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The Saami shamanic drum in Rome
No full textWhat is the history of the drum, which once arrived from the Saami area in northernmost Europe to the collections of an Italian museum, L. Pigorini museum? At the moment, it is the only Saami drum the existence of which is certain in Italy. Saami drums were probably popular objects of export in the 17th and 18th centuries. Missionaries and explorers brought dozens of drums from various parts of Lappmark to be sold and shipped to the private collections of noblemen and other interested people all over Continental Europe. Some of these drums later on found their way to the museums, many became lost or are still somewhere, to be traced by future investigations of local museums and private collections. There clearly has been a special interest towards the most northern corner of the European continent in the Mediterranean countries, particularly in Italy. The correspondence and other descriptions bear evidence about shamanism as the most illuminating and appealing manifestation of the ancient culture and religion of the exotic people living behind the circumpolar zone at the edge of the universe
Embracing complexity: the post-secular pilgrimage of Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt
No full textThis article deals with the phenomenon of pilgrimage as a personal transformative process; an exploration of spiritual space rather than a journey undertaken to a physical place. The analysis focuses on the life story and authorship of the novelist and playwright Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt (b. 1960). Schmitt began his career as an academic philosopher specialised in enlightenment rationality. A mystical experience in the deserts of Sahara, however, opened his eyes to the spiritual dimensions of reality and encouraged him to redirect his professional strivings from academic writing to fiction. Today, Schmitt has reached a world-wide audience with his plays and novels on interreligious dialogue, especially the series of five short novellas called Le cycle d’Invisible. These narratives all deal with inter-religious encounters in a complex and compassionate way as Schmitt is particularly concerned with preserving the mystery of the situations he describes. The atheist conviction of his previous life has thus given way to an agnostic and mystically inspired world view focusing on diversity, divinity and inexplicability: “I am obsessed with complexity”, as he puts it himself. The presentation is based on ethnographic material, and key themes to be addressed include pilgrimage as a spiritual journey, interreligious encounters and mystical experiences
Man as symbol of God
No full textIt is a well-known fact that Judaism and Zoroastrianism, being prophetic religions with a monotheistic character, present many affinities. One point of similarity is a clear tendency towards aniconic representation of the Divine, which, from the beginning, was the mark of Judaism as well as Zoroastrianism, being religions with a nomadic background. As a result of the confrontation with the agricultural and urban civilisations of the ancient Near East, attempts were made to introduce iconic representations of the Divine to be used in the cult. Many groups within Judaism, and most probably also within Zoroastrianism, levelled a vigorous resistance to these attempts. As a consequence, there arose in both religions a strong movement to prohibit cult-images, which in Judaism also tended to develop into a prohibition of figurative art in general. This movement became victorious in the end and its aniconic conception of the Divine has ever since remained the normative attitude of both Jews and Zoroastrians. What were the reasons for these attitudes in Judaism and in Zoroastrianism? And were there theological ideas that could function as a substitute to cult-images of the Divine
Editorial note
No full textEditorial of the Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis, vol. 22, Pilgrimages Toda
Pagan myth in confrontation with Christianity: Skírnismál and Genesis
No full textSkírnismál is the only one of the Eddaic lays which is dedicated to the god of vanir, Freyr. The poem deals with the offer of marriage to the giantess Gerör which the messanger, Skírnir, takes to htunheimr on Freyr's behalf. Regarding the question of age and interpretation of the lay, various suggestions have been made by scholars. A central question for scholars has been whether the poem contains genuine pagan myth. In recent years several scholars have argued that the lay is late and that, in spite of its preoccupation with pre-Christian mythology, it deals mainly with medieval ideology. We shall focus instead on a point which has not hitherto been recognized: the possible connection between Skírnismál and the Jewish-Christian myth of the fall in Genesis. It is possible that the poet of Skírnismal borrowed ideas from several traditions, from Nordic, mythological ones and at the same time from biblical tradition, from the myth of the fall in Genesis. This conclusion means that the pagan, mythological tradition of the North was recreated at the time of Conversion, for the biblical elements in Skírnismál are used within the frame of a lay which, in its deepest conception, belongs to the pre-Christian tradition
Evocatio deorum: some notes on the Romanization of Etruria
