scholarly journals International Magic?

2021 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonja Hukantaival
Keyword(s):  
National Museum ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Dynamic Nature ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Uk ◽  
International Aspects

This paper explores international aspects of Finnish folk magic. Folk magic objects in two Finnish museum collections (the National Museum of Finland and Museum Centre Vapriikki) are compared to analogous objects in the Nordiska museet in Sweden and the Pitt Rivers Museum in the UK to reveal the collections’ resemblances and differences. The material in question dates to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many similar objects occur in these collections. Explanations for this are sought in historical networks between peoples. Yet a closer inspection also reveals variation in practices and beliefs. This reveals the dynamic nature of folk magic traditions, although collection and curation policies also play a role. Moreover, the complex connections between religion, medicine, and magic are uncovered.

scholarly journals A first comprehensive inventory of Ascalaphidae, Palparidae, and Myrmeleontidae (Insecta: Neuroptera) of Northeastern Nigeria with description of two new species and an overview of genus Bankisus Navás

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 51-77
Author(s):  
André Prost ◽  
Alexi Popov
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Republic ◽  
New Records ◽  
National Museum ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Large Collection ◽  
Two New Species ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
Plateau State ◽  
New Synonymy ◽  
First Time

Investigation of a large collection of Neuroptera from Northeastern Nigeria stored untouched in alcohol for four decades in the National Museum of Natural History, Sofia, provided the opportunity to examine unpublished specimens and conduct a thorough review of published literature, establishing the first comprehensive inventory of Ascalaphidae, Palparidae, and Myrmeleontidae of Northeastern Nigeria to date. Specimens had been collected between 1976 and 1978 in Northeastern Nigeria, mostly in Jos City and Plateau State. Five species of Ascalaphidae, four of Palparidae, and 26 of Myrmeleontidae were identified. Bankisus beroni sp. n. and Creoleon nigrithorax sp. n. are described. Gymnoleon gaillardi is not considered a synonym of Gymnoleon exilis and a new synonymy is established: Gymnoleon externus (Navás, 1911) (= Gymnoleon gaillardi Navás, 1912, syn. n.). An examination of unpublished specimens in museum collections and an exhaustive literature review were conducted in order to draw up a comprehensive inventory of the fauna of Northeastern Nigeria, which to date comprises 11 species of Ascalaphidae, 12 species of Palparidae, and 34 species of Myrmeleontidae, of which one species of Ascalaphidae, two species of Palparidae, and 16 species of Myrmeleontidae, as well as the genera Brevibarbis, Bankisus, and Capicua, had not been reported to occur in Nigeria. The chorological information on the genus Bankisus is reviewed, the ranges of the species are critically discussed and corrected, and all known localities are indicated on a map. Bankisus oculatus is reported for the first time from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The first recording of Centroclisis lineatipennis in West Africa is reported. Palpares cataractae and Palpares radiatus are deleted from the list of Nigerian fauna. With these new records, the known ranges of eight species are extended by more than 1400 km. In the process of assessing the geographical distribution of species present in Northeastern Nigeria, six species, as well as the genera Myrmecaelurus and Cueta and the tribe Nesoleontini, are reported for the first time from Burkina Faso.

scholarly journals The genus Pelophylax (Amphibia, Ranidae) in Pakistan: museum collections and possible distribution

Herpetozoa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 141-147
Author(s):  
Daniel Jablonski ◽  
Addison Wynn ◽  
Rafaqat Masroor ◽  
Theodore Papenfuss ◽  
Spartak N. Litvinchuk ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
National Museum ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ◽  
Field Investigations ◽  
The Family ◽  
Kabul River

We provide the first comprehensive data on the questionable distribution of the genus Pelophylax and the family Ranidae from Pakistan. Based on a literature review and two specimens of the genus from Tasp, Panjgur District in Pakistani Balochistan (USNM 26194–95), stored in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, USA, we discuss the possible occurrence and affiliation of these frogs in the context of Central Asia. Our comparison shows that the nearest records of Pelophylax in relation to the Tasp specimens are reported from more than 280 km (air-line) away in Iran and Afghanistan, which are currently separated by hot and mostly desert environments. We suggest that possible surviving populations of this genus may still be present in Balochistan (Rakhshan River) or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Kabul River) Provinces of Pakistan. This would, however, need further field investigations.

Material Culture and Healing Practice

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-290
Author(s):  
Anna Elizabeth Winterbottom
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Art History ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Medical Culture ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Practice Of Medicine ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Abstract The practice of medicine and healing is always accompanied by a range of paraphernalia, from pillboxes to instruments to clothing. Yet such things have rarely attracted the attention of historians of medicine. Here, I draw on perspectives from art history and religious studies to ask how these objects relate, in practical and symbolic terms, to practices of healing. In other words, what is the connection between medical culture and material culture? I focus on craft objects relating to medicine and healing in Lanka during the Kandyan period (ca. 1595–1815) in museum collections in Canada and Sri Lanka. I ask what the objects can tell us, first, about early modern Lankan medicine and healing and, second, about late nineteenth- and twentieth-century efforts to reconstruct tradition. Finally, I explore what studying these objects might add to current debates about early modern globalization in the context of both material culture and medicine.

