This thesis is an ethnographic account of the religious practices of the Ammatoa, a Konjo-speaking community of approximately 4600 people living in the southeast uplands of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. It examines aspects of Ammatoan rituals, cosmology, culture, economy, and polit…
From the unique perspective of the oath, this study investigates the entanglements of change in Kenya during the Mau Mau period, 1952-1960. Specifically, it challenges the prevailing Mau Mau narrative, revealing the oath as a complex, adaptive, and rational process ordered aroun…
This study is based on a submission of anthropological, historical, and literary approaches. The ethnographic study of the Shi'a holy shrines between November 2011 and January 2012 is based on my visit to Iraq. The study lasted almost ten weeks, to include the two events under d…
This thesis sets out to display the dynamic role fragmented rituals have in the plot of tragedy. It contends that the tragedians deployed fifth-century ancient Greek religious practices from their cultural milieu as independent objects in their plots. Whether concise or fragment…
You traveller, who make your way along the path, stop I ask - I beg you not to ignore my epitaph. Death never ceases to fascinate the living and in roman society, where the mortality was high, people were forced to confront the brevity of life and the impact of death. What did d…
This dissertation examines the production and consumption of nature in middle-class American holidays. Focusing on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it follows the creation of new symbols and practices associated with Easter, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas.…
Evidence for violence is found in all periods of Mesopotamian history. Kingship, which was divine in origin, included the exercise of power and the legitimate use of violence. Mesopotamian violence reflects the culture's understanding of ontology, order, and justice. Although th…
The present study is an investigation into the roles of the rural Levites in Deuteronomy. In the first chapter I review the identity and roles of the Levites in the Hebrew Bible before and after cult centralization, transitioning from local high place priests to a lack of local …
This dissertation examines the trope of initiation, the figure of the initiate, and depictions of ritual in H.D.'s drama, novels, and verse sequences. I focus in particular on classical, anthropological, psychoanalytic, and occult concepts of initiation that informed H.D.'s life…
This research explores the culture of the Toraya people as a changing dynamic entity. The focus is the effect of outside forces upon the Toraya people of Indonesia and how these people live adapted their cultural rituals, roles, and statuses. Changes that were originally initiat…
This study explored female identity formation of Ethiopian women and women of Ethiopian heritage as they participate in a coffee (buna) ceremony ritual. The study is anchored in the theoretical framework of a sociocultural perspective which enabled an examination of culture as w…
This study focuses on the ritual life of the Tangale people who live in the northeastern, mountainous regions of Nigeria. They have effectively resisted what they perceive as intrusions into their culture by Muslims and Christians, although they have readily received and adopted…
Concerns of fertility and birth make up a substantial part of ancient Near Eastern literature. Between the many gods, goddesses and demons of sex, fertility, birth, and midwifery, creation of life for the Hittites, Babylonians, Assyrians, Syrians and the Egyptians is presented i…
This thesis focuses on how the process of death and dying is viewed in contemporary Western society as well as cross-culturally. It explores the importance and history of death rites and rituals, specifically addressing three cultures’ rituals: Native American, African, and Hind…
This dissertation is an attempt to understand what my friend Okpatu Dunu meant before he died when he would say "uwa agalaga," the world has gone astray. Okpatu was a man from the Igbo speaking town of Ukpo in Anambra State, Nigeria where I lived and conducted fieldwork in 1993.…