No full textEvocatio deorum is an institution known in antiquity in the Roman and in the Hettite religions. It has therefore been regarded as part of the common Indo-European heritage. It is uncertain towhat extent the Etruscans had inaugurated the evocatio in their world of religious practices. Suggestions that the Etruscans transmitted the institution of the evocatio to Italy and Rome have been taken to prove the Asiatic origin of the Tyrrhenoi. In this context, however, these theories are of little interest. Basically evocatio is a kind of vow. In a trial of strength between two opposing armies, most frequently in the course of a siege, the Roman commander (because evocatio in our sources appears as a Roman institution, the subject, the agent is always a Roman) invokes the assistance of the tutelary god of the besieged, in fact evokes him urging him to desert his people and promising him a sacred precinct, temple, cult and devotion in Rome. Evocatio is a precaution, or a weapon against the enemies of the Roman
Studying religious music at the grassroots level: a look into the discourse practices of Christian metal bands online
No full textReligious issues are studied in various ways, most prominently by sociologists of religion. This paper suggests that in today’s world of globally intersecting webs of people, places, ideas and action, scholars and readers interested in religion will find themselves benefiting from cross-disciplinary approaches which help them to conceptualize and describe today’s phenomena at different levels. This paper describes how the emerging discipline of the sociology of language and religion may be applied to studying Christian metal bands’ discourse online. Although previous studies give a good idea of the structures, practices and tendencies in and related to Christian metal, little is reported on what happens at the very micro-level of Christian metal – for example, how they represent themselves to their audiences, what they sing about, and what else they say and, importantly, how they say it. To fill this gap, Christian metal bands’ online presence is examined with a particular interest in how the bands utilize online spaces to build up Christian metal identity and culture with the help of textual, discursive, and multimodal resources. This includes a look at the online self-representation of Christian metal bands, a more detailed investigation of the uses of the Bible on bands’ websites, as well as perspectives on an important part of Christian metal; namely the lyrics
Beyond the given and the all-giving: extraneous speculations on women and the gift
No full textThere needs to be a recognition that the phenomenon of the gift and the fascination it exerts for contemporary thinkers is a measure of dissatisfaction with prevailing norms. As a test case, the phenomenon of the gift needs to be perceived as an instance of heterogeneity in a culture that, despite its convoluted escape mechanisms, cannot honestly confront its repressive controlling impulses. The gift is thus a symptom par excellence of Western tendencies to distort for its own purposes (whether benign, malevolent or simply ignorant) whatever is viewed as alien, exotic or excluded. This has largely been (non-Western) cultures, women and those of other racial, class or ethnic varieties. Such behaviour is evident not just in anthropology and literature, but in philosophy, and especially in religious studies where the prevailing norm has been the cliché of the neutral male scholar. Insofar as this propensity is unacknowledged, the gift will remain an enigma to a society such as ours that refuses to admit not just its blind-spots (whether cultural, racial or sexual), but the mechanisms that continue to produce them. It will thus compensate by demonizing or idealizing uncritically, the other as bearer of those repressions that make its continued flourishing possible. These examples of selective reading of questionable data and utopian improvisations highlight a common predicament as the Eurocentric mindset is confronted by otherness — be it its former colonized peoples or its own internalized forms of exclusion
Nordic influence on Saami folk belief: the "Buttercat" (Smörkatt)
No full textThe topic of this paper is a Saami superstitious belief, namely the smørkatt "buttercat", which is without doubt a Nordic loan in Saami tradition. In olden days there were people who sold themselves or half of their souls to the devil for a considerable sum of money. They made a "butter cat" in order to get more milk. The "butter cat" looked like a ball of yarn. It stole cream and butter from the neighbour. The neighbour could not understand what had become of his butter. But he soon discovered that people who had only a few cows had a lot of butter. He chased after the "butter cat" and if he could capture it, the person who had sold his soul to the devil would die. This tradition existed among both the mountain Saamis and the Saamis who had settled down in the villages, but it was unknown among Norwegian people. The form and function of the "smørkatt" together with the way in which it could be disabled is in line with the Nordic tradition. This milk-stealing creature, which might be a hare or any other animal, is often a cat, particularly in northern Norway. It is a common Nordic tradition, too, that the animal is identical with its master, and because of that the master must die when the animal is killed. This link between the master and the animal is closer in northern Norway than anywhere else. Woman, animal and devil are linked to each other in the Nordic tradition, too, but the tradition that the master sells his soul to the devil is found only in Karasjok. It is clear, however, that people must pay for the devil's assistance. This theme is well-known in Europe in other connections
