scholarly journals Village Tutelary Deities as a Cultural and Axiological Symbol in Korea and Romania

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 9-23
Author(s):  
Jeong Hwan Kim

An artistic creation expressed as a cultural phenomenon symbolizes the characteristics of a nation’s soul and mental life. And the cultural heritage of a nation, which shows us the religious symbols and signs in the great nature to be harmonized with the profane and the sacred, is also easily found in the East and the West. Troytsa, Jangseung, Sotdae: these can be taken as representative. Regarding the Romanian cultural heritage of Troytsa, the village tutelary deity conforms very similarly to Korean Jangseung and Sotdae. Jangseung and Sotdae, representative popular sculptured creations of Korean folk beliefs, and which are related to the totem pole, are close to villagers’ lives, being the divine protection of the village’s peace, as well as functioning as a signpost and a boundary, ensuring a good harvest and preventing misfortune, etc. A Sotdae, which features a bird on top of a pole, is recognized as an object of belief mixed between the “Tree of the World” and the “Bird of the Soul” in northern-cultural Asian shamanism. Unlike them, the Romanian Troytsa, which took root in an ancient faith (the Totem of the Tree), is a divine, sculptured creation mixed with Christianity, generally located at the entrance of a village or at an intersection of roads. These tutelary deities and their variations share functions and characteristics, but their features and patterns are different. Jangseung have angry and fearful countenances in order to turn away diseases and evil spirits, but Sotdae and Troytsa maintain the style of a menhir or a column as one of the folk beliefs related to the totem pole. Even today, Troytsa, Jangseung, Sotdae are being generated and developed as representative cultural prototypes and village tutelary deities.

2001 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Issam S. Mousa

Abstract: Scholars unanimously agree that the development of the alphabet is a cornerstone of civilization and that Greece played a central role in the spread of this medium in the West. Both Latin and Arabic scripts were derived from the Phoenician, which represents a shared cultural heritage between the Middle East and the West. However, the question of the development of the second most used alphabet in the world, Arabic, is riddled with uncertainty for scholars. They disagree on the origin of this significant medium, which has been used by Arabs, Persians, and other nations for the past 15 centuries. This paper examines how critical communication theory may help solve this enduring mystery and finds compelling evidence to suggest that the Arabic script evolved from the Nabataean rather than the Syriac. Résumé : Les spécialistes sont tous d'accord que le développement de l'alphabet a été une pierre angulaire de la civilisation et que la Grèce a joué un rôle primordial dans la diffusion de l'alphabet à travers l'Occident. Les textes latins et arabes sont tous les deux originaires du phénicien, représentant un héritage culturel partagé entre le Moyen Orient et l'Occident. Cependant, la question du développement de l'alphabet arabe, le deuxième plus répandu au monde, est entourée d'incertitude pour les spécialistes. Ceux-ci sont en désaccord sur les origines de ce mode de transmission important, que les Arabes, les Perses et d'autres nations utilisent depuis quinze siècles. Cet article examine comment la théorie critique en communication peut aider à résoudre ce mystère persistant et découvre des indices importants suggérant que l'écriure arabe a évolué du nabatéen plutôt que du syriaque.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-116
Author(s):  
Fiona Macmillan

Abstract This work sets out to consider the fate of creativity and forms of cultural production as they fall into and between the regimes of cultural heritage law and intellectual property law. It examines and challenges the dualisms that ground both regimes, exposing their (unsurprising) reflection of occidental ways of seeing the world. The work reflects on the problem of regulating creativity and cultural production according to Western thought systems in a world that is not only Western. At the same time, it accepts that the challenge in taking on the dualisms that hold together the existing legal regimes regulating creativity and cultural production lies in a critically nuanced approach to the geo-political distinction between the West and the rest. Like many of the distinctions considered in this book, this is one that holds and does not hold.


