Fertility rite
Fertility rites or fertility cult are religious rituals that are intended to stimulate reproduction in humans or in the natural world.[1] Such rites may involve the sacrifice of "a primal animal, which must be sacrificed in the cause of fertility or even creation".[2]
Characteristics
"Fertility rites may occur in calendric cycles, as
As with cave pictures "[that] show animals at the point of mating...[and] served magic fertility rites", such rites are "...a form of sympathetic magic"[4] in which the forces of nature are to be influenced by the example acted out in the ritual. At times, "ceremonies intended to assure the fecundity of the earth or of a group of women...involve some form of phallic worship".[5]
Geographical varieties
Ancient Greece
Central to fertility rites in classical Greece was "Demeter, goddess of fertility... Her rites celebrated the procession of the seasons, the mystery of the plants and the fruits in their annual cycle of coming to be and passing away."[6] But most "women's festivals... related in some way to woman's proper function as a fertile being (which allowed her to promote the fertility of crops too, by sympathy)".[7]
Because of his link to the grape harvest, however, "it is not surprising to see Dionysus associated with Demeter and Kore in the Eleusinian Mysteries. For he, too, represented one of the great life-bringing forces of the world."[8]
Phoenicia
Ancient Phoenicia saw "a special sacrifice at the season of the harvest, to reawaken the spirit of the vine"; while the winter fertility rite to restore "the spirit of the withering vine" included as sacrifice "cooking a kid in the milk of its mother, a
The death of Adonis – "a vegetation spirit who...was manifest in the seed of corn" – was marked by "the most beautiful of Phoenician festivals...celebrated immediately after the harvest".[10]
Australia
Durkheim concluded that "as the rites, and especially those which are periodical, demand nothing more of nature than that it follow its ordinary course, it is not surprising that it should generally have the air of obeying them".[13]
Christian
In the
Many fertility rites that have spiritual origins such as European Christians and Pagans drew their methods from "myths, imagery, and ritual practices from the religions".[19] Agricultural practices role in transforming “the wild” into habitable places were prevalent in (western). Alongside education and medicine, agriculture helped spread western power and influence through Christian missions.[20]
Arabia
Some authors believe that fertility rites took place around the
Islamic traditions
It is believed in some Islamic traditions that a tree transfers its blessings (
Mesoamerica
Agricultural fertility was and continues to be of primary concern for Mesoamerican cultures. Many ritual activities performed by Indigenous communities in Mesoamerica were directed to deities of land and rain, as their understanding of fertility was intimately related to specific geographical attributes, such as bodies of water, mountains, and caves. In Mesoamerican worldview, agricultural success was believed to be directly related to survival and prosperity. For this reason, ceremonies and religious rites offered to rain and earth deities were an integral part of most aspects of their socioreligious organization. Archaeological evidence throughout Mesoamerica attests to the magnanimous importance of fertility rituals for the Olmec, Maya, and Aztec civilizations.[24]
Contemporary analogues
- It has been suggested that "at the heart of the myth of science lie fertility rites which ensure the continued fruitfulness of technological innovation".[25]
- Eric Berne points out that "the Adult 'helpnik' vocabularies (PTA, psychology, psychoanalysis, social science) may be used in an intellectual Rite of Spring, where the victim's dismembered psyche is left scattered over the floor on the theory that he will eventually join himself together and be more fertile afterwards".[26]
- Modern wedding ritual is seen by Freud as a kind of ritual orgy.[27]
Literature: T. S. Eliot
In The Waste Land, "Eliot waxes nostalgic for a classical society founded upon ritual praxis...fertility rites in which the participants mime the fall and return of natural cycles"[28] – "Keeping time, Keeping their rhythm in their dancing As in their living in the living seasons",[29] as he would subsequently put it.
See also
- Descent to the underworld
- Hieros gamos
- Khalid Nabi Cemetery
- Life-death-rebirth deity
- List of fertility deities
- Obando Fertility Rites
- Beltane
- Maypole
- Mother goddess
- Phallic processions
- Sacred prostitution
- Sparagmos
References
- ISBN 9789027272539.
- ^ Aniela Jaffé, in C. G. Jung, Man and his Symbols (1978) p. 264
- ^ Thomas Barfield, The Dictionary of Anthropology (1997) p. 184
- ^ Jaffé, p. 261
- ^ Willard Bohn, Apollinaire and the Faceless Man (1991) p. 66
- ^ M. I. Finley, The World of Odysseus (Penguin 1967) p. 158
- ^ J. Boardman et al, eds., The Oxford History of the Classical World (Oxford 1991) p. 269–70
- ^ F. Guirand ed., The New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology (1968) p. 160
- ^ Guirand, p. 77–9
- ^ Guirand, p. 81–2
- ^ Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (London 1971) p. 327
- ^ Durkheim, p. 351
- ^ Durkheim, p. 361
- ^ Barnes, Charles Randall (1912). The People's Bible Encyclopedia: Biographical, Geographical, Historical, and Doctrinal : Illustrated by Nearly Four Hundred Engravings, Maps, Chats, Etc. People's Publication Society.
- ISBN 978-0-8028-4638-9.
- ISBN 978-0-8028-3734-9.
- ^ "John 12:24 Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed; but if it dies, it bears much fruit". biblehub.com. Archived from the original on 2021-09-17. Retrieved 2021-11-17.
- ^ "Definition of DIASPORA". www.merriam-webster.com. Archived from the original on 2021-11-17. Retrieved 2021-11-17.
- ^ "Ancient Roots, Historical Challenges". pluralism.org. Archived from the original on 2021-11-24. Retrieved 2021-11-17.
- ISBN 978-0-521-58342-8.
- ISBN 9780748124695. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
- ISBN 9781630875329. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
- State University of New York Press. p. 19. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
- ^ Arnold, Philip P. "Fertility." In David Carrasco (ed). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures. : Oxford University Press, 2001
- ^ F. A Kreuzinger, The Religion of Science Fiction (1986) p. 42
- ^ Eric Berne, What Do You Say After You Say Hello? (1974) p. 325
- ^ Freud Sigmund (1953). On Sexuality Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality Vol-7.
- ^ E. P. Comentale, Modernism, Cultural Production, and the British Avant-Garde (2004) p. 96
- ^ T. S. Eliot, "East Coker", in The Complete Plays and Poems (London 1985) p. 178