This book, in two volumes, breathes fresh air empirically, methodologically, and theoretically into understanding the rich ceremonial lives, the philosophical-religious knowledge, and the impressive material feats and labor organization that distinguish Hopewell Indians of central Ohio and neighboring regions during the first centuries CE. The first volume defines cross-culturally, for the first time, the "ritual drama" as a genre of social performance. It reconstructs and compares parts of 14 such dramas that Hopewellian and other Woodland-period peoples performed in their ceremonial centers to help the soul-like essences of their deceased make the journey to an afterlife. The second volume builds and critiques ten formal cross-cultural models of "personhood" and the "self" and infers the nature of Scioto Hopewell people's ontology. Two facets of their ontology are found to have been instrumental in their creating the intercommunity alliances and cooperation and gathering the labor required to construct their huge, multicommunity ceremonial centers: a relational, collective concept of the self defined by the ethical quality of the relationships one has with other beings, and a concept of multiple soul-like essences that compose a human being and can be harnessed strategically to create familial-like ethical bonds of cooperation among individuals and communities.

The archaeological reconstructions of Hopewellian ritual dramas and concepts of personhood and the self, and of Hopewell people's strategic uses of these, are informed by three large surveys of historic Woodland and Plains Indians' narratives, ideas, and rites about journeys to afterlives, the creatures who inhabit the cosmos, and the nature and functions of soul-like essences, coupled with rich contextual archaeological and bioarchaeological-taphonomic analyses. The bioarchaeological-taphonomic method of l'anthropologie de terrain, new to North American archaeology, is introduced and applied. In all, the research in this book vitalizes a vision of an anthropology committed to native logic and motivation and skeptical of the imposition of Western world views and categories onto native peoples.

Autorentext
Christopher Carr, Ph.D., is an anthropological archaeologist whose 40 years of research have focused on the social and religious lives of Native American peoples of Eastern North America from 1000 B.C. through Contact, especially Hopewell mound-earthwork building societies of the Midwest U.S. Mortuary practices and artworks of these peoples and strong use of Indian ethno-historic records, anthropological theories, and material science are foundational to his studies.

Inhalt

Part I. Rationale.- Chapter 1. Introduction; Carr, Christopher.- Chapter 2. Understanding Past Peoples by Listening; Carr, Christopher.- Chapter 3. Religion, Sacred, and Other Quandaries: Writing in Culture-Relevant Categories Carr, Christopher and Weeks, Rex.- Part II. Global Perspectives.- Chapter 4. The Notion of the Ritual Drama in Cross-Cultural and Historical Perspective; Carr, Christopher.- Part III. Ethnohistorical and Bioarchaeological Foundations for Reconstructing Hopewell Ritual Dramas.- Chapter 5. The Method of L'Anthropologie de Terrain and Its Potential for Investigating Ohio Hopewell Mortuary Records; Novotny, Anna C..- Chapter 6. Journeys to Afterlives in the Cosmologies of Postcontact, Eastern Woodland and Plains Indians: Inventory, Frequencies, and Geographic Distributions of Elements in Oral Narratives; Caseldine, Christopher, Carr, Christopher, and Feinberg, Samantha.- Chapter 7. Journeys to Afterlives in the Cosmologies of Postcontact, Eastern Woodland and Plains Indians: Interwoven Elements, Their Regional Distinctions, and Meta-Narratives; Carr, Christopher and Caseldine, Christopher.- Chapter 8. Underwater-Underground-Creatures in the Cosmologies of Historic Woodland and Plains Indians as Told in Oral Narratives; Carr, Christopher.- Chapter 9. The Ferocious Dog, Brain-Taker, the Keen-Eyed Owl, and Other Characters in Scioto Hopewell Ritual Dramas of Death Journeys; Carr, Christopher.- Part IV. Ritual Dramas of Scioto Hopewell Peoples.- Chapter 10. Souls in Flight: Ritual Dramas of Death Journeys through the Above Realm(s) of Scioto Hopewell Societies; Carr, Christopher and Novotny, Anna C..- Chapter 11. More Souls in Flight: Ritual Dramas of Death Journeys through the Above Realm(s) of Hopewellian and Adena Societies Beyond the Scioto; Carr, Christopher.- Chapter 12. Mississippian, Effigy Mound Complex, and Georgia Woodland Bird-Persons and Bird Effigies: A Comparison to Adena and Hopewellian Cases; Carr, Christopher.- Chapter 13. The Family and Community in Three Scioto Hopewell Ritual Dramas of Death Journeys; Carr, Christopher.- Chapter 14. Little Miami Hopewell Ritual Dramas of Death Journeys through the Lower Realm(s); Carr, Christopher.- Chapter 15. The Genre of the Ritual Drama in Ohio Hopewellian Ceremonilaism: A Comparative Summary; Carr, Christopher.- Part V. Personhood: Global Perspectives.- Chapter 16. Notions of Personhood and Being across Cultures: Models in the Social Sciences; Carr, Christopher.- Part VI. Ethnohistorical Foundations for Reconstructing Hopewell Notions of Human Personhood.- Chapter 17. The Human Person as Multiple Soul-like Essences in the Ontologies of Historic Woodland and Plains Indians: Inventory, Frequencies, and Geographic Distributions of Concepts in Oral Narratives; Rafidi, Brianna, Carr, Christopher, and Kupsch, Mary.- Chapter 18. The Human Person as Multiple Soul-like Essences in the Ontologies of Historic Woodland and Plains Indians: Interwoven Elements, Their Regional Distinctions, and Meta-Themes across Oral Narratives; Rafidi, Brianna and Carr, Christopher.- Part VII. Human Personhood among Scioto Hopewell Peoples.- Chapter 19. Scioto Hopewell Relational Personhood and Social Cooperation: Unmasking the Projection of Western Competition onto Ritual Flamboyance and Paths to Social Complexity; Carr, Christopher.- Chapter 20. The Scioto Hopewell Human Person as Multiple Soul-like Essences: Society-Wide Commonalities and Age and Gender Distinctions; Carr, Christopher and Smyth, Heather.- Chapter 21. Ohio Hopewell Human Persons as Multiple Soul-like Essences: Intercommunity and Regional Distinctions; Carr, Christopher and Symth, Heather.- Chapter 22. Nested Personhood, Masking, and the Question of Personnages in Scioto Hopewell, Adena, and Glacial Kame Societies; Carr, Christopher.- List of Tables.- List of Figures.- Subject Index.- Author Index.- List of Appendices On-Line.