, ideas, passions, beliefs in a form of concrete images that evoke charm with language tools. Jaranan performance is a ritual art activity carried out by the community as entertainment for the people of the village of Warat Baru and also to resist reinforcements. Semiotics is a science that studies a sign and the meaning in a sign, which is divided into three types, namely icons, indexes and symbols. The purpose of this study is to describe the shape of icons, indices and symbols in the speech of the Jaranan performance mantra in Prangat Baru village, Marangkayu district, Kutai Kartanegara regency. The data collection method used in this research is qualitative research, namely observation, structured interviews, recording, and collection tools in the form of interview instruments, recordings, photos, videos, and translation. The results of the research from the data of mantra speech using semiotic analysis obtained 3 utterances in the form of the 'Prince' icon, 'Sesaji', 'incense lan sela'. Obtained 4 indexes 'Sun Puji Maring Pangeran Mugi Sometimes Mitro Sami', 'Suro Diro Joyo Diningrat Melts Dening Pangastuti', 'Enjoy the offering of supados, enjoy smoothness and protection', 'kula sukani, let Kangge eat the ringgit wayangipun kula'. Get 3 symbols 'Yellow Janur', 'Semeblak koyo Geni', 'Jabang Bayine'. Obtained 4 indexes 'Sun Puji Maring Pangeran Mugi Sometimes Mitro Sami', 'Suro Diro Joyo Diningrat Melts Dening Pangastuti', 'Enjoy the offering of supados, enjoy smoothness and protection', 'kula sukani, let Kangge eat the ringgit wayangipun kula'. Get 3 symbols 'Yellow Janur', 'Semeblak koyo Geni', 'Jabang Bayine'. Obtained 4 indexes 'Sun Puji Maring Pangeran Mugi Sometimes Mitro Sami', 'Suro Diro Joyo Diningrat Melts Dening Pangastuti', 'Enjoy the offering of supados, enjoy smoothness and protection', 'kula sukani, let Kangge eat the ringgit wayangipun kula'. Get 3 symbols 'Yellow Janur', 'Semeblak koyo Geni', 'Jabang Bayine'.

Uinta Fremont rock art in southwestern Wyoming: Marking the Fremont northern periphery

The Fremont Culture, identified throughout eastern Utah and northwestern Colorado, is best known for Classic Vernal Style anthropomorphs. These figures show large trapezoidal bodies decorated with necklaces and crowned with elaborate horned headgear usually embellished with earrings or hairbobs. Recent research has identified Classic Vernal Style and other Fremont anthropomorphs at seven southwestern Wyoming sites extending from the Utah/Wyoming border to Rock Springs, more than 60 km north. This Fremont rock art indicates the presence of actual groups with a Fremont world view who were marking the northern periphery of their territory with a fully developed version of their ritual rock art complex.

The Development of Jathilan Performance as an Adaptive Strategy Used by Javanese Farmers

&lt;p&gt;This paper is aimed at describing adaptive strategy used by supported community to preserve and develop &lt;em&gt;Jathilan&lt;/em&gt;, Javanese traditional ritual art performance. In describing the aim, the most fundamental nature and meaning attached in the artistic performance had been studied. Qualitative method was employed through literature review and field study. This study located in Magelang Regency, Central Java. The &lt;em&gt;Jathilan&lt;/em&gt; in this paper is seen as cultural identity for its supported community, that has a specific role socially and ritually. The supported community, in addition, believes that this traditional art is not only acted as an entertainment, but also a facilitator for their hopes and prays. Despite some changes have influenced the differences of style and variation in the performing art, however, the changes themselves are the manifestation of adaptive strategy had from the supported community to preserve and conserve &lt;em&gt;Jathilan&lt;/em&gt; performing art.&lt;/p&gt;

The Ritual Art of the Ganesh Utsav in Trinidad

The Ganesh festival, or utsav, is relatively new to Trinidad’s landscape as a public performance of Hinduism. Although it has been a very important celebration for over a century within select diasporic Hindu communities in Trinidad, particularly in the southern part of the island where it is said to have begun, the practice has become more widespread since the early 1990s. Many of the villages make their own mūrtis (idols or images). Focusing on the festival’s interpretation within the Caribbean context, this article highlights preliminary findings gathered from fieldwork on the ritual art of mūrti-making and the function of the image within the Hindu festival in Trinidad.

KONTRADIKSI KEBIJAKAN INDUSTRI KREATIF DAN USAHA PELESTARIAN KESENIAN TRADISI (Kasus Seni Pertunjukan Luambek)

Arrival of social change comes as a result of the process of industrializationand globalization of information, if viewed from all aspects, influenced by such changes. One aspect is the art, from the influence of these changes, the art began to shift toward commercial dimension of art. So is the case in government policy on the development and preservation of art and culture, also insists on the principle of industrial and creative economy. The policy on the one hand, has a positive impact (in economic terms), but on the other hand also have a negative impact, namely the commercialization, commodification, and profane without considering the cultural assumptions. resulting in a decline in ethical values and aesthetic, and neglect the development and preservation of ritual art tradition in the context of the natural cultural community, because they are not going to bring benefits in terms of economy and creative industries.such as the deterioration condition of art performances luambek in Pariaman Minangkabau society. Contradictions creative industries policy and conservation efforts in the arts need special attention by the relevant parties, especially in preparing the formula the preservation of traditional art concepts in the context of supporting the community. Keyword: contradiction, creative industries and traditional arts

TARI KERAWUHAN DI BALI : SANGHYANG DEDARI SEBUAH KAJIAN SOSIAL

Dance kerawuhan (trance dance) is one of permorming art for the ritual event who stile a life in Bali. Sanghyang Dedari dance for its example, and used by Balinese society to ritual dance. Now that ritual art changed to be performance for tourisme.Key word: trance, wali, Sanghyang Dedari.

‘We have never been behaviourally modern’: The implications of Material Engagement Theory and Metaplasticity for understanding the Late Pleistocene record of human behaviour

The emergence of the human mind is a topic that has been of considerable interest to the disciplines of archaeology, cognitive archaeology and neuroscience in recent years. Most research in this regard has tended to focus on what material culture associated with early Homo sapiens might reflect in terms of the timing and nature of early cognitive capacities and ‘behavioural modernity’. In recent years, however, both the concept of ‘behavioural modernity’ and its passive treatment of material culture have become highly criticised. Yet, until now, there has remained some confusion as to where to turn in its absence. Recently, Lambros Malafouris outlined the theoretical frameworks of Material Engagement Theory and Metaplasticity as a means to understand the active role of material culture in the constitution of the human mind. However, despite Malafouris' application of these theoretical frameworks to a series of case studies previously associated with human cognitive ‘modernity’ (including tool manufacture, early body ornamentation, and ritual art), the Late Pleistocene archaeological community has done little to engage with this work. In this paper I outline and then apply MET and Metaplasticity to two further case studies often considered pertinent to the development of human cognition in the Late Pleistocene – namely, long-distance resource sourcing and/or exchange and the development of composite technologies. In doing so, I hope to demonstrate that there is somewhere to turn in the wake of the statement ‘we have never been behaviourally modern’.