Idealism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.L.S. Sprigge
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Spiritual Values ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Absolute Idealism ◽  
The Us ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Uk

Idealism is now usually understood in philosophy as the view that mind is the most basic reality and that the physical world exists only as an appearance to or expression of mind, or as somehow mental in its inner essence. However, a philosophy which makes the physical world dependent upon mind is usually also called idealist even if it postulates some further hidden, more basic reality behind the mental and physical scenes (for example, Kant’s things-in-themselves). There is also a certain tendency to restrict the term ‘idealism’ to systems for which what is basic is mind of a somewhat lofty nature, so that ‘spiritual values’ are the ultimate shapers of reality. (An older and broader use counts as idealist any view for which the physical world is somehow unreal compared with some more ultimate, not necessarily mental, reality conceived as the source of value, for example Platonic forms.) The founding fathers of idealism in Western thought are Berkeley (theistic idealism), Kant (transcendental idealism) and Hegel (absolute idealism). Although the precise sense in which Hegel was an idealist is problematic, his influence on subsequent absolute or monistic idealism was enormous. In the US and the UK idealism, especially of the absolute kind, was the dominating philosophy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, receiving its most forceful expression with F.H. Bradley. It declined, without dying, under the influence of G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell, and later of the logical positivists. Not a few philosophers believe, however, that it has a future.

A checklist of the butterflies of Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia and some adjacent areas

Zootaxa ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 1178 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. JOHN TENNENT
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Pacific Region ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Uk ◽  
First Time

A systematic checklist of the butterflies of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia is presented. A significant number of previously unpublished island records were found in major museum collections in the UK, Australia and the USA. Aspects of butterfly distribution, authorship of names, and taxonomy are addressed, and sources for about 2,200 published butterfly names are incorporated in a comprehensive bibliography of Pacific butterflies. Combined with recent publications dealing with specific areas, such as Papua New Guinea, a working systematic checklist of Pacific Region butterflies is available for the first time.

The Final Bows

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-297
Author(s):  
Sara Hume
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Large Head ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Folk Dress

Abstract How did people actually dress across rural Alsace from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century? The image that fills the popular imagination of Alsatian dress during this period is of a regional costume, including a large head bow. This stereotype was developed and reinforced by intellectuals who documented and preserved these disappearing styles. The survival of this static folk dress obscures the actual transformation of regional dress into styles that more closely resembled those worn in urban areas. This study looks at rural costume in Alsace to understand its transition from distinctive regional dress into styles more in line with urban styles, by making use of a range of source material, including notarial acts, surviving garments preserved in museum collections, and photographs of weddings and other religious ceremonies. Comment s'habillaient les gens en Alsace rurale de la fin du dix-neuvième au début du vingtième siècle ? L'image qui nous vient tout de suite à l'esprit est celle du grand nœud noir. Ce stéréotype a été développé et renforcé par les intellectuels qui ont documenté et préservé ces modes en voie de disparition. La survivance de ce costume folklorique cache cependant la transformation qu'ont connue les habits régionaux, sous l'influence des vêtements portés en ville. Cet article étudie le costume rural en Alsace pour mieux comprendre comment s'est réalisée la transition des vêtements régionaux en vêtements dont le style était plus conforme à celui des villes. Pour ce faire, il utilise une variété de sources, y compris les actes notariés, les vêtements préservés dans les collections des musées, et les photographies de mariages et d'autres cérémonies religieuses.

Walking in the Shadows of Archaeologists Past: Researching Museum Collections and Associated Records to Elucidate past Lifeways

2000 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-106
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Crowell
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Field Data ◽  
Smithsonian Institution ◽  
The State ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
National Museum ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
The Past ◽  
Private Collections

Researching museum collections and associated field data, in addition to consulting modern scientific studies, can provide a great deal of information about the presence and nature of archaeological sites in a locale. This article was developed based upon collections research conducted for prehistoric archaeological sites in Washington, D.C., using the collections of the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, and other repositories. The state of collections varies widely. Some collectors gathered only perfect completed tools and other objects, while others collected these materials and debitage. The state of documentation ranges from complete and exacting with precision rivaling modern-day to non-existent. The importance of examining museum collections and private collections, where available, cannot be downplayed. Sometimes they possess the only clues remaining regarding certain practices which occurred in the past and can provide information not otherwise available to the researcher.

scholarly journals Embroidery ornament on a traditional Khakass holiday women’s fur coat

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 136-145
Author(s):  
M. P. Chebotaeva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
National Museum ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Saint Petersburg ◽  
Peter The Great

The article deals with the traditional Khakas holiday coats «tone», «Oh ton» and «idect tone.» The research was based on the Museum collections of the Russian ethnographic Museum (Saint Petersburg)and the Museum of anthropology and Ethnography. Peter the Great (Kunstkamera), Khakass national Museum of local lore and Askiz Museum of local lore. The author analyzes the canons of embroidery arrangement on women’s fur coats of the Khakas ethnic groups-Kachin, sagay, koibal, Kyzyl and Shor. Folk embroidery of the Khakas on a festive fur coat had mythological motifs and was a kind of amulet of a person. The main ornamental motifs in embroidery were associated with the Pantheon of gods among the Khakas Tengri (Tigir), Umai (Ymai), the goddess of Fire (From Ine), the God of the Middle world «Earth-Water» (Chir-su), the Sun Goddess (kun) and the moon Goddess (AI).

Collections of the National Museum Related to Cultural Opposition

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 35-41
Author(s):  
Marek Junek
Keyword(s):  
National Museum ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Political Opposition ◽  
Culture Form ◽  
Vaclav Havel ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Charter 77 ◽  
Radio Free Europe

Collections devoted to culture form an important part of the National Museum collections. Especially those of the Czechoslovak Documentation Centre which were given to the National Museum by Vilém Prečan in 2003 are devoted to the Cultural and Political Opposition. These collections include a wide range of personal collections (Václav Havel, Milan Šimečka, Jiřina Šiklová, Ivan Medek and others). Institutional collections, such as Radio Free Europe, the Charter 77 Foundation or the Czechoslovak Documentation Centre own collections, are also important. The collections show how important cooperation between the dissent and exile culture was, especially during the period of so-called normalization and illustrate their interconnection at the same time.

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