Why Winter Solstice Celebrations Persist
The El Castillo step pyramid (center) is part of the Chichén Itzá archaeological site in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. Steve Elmore/Getty Images At the ancient Maya-Toltec ceremonial comple…
Tag: Ritual
Digging up the Dead
The Slavia Field School in Mortuary Archaeology in Drawsko, Poland, unearthed a 400-year-old cemetery. Joanna Pearce Excavating a 17th-century cemetery in the small town of Drawsko, Polan…
Does Tattooing Boost Health?
A Samoan schoolteacher receives a full pe’a, the traditional tattoo generally worn by males. Christopher D. Lynn This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been rep…
How Rituals of Pain Help Heal
During the kavadi attam ritual in Mauritius, devotees are voluntarily pierced, in some cases hundreds of times. Dimitris Xygalatas Inside a stuffy, overcrowded, and overheated room, a gro…
India’s Third Gender Rises Again
Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, high priestess of a convent of hijras, takes selfies with admirers at India’s 2019 Kumbh Mela religious festival. Ina Goel Laxmi Narayan Tripathi sat on…
How Hearts Align in a Muslim Ritual
Devotees gather for the Sufi ritual of dhikr in downtown Istanbul. Dimitris Xygalatas In downtown Istanbul, Turks in religious garb filter into a large, multistory building. Behind the…
Witnessing an Endangered Puberty Ritual
Yanesha’ women and girls participate in a right-of-passage ritual called ponapnora in the remote community of Puellas Yuncullmas. Anna Luisa Daigneault It was before dawn. I lay curled…
Are Trophy Skulls Evidence of Civil War Among the Classic Maya?
[no-caption] Archivio J. Lange /Getty Images This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under Creative Commons. Two trophy skulls, recently discove…
League of Legends: rituality, interactions and events
In a previous blog post, we mentioned the subcultures originated around the consumption of a particular product or brand. We also mentioned how some events or activities can…
Yellow fragmentation
By Irene Stengs. Bangkok, Sunday May 5. With hundreds of others, I am queuing to enter the restricted area around the Grand Palace where the Royal Land Procession…
Chris Ball on his book, Exchanging Words
https://unmpress.com/books/exchanging-words/9780826358530 Meghanne Barker: This book moves, part by part, from within the park to outside of it, until we end up in France. How did you decide to…
The Sacrificial Puppies of the Shang Dynasty
[no-caption] Kazuo Honzawa/Getty Images During the last centuries of China’s Shang dynasty, which lasted from 1600 B.C. to 1050 B.C., ritual sacrifice was a well-oiled cultural phenomenon…
Book: Ritualisierung – Mediatisierung – Performance
Luger, M., Graf, F., & Budka, P. (Eds.). (2019). Ritualisierung – Mediatisierung – Performance. (Ritualization – Mediatization – Performance). Göttingen: V&R Unipress/…
Lecture: Ritual & Religion in Social and Cultural Anthropology
Together with Martin Luger, I am organizing a lecture on ritual and religion in social and cultural anthropology at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the…
How to Care for the Dead
Scientists have thought about burial—the act of interring a dead body—as a distinctly human behavior. So what happened when a group of paleoanthropologists discovered a primitive hominid that…
How Halloween Has Traveled the Globe
A young girl attends a Día de Muertos celebration in Mexico dressed in a Halloween costume. Peter Langer/Getty Images Wendy Fonarow arrived in Mexico City late in October…
Ritual Sacrifice May Have Shaped Dog Domestication
[no-caption] Marc Lester/Getty Images In the Siberian Arctic, the Ob River flows lazily across vast, cold stretches of tundra. In the city of Salekhard, Russia, where it meets…
Can Cryptocurrency Revolutionize the Rituals of Money?
[no-caption] Andrew Baker/Getty Images Objects—pieces of paper, coins, lumps of precious metal—may serve as currency and represent specific monetary values, but what underpins the exchang…
Lessons on Social Difference from an Ancient Maya City | Ryan Collins | TEDxBrandeisUniversity – This Anthro Life
Hey Listeners, we wanted to share some news. As you have probably noticed, TAL has been slow to post as of late. Both Ryan and Adam have finished…
The Basics of Mass Suicide
Mass suicide is not as uncommon as you’d think nor is it a modern phenomenon or even an event confined to crazed cults. Mass suicide is defined simply:…
Putting the Fun in Funeral
What describes your life? Is it a camera? A football? Maybe a plane? I have a hard time picking an object that sums up my life, but some…
Death of the Northern White Rhino
This week, the last male northern white rhino, Sudan, finally died from age-related complications along with a newly developed infection on the back of his right leg. To…
Coco: How Pixar uses Mexican culture to talk to kids about death
This past Friday night, my Disney-obsessed best friend dragged me to watch Coco with her at Harland Cinema. Okay, okay, you got me, she didn’t have to drag…
The Weird, Wild World of Mortuary Customs
A couple of months ago, I attended the funeral of a friend. Howard was almost 90 years old when he died, and not only did he live longer…