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THE GENDERED ALTAR: WICCAN CONCEPTS OF GENDER AND RITUAL OBJECTS
Abstract
Many ethnographic accounts within the annals of anthropological literature describe the religious beliefs and magical rituals of peoples throughout the world. Fewer scholars have focused on the relatively young Neo-Pagan religious movement. "Neo-Pagan," explains Helen Berger in Voices from the Pagan Census (2003), "is an umbrella term covering sects of a new religious movement, the largest and most important form of which is
Wicca" (Berger et al. 2003: 1). This thesis examines the relationship between practice and ideology by analyzing the material culture of Wiccan altars as used by Wiccans in Central Florida, USA. Particular attention is paid to beliefs concerning concepts of gender associated with ritual objects, and concepts of gender and sexuality as understood by practitioners. Many Wiccans see divinity as manifested in two complementary beings: the Goddess and the God. The fertility that these divine beings achieve through sexual union is the subject of an elaborate ritual called the Great Rite. A pair of Wiccans, often a masculine High Priest and a feminine High Priestess, conduct this ritual by manipulating specific objects, which are believed to be strongly gendered. I argue that Wiccan rituals reflect, construct, and reinforce the Wiccan precept of a gender-balanced cosmos through the interaction of these primary ritual actors and the gendered objects they manipulate. As a practicing Wiccan, my theoretical approach is aligned with that of the native scholar. The native scholar faces challenges distancing her or himself from research, but gains opportunities from insider knowledge. Wiccan ideology stands in contrast to heteronormative conventions of gender and sexuality. However, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Wiccans may need to actively negotiate for representation in this movement, where fertility is stressed. Wiccans continuously reinvent established practices in an attempt to create a more satisfying religious community.
... Comment les néo-païens qui se revendiquent également d'une identité LGBT concilient-ils identité sexuelle et religiosité ? L'état de notre recherche nous permet déjà d'affirmer que la performance de rituels comme le Grand Rite tout particulièrement, et la pratique des rituels en général, nécessite une part de négociation active de la part des personnes LGBT afin qu'ils accordent leur religiosité avec leur identité sexuelle (Sloan 2008). Alors que les covens encouragent leur Grande prêtresse et leur Grand prêtre à savoir invoquer et incarner aussi bien la Déesse Mère que le Dieu Cornu, les pratiquants solitaires, eux, peuvent jouer avec la signification qu'ils accordent à des objets symboliques hautement sexués comme l'athamé ou la coupe. ...
Based on qualitative empirical research combining participant observation and semi-formal interviews, this paper questions the religious practicc of gay men within the neo-pagan movement in Montreal. The first part of this paper defines neo-paganism and the specificity of Wicca and Re-claiming Witchcraft, two neo-pagan currents present in Montreal, as well as the ways in which they articulate Feminine and Masculine symbolism. The second part shows how sexual identity poses a series of challenges for gay men, in regards to their religiosity, who modulate their religious investments and their practice. In coherence with three motifs that emerged from the interviews around the signification of "magic", three case studies illustrate the different negotiations that allow these gay men to find meaning in their lives, construct themselves as subjects and feel belonging in a community of beliefs and practices.
Contemporary Paganism portrays gender in an array of different ways and, as such, is very inclusive of sexual diversity. Much if this phenomenon happens through what Pagans call witchcraft. But how does witchcraft help queer and transgender Pagans take part in the Pagan community? This article will examine different kinds of negotiations regarding the notion of gender. It will give a brief definition of the Pagan movement as found in Montreal and examine how the Montreal traditions of Wicca and Reclaiming Witchcraft develop opposite views on gender. This research suggests that queer negotiations dealing with gender norms in Wicca, and in society at large, position participants in different ways in regards to religious and magical practices, as well as to the Montreal Pagan community. Mainly, these negotiations, rooted in the practice of magic, allow the participants to gain power, in terms of gender identity, over the Wiccan binary and, to some extent, to contest gender stereotypes outside the Pagan community.
The practice of assigning gender to artefacts and natural objects is common but not universal in religions. Treating objects, substances, and places as gendered is a form of anthropomorphism that both expresses and furthers gender ideals and power relationships among people based on gender distinctions. The degree to which sacred objects are gendered varies, reflecting how important gender is in particular religious worldviews.
