News from the Federations...

Last November marked the CHA’s first formail participation in the administrative council of the CFH since we joined the organization last summer. At this meeting, the CHA’s representative, Jean-Claude Robert was invited to take part in a new rite known as “Annual Lobby Day”

The Sugi Sakit Ritual Storytelling in a Saribas Iban Rite of Healing

This paper describes a Saribas Iban rite of healing called the Sugi sakit. What distinguished this rite from other forms of Saribas Iban healing was that it incorporated within its performance a long narrative epic concerned with the adventures and love affairs of an Iban culture hero named Bujang Sugi. Here I explore the language used by Iban priest bards both in telling the Sugi epic and in performing the larger ritual drama in which it was set, and look, in particular, at how the Sugi epic, which was otherwise told for entertainment, was integrated into this drama and recast by the priest bards as they performed the ritual, so that it not only entertained their listeners, but also served as a serious instrument of healing

Deuteronomy 25:5–10 : a rite for the living or for the dead?

textThis work looks at the rite presented in Deut 25:5–10 through a sociological framework. As such, it argues that ritual is a social act aimed at protecting communal interests over the interests of its individual members. More specifically, the rite described in Deut 25:5–10 was meant to act as a bulwark against infiltration of tribal land through exogamy. In later periods, it is argued that the focus of the rite narrowed to the priestly class.Middle Eastern Studie

What Gets Changed? Sam Gets Changed?

(Excerpt) Most of what I learn about ritual and liturgy and church I learn from places that aren\u27t about ritual and liturgy and church-novels and poems and music and dance-and from people who don\u27t know the jargon but often know the Lord and the church. The tide of this presentation comes from one such fellow named Sam. He is a member of St. Henry Church on the southwest side of Cleveland. You\u27ll see a little of that church later on in this hour. We were there last fall, some of us from LTP, to make a video about the communion rite at Sunday mass. We had been looking for some parish where they really did the rite, and here we found one. So on one weekend we shot the video at their church and the producer interviewed a dozen or so parishioners and the clergy

Patterns in the modification of animal and human bones in Iron Age Wessex: revisiting the excarnation debate

Social practices concerning the treatment of human and animal remains in the Iron Age have long been a focus of debate in archaeological literature. The absence of evidence of a formal burial rite and the regular retrieval of human remains from ‘special’ deposits or ABGs has led to widespread discussion surrounding what majority rite was practised in Iron Age Wessex and excarnation has been a popular explanation. The deposition of unusual configurations of faunal remains, often associated with human remains may be suggestive of an interrelated pre-depositional and depositional practise between the different classes of remains. This paper explores how a holistic analysis of bone taphonomy can contribute to the understanding of social practises surrounding the pre-depositional treatment of humans and animals. In a case study of the sites of Winnall Down and Danebury, it was demonstrated that humans and animals were treated significantly differently. Human remains exhibited far less modification than faunal material, suggesting that excarnation was unlikely to have been the majority rite. However, results indicate that either exposure in a protective environment or exhumation was practised so that partial or total disarticulation could occur with little taphonomic modification. Taphonomic analysis of faunal material demonstrates that it is not only humans and animals that were treated differently, as dog and horse remains exhibit significantly different patterns of modification to other animals. Results are indicative of rigidly controlled culturally constituted social practices relating to the treatment of different classes of bone

Lex orandi, a new lex credendi: \u27The burial of the dead,\u27 1978, from an historical perspective

Lutheran rite

Some Symbols of Identity of Byzantine Catholics

This essay is a description of some of an ethnic group’s symbols of identity”, its aim is to explore the meanings of the following statement: [Byzantine Catholics] are no longer an immigrant and ethnic group. Byzantine Catholics are American in every sense of the word, that the rite itself is American as opposed to foreign, and that both the rite and its adherents have become part and parcel of the American scene.