2015 ◽  
Vol 01 (02) ◽  
pp. 183-204
Author(s):  
Yafei He

As the world moves from "governance by the West" to "co-governance by both the West and East," the inherent deficiency in current global governance architecture becomes obvious to all of us. The author, through his own experiences as both a practitioner and student of global governance, has highlighted where the deficiency is and how to remedy it. By explaining China's recent moves in proposing the Chinese dream and building "one belt and one road," the author suggests that China continue on this proactive approach in dealing with global governance and offers some ideas from Chinese cultural heritage on how to reform the global governance architecture, with an emphasis on the G20, as well as on what China and the United States can do together to achieve better global governance.


Museum Worlds ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Riggs

During the Egyptian revolution in January 2011, the antiquities museum in Tahrir Square became the focus of press attention amid claims of looting and theft, leading Western organizations and media outlets to call for the protection of Egypt’s ‘global cultural heritage’. What passed without remark, however, was the colonial history of the Cairo museum and its collections, which has shaped their postcolonial trajectory. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Cairo museum was a pivotal site for demonstrating control of Egypt on the world stage through its antiquities. More than a century later, these colonial visions of ancient Egypt, and its place in museums, continue to exert their legacy, not only in the challenges faced by the Egyptian Antiquities Museum at a crucial stage of redevelopment, but also in terms of museological practice in the West.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-172
Author(s):  
Chandan Kaushal

The idea of heritage is not new; originating in the West in the nineteenth century, it travelled in the world through colonial policy. However, heritage or world heritage, as it is known today, was conceived and propagated by global agencies like UNESCO in the second half of the twentieth century. The present article aims to explore the heritage status demand for Chamba town located in the Western Himalayas. Heritage is treated here not as a thing, but as a different kind of attitude towards past. Drawing form Ericksen’s idea heritage in this article is understood as different ‘historicity regimes’. Pursuance for heritage status for Chamba which was ruled by a single dynasty until Independence, having vibrant past, can be seen as part of globalization. Heritage here means for some a ‘brand’ for marketing a place for tourist attraction and for others preservation of antiquities or veneration of past which plays a decisive role in negotiating, maintaining and creating a group identity. Official and unofficial heritage practices coexist which sometimes lead to contestation over meaning and practice. Analysing categories that organize experiences of temporality in Chamba such as antiquity and heritage employed by scholars and practitioners are coexistent with folklore, memory and beliefs that are part of everydayness and differ from how practitioners make sense of past.


PMLA ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raven I. McDavid

In my boyhood—more years ago than I care to remember—we used to define an expert as “a damned fool a thousand miles from home.” Since I am considerably less than a thousand miles from where I grew up, and stand but a few minutes from my residence in Hyde Park, it behooves me to avoid any claim to expertness about the problems faced in practical situations where the dialect of the school child is sharply divergent from what is expected of him in the classroom. For many of these situations, neither I nor any other working dialectologist knows what the local patterns actually are; for some, there has been no attempt, or at best a partial and belated one, to find out the patterns. Nevertheless, the implications of dialectology for the more rational teaching of English in the schools—and not only in the schools attended by those we currently euphemize as the culturally disadvantaged—are so tremendous that I am flattered to have John Fisher ask for my observations. The problems are not limited to Americans of any race or creed or color, nor indeed to Americans; they are being faced in England today, as immigrants from Pakistan and the West Indies compete in the Midlands for the same kinds of jobs that have drawn Negro Americans to Harlem and the South Side, and Appalachian whites to the airplane factories of Dayton. In fact, such problems are faced everywhere in the world as industrialization and urbanization take place, on every occasion when people, mostly but not exclusively the young, leave the farm and the village in search of the better pay and more glamorous life of the cities. In all parts of the world, educators and politicians are suddenly realizing that language differences can create major obstacles to the educational, economic, and social advancement of those whose true integration into the framework of society is necessary if that society is to be healthy; they are realizing that social dialects —that is, social differences in the way language is used in a given community—both reflect and perpetuate differences in the social order. In turn, the practicing linguist is being called on with increasing frequency