The articles in this special issue demonstrate how objects can be interpreted as agents, as gendered images that make a statement, and how their impacts can be understood and assessed by human actors. They are differentially placed in matrices of power, and they can be manipulated to shift genders, to play with gendered combinations, to expand the limits of a particular gendered domain, to creatively play with reproductive imagery, and even to sell commodities in new and enticing ways in the mass media. Gendered religious objects are "statements" addressed not only to the eye but to the emotions, and part of a complex cultural field in which things can play important roles in people's lives. The links that connect ritual power to other forms of agency and biographical significance are perhaps the most significant links that we need to examine to understand them better in a world of many diverse cultural forms.
Prior to their conversion to Christianity, Asabano boys and women were forbidden to play drums, lest they become aroused and promiscuous. The origin myth of the drum, revealed during male initiations, identifies its sound as that which emanates from a woman's vagina during sex. Therefore, to play the drum is to have sex on a mythological-symbolic level. Boys married only after hearing this myth and drumming in an all-night public celebration. Initiates knew the secret significance of their performance, providing them with a sense of manly security and power. To women who listened and danced, the celebration displayed handsomely presented, marriageable young men. In 1994-5, Christian rhetoric held that prohibiting women from drumming belongs to the Satanic past. Yet, while initiations were no longer held, the drum still figured prominently in celebrations, played only by men. By 2005, both sexes drummed during Baptist church services symbolizing universal access to God's bounty, but outside of church drum making and leadership in performance remained a male activity. In spite of the loss of a religious ideology of male secret knowledge, masculine gender identity retained its strength in part through the continued practice of male drumming.
Material culture surrounds us and yet is habitually overlooked. So integral is it to our everyday lives that we take it for granted. This attitude has also afflicted the academic analysis of material culture, although this is now beginning to change, with material culture recently emerging as a topic in its own right within the social sciences. Carl Knappett seeks to contribute to this emergent field by adopting a wide-ranging interdisciplinary approach that is rooted in archaeology and integrates anthropology, sociology, art history, semiotics, psychology, and cognitive science. His thesis is that humans both act and think through material culture; ways of knowing and ways of doing are ingrained within even the most mundane of objects. This requires that we adopt a relational perspective on material artifacts and human agents, as a means of characterizing their complex interdependencies. In order to illustrate the networks of meaning that result, Knappett discusses examples ranging from prehistoric Aegean ceramics to Zande hunting nets and contemporary art. Thinking Through Material Culture argues that, although material culture forms the bedrock of archaeology, the discipline has barely begun to address how fundamental artifacts are to human cognition and perception. This idea of codependency among mind, action, and matter opens the way for a novel and dynamic approach to all of material culture, both past and present. © 2005 by University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.
Quelques renseignements, difficiles a collecter, sur un mouvement neo-paien designe " Wicca ", et les adeptes " Wiccans ". Les adeptes pratiquent leur religion seuls ou en groupe, le chiffre ideal du groupe etant treize adeptes. Ils veulent retablir le culte des dieux prechretiens, la magie, la sorcellerie. Le culte est organise autour de la deesse-mere : les groupes comptent plus de femmes que d'hommes. Il est a noter que le mouvement des Wiccans a profite de certaines recherches anthropologiques consacrees a le decrire, car les monographies des anthropologues ont favorise la diffusion du mouvement, d'ou le sous-titre de l'article : " l'anthropologie accoucheuse d'une nouvelle religion ". Grande-Bretagne
Social characteristics of Neopagans from across the United States are described on the basis 643 self-administered questionnaires. A majority of these new religionists are young to middle-aged adults; a slight majority are women; and most of them are white, working-class to middle-class, urbanites. Except for their rejection of traditional religion and selection of this innovative alternative, they are rather ordinary Americans. Neopaganism cannot be explained away by socially marginal participants. Yet, much more research and interpretation will be needed for an adequate scholarly understanding of this increasingly significant and intriguing new American religion.
The collapse of Aristotelian cosmology during the 16th century transformed our view of the Universe. The Moon and planets were no longer beyond the laws of earthly physics; they were worlds like our own.
