The Ritual Animal

Copying rituals has allowed cultural groups to proliferate over time. Rare, traumatic rituals produce strong cohesion in small relational groups, whereas daily/weekly rituals produce cohesion in expandable communities. This study presents a theory of how these two ritual modes have influenced history over thousands of years.

Wild Rituals explores how embracing the rituals of the animal kingdom can make us more connected to ourselves, nature, and others. Behavioral ecologist and world-renowned elephant scientist Caitlin O'Connell dives into the rituals of elephants, apes, zebras, rhinos, lions, whales, flamingos, and many more. This fascinating read helps us better understand how we are similar to wild animals, and encourages us to find healing, self-awareness, community, and self-reinvention. • Filled with fascinating stories on 10 different animal rituals • Features original full-color photos, from the Caribbean to the African savannah • Demonstrates the profound way we are similar to the wild creatures who captivate us Wild Rituals journeys into the desert, tundra, and rainforest to reveal the importance of rituals and how they can help us find a simpler, more meaningful way of living. In a culture of technology where we find ourselves living at a greater distance from nature and each other, this remarkable book taps into the unspoken languages of creatures around the world. • Caitlin O'Connell is on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and an award-winning author who spent more than 30 years studying animals in the wild. • Makes a great gift for anyone curious about nature, animals, and how humans compare to and interact with both • Add it to the shelf with books like Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel by Carl Safina; Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal; The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion—Surprising Observations of a Hidden World by Peter Wohlleben; and The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery.

Religion - Opfer - Ritus - Ernährung.

From handshakes and toasts to chant and genuflection, ritual pervades our social interactions and religious practices. Still, few of us could identify all of our daily and festal ritual behaviors, much less explain them to an outsider. Similarly, because of the variety of activities that qualify as ritual and their many contradictory yet, in many ways, equally legitimate interpretations, ritual seems to elude any systematic historical and comparative scrutiny. In this book, Catherine Bell offers a practical introduction to ritual practice and its study; she surveys the most influential theories of religion and ritual, the major categories of ritual activity, and the key debates that have shaped our understanding of ritualism. Bell refuses to nail down ritual with any one definition or understanding. Instead, her purpose is to reveal how definitions emerge and evolve and to help us become more familiar with the interplay of tradition, exigency, and self-expression that goes into constructing this complex social medium.

The killing and burial of animals in ritualistic contexts is encountered across Europe from Prehistory through to the historical period. This volume presents the state of research across Europe to illustrate how comparable interpretative frameworks are used by archaeologists working with both prehistoric and historical societies. Key questions include: How easy is it to identify ritually killed animals in the archaeological record? Can we tell if an animal has been killed specifically for such a purpose? Is it possible to reconstruct the rites associated with their deposition? What insights can be gained about the religious paradigms and ritual systems of the societies engaged in animal sacrifice? Together, the 16 papers represent a snapshot of the current state of research on this fundamental, recurring and spectacular aspect of human societies in the past.

The Santeria religion of Cuba—the Way of the Saints—mixes West AfricanYoruba culture with Catholicism. Similar to Haitian voodoo, Santeria has long practiced animal sacrifice in certain rites. But when Cuban immigrants brought those rituals to Florida, local authorities were suddenly confronted with a controversial situation that pitted the regulation of public health and morality against religious freedom. After Ernesto Pichardo established a Santeria church in Hialeah in the 1980s, the city of Hialeah responded by passing ordinances banning ritual animal sacrifice. Although on the surface those ordinances seemed general in intent, they were clearly aimed at Pichardo's church. When Pichardo subsequently sued the city, a federal court ruled in the latter's favor, in effect privileging the regulation of public health and morality over the church's free exercise of its religion. The U.S. Supreme Court heard Pichardo's appeal in 1993 and unanimously decided that the city had overstepped its bounds in targeting this particular religious group; however, the court was sharply divided regarding the basis of its decision. Three concurring opinions registered distinctly different views of the First Amendment, the limits of government regulation, and the religious freedom of minorities. In the end, the nine justices collectively concluded that freedom of religious belief was absolute while the freedom to practice the tenets of any faith were subject to non-discriminatory local regulations. David O'Brien, one of America's foremost scholars of the Court, now illuminates this controversy and its significance for law, government, and religion in America. His lively account takes us behind the scenes at every stage of the litigation to reveal a riveting case with more twists and turns than a classic whodunit. Ranging with equal ease from primitive magic to municipal politics and to the most arcane points of constitutional law, O'Brien weaves a compelling and instructive tale with a fascinating array of politicians, lawyers, jurists, civil libertarians, and animal rights advocates. Offering sharp insights into the key issues and personalities, he highlights cultural clashes large and small, while maintaining a balance for both the needs of government and the religious rights of individuals. The "Santeria case" reaffirmed that our laws must be generally applicable and neutral and may not discriminate against particular religions. Tracing the path to that conclusion, Animal Sacrifice and Religious Freedom provides a provocative and learned account of one of the most unusual and contentious religious freedom cases in American history.

This book demonstrates that our daily relations, like our most recognized institutions, are based on a symbolic foundation put in place by rituals. Rituals are present at every level of society and are an expression of the sacredness of society, as much as they are an expression of the cultures and eras that communicate through them.