Journal of American Folklore 117.463 (2004) 104-105
Neo-Paganism is a thriving movement, an eclectic gathering of religions that share an interest in reviving or reimagining aspects of pre-Christian polytheism. Contemporary Pagans draw on a great range of source materials as they craft their rituals and tools, and in the process, numerous traditions have emerged that center on specific sets of deities, particular ethnic or regional identities, or shared ideologies. Though they have developed symbolic links to deep historical traditions, Neo-Pagans have also fostered a culture that treasures creativity. The transformative aspects of art are often equated with magic, and thus acts of creation can be important ways for Neo-Pagans to connect with the sacred. It is not surprising, then, that Pagans have produced a rich body of material culture. In Neo-Pagan Sacred Art and Altars, Sabina Magliocco examines a sampling of these creations in order to offer a brief but insightful introduction to this religious movement.
Magliocco's book is not meant to be comprehensive. It is an initial survey of things that have been off the radars of most scholars of folklore and religion. Without canonical texts or centralized authority, Neo-Paganism resists familiar approaches to the study of religion. Many folklorists are uncomfortable with appropriation by primarily white, middle-class Neo-Pagans of traditional elements from living, marginalized cultures. Claims of links to ancient, persecuted religions cause lingering labels of "fakelore" and "folklorismus" to spring to mind, and scholars devoted to traditional arts turn elsewhere in search of authenticity. Researchers who study Neo-Pagan culture tend to focus on the sociopsychological motivations of practitioners. Unfortunately, little attention has been paid to the emergent expressive traditions of this group. As Magliocco suggests, "we may learn more about why people become Neo-Pagan by studying their artistic creations than we might by administering sociological surveys" (p. xi).
Neo-Pagan Sacred Art and Altars begins with a succinct overview highlighting the romantic and oppositional nature of contemporary Paganism; its demographics; its emphasis on the immanence of divinity in nature; and the importance of appropriation, magic, ritual, and creativity in its practice. With this framework established, the heart of the book is then devoted to two broad documentary chapters. "Altars" covers home and community altars, magical tools, and various representations of the Goddess and God. "Costume" examines jewelry, body modification, ritual dress and undress, and masks. Each chapter uses the words of artists and the works they create to present multiple perspectives on symbolic meaning, spiritual dimensions of artistry, aesthetics, attitudes toward the natural world as subject matter and raw material, and the exchange or sale of sacred art. Black and white photos and color plates allow readers to develop their own visual sense of these pieces. In her conclusion, Magliocco identifies commonalities in this eclectic assortment of objects and practices. She also draws connections with academic discourse on aesthetics, appropriation, hybridization, and postmodernity. Given the book's brevity, Magliocco does an admirable job of blending sympathetic presentation with critical responsibility. She acknowledges that appropriation and questionable claims to historical continuity are problematic, but challenges readers to see some of the positive motivations behind these processes.
Neo-Pagan Sacred Art and Altars has a few minor shortcomings. Grounded entirely in examples from the United States, it might have been enriched by the addition of a paragraph or two on related movements in other countries. In a departure from the attractive format used for most other titles in the Folk Art and Artists series, this book is a small paperback. Squeezed into this space, some photos, especially those of detailed altars, lose much of their potential impact. Also Magliocco has been cautious about overgeneralizations, but a few inevitably slip in. For instance, some readers may find her characterizations of Neo-Pagan values to be excessively weighted toward feminist traditions, leaving groups such as Odinists out of the picture. On the whole, these are small quibbles with a work that...
The “structural method,” first set forth in this epoch-making book, changed the very face of social anthropology. This reissue of a classic will reintroduce readers to Lévi-Strauss’s understanding of man and society in terms of individuals—kinship, social organization, religion, mythology, and art.
L'A. s'eleve contre la distinction faite entre les anthropologues « indigenes » (interne a la societe) et « non indigenes » (externe a la societe). Si a l'epoque du colonialisme, les etudes faites par, ou a l'aide, des autochtones etaient davantage estimees car refletant une soit-disant meilleure realite, une approche hybride, ou narration et analyse rigoureuse sont melees, aurait tout autant de valeur.
This research is based on fieldwork conducted in the Texas NeoPagan community in 2003-2005. The goal of the research is to document and explore the factors that lead practitioners to adopt the practice of NeoPaganism. In particular, this project explores conversion to NeoPaganism from a gendered standpoint analyzing the similarities and differences in the experiences of male and female practitioners. The research also explores the construction of gender identity and social identity, in an effort to document the strategies NeoPagans employ in construction and contexualizing their identities. Guided by the assumption that men and women will have fundamentally different experiences with NeoPaganism, the influence that NeoPagan gender ideologies and theologies have on gender construction and performance are analyzed in detail. The impact of sexual orientation on religious experience is also investigated. The strategies NeoPagans use to construct and negotiate their social identity in a cultural environment often hostile to religious diversity are detailed. The project employed a diverse methodology, using surveys, participant-observation, unstructured interviews, semi-structured interviews, and life history interviews. A demographic portrait of the community, based on the survey data, is provided. Expressive data, including conversion narratives, are central to the analysis. The research concludes that gender identity within NeoPaganism is more fluid than has been previously posited, and this fluidity of gender identity and construction has both positive and negative effects on practitioners. Additionally, a model of dynamic religious conversion is given, situating NeoPagan conversion in the context other models of conversion. Finally, social identity construction is shown to be driven more by individual choice and less by fear of persecution, as had been argued previously. Mode of access: World Wide Web. Title from PDF title page (viewed July 6, 2007). Thesis (Ph.D. in Anthropology)--S.M.U. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-11, Section: A, page: 4075. Adviser: Caroline Brettell. Includes bibliographical references.
Anthropological Quarterly 76.2 (2003) 287-297
Institutions in the United States who receive federal funding to engage in research involving human beings must follow the appropriate regulations, known as "The Common Rule". Here is a little quiz on this rule:
b) Graduate student B is about to leave for Africa to conduct her dissertation research on tourist art sold in airports. "I don't require IRB approval since my research is part of my education." Is the student correct?
c) Professor C and his students are frustrated. They are eager to begin their classroom project of ethnographically interviewing exotic dancers at the local nightclub, who are also students, on gender roles and sexuality. The results of the project will be term papers used for the students' grades. But the IRB chair has
d) Professor D is really upset. She is in the third year of her National Science Foundation-supported sociolinguistic research on Japanese children's use of verb tenses for everyday activities, asking questions like "How would you say 'the pencil fell from the desk'". Dr. Parola has just changed universities and her new institution is insisting that she have a Japanese IRB review her research, and that she get signed informed consent from the parents of the children in accordance with Subpart D of the regulations. Neither her old institution nor the funding agency required these things. The consent form suggested by the IRB is full of vague alarms more suitable for biomedical problems, and she is concerned that the form itself will frighten away potential respondents. What should the researcher do?
If you answered "wrong" for A and B, you are correct. While much ethnographic research, like much of social and behavioral research in general can be exempt from the regulations, an independent institutional authority like the IRB must make that determination. The researcher has a clear conflict of interest in excusing himself or herself from IRB oversight. While classroom exercises are normally exempt from federal oversight, the research involved in a dissertation should be reviewed by the institution to make sure it follows official regulations.
Example C is about a course requirement and not about human research intended to advance knowledge through publication. While coursework is not covered by the regulations, many institutions extend their implementation to cover a wider range of research activities than the policy calls for. This review should be reasonable and should follow the principle that oversight of research should be commensurate with real risks of harm to human research participants ("subjects"). People who perform in public, like the respondents in C, expect to be observed. The IRB should make sure that the normal confidentiality of respondents is respected without preventing the research from progressing. In this case the IRB chair was improperly interpreting the regulations by being excessively strict. However, readers should note that their IRB is not bound to follow alternative interpretations, since universities are free to adopt policies over and above the Common Rule. What should you do when you disagree with your IRB's interpretation? This will be discussed below.
How about poor Professor D? This case is more complex, and requires a bit more information to comprehend. Two issues are raised, that of parental consent for research with children, and the requirement for foreign IRB review. The federal government's overall human subjects regulations, the "Common Rule," only refers to "Subpart A" of a total of four parts. Subpart B deals with biomedical research involving fetuses, pregnant women and human in-vitro fertilization; Subpart C involves research with prisoners; and Subpart D pertains to research involving children. The subparts contain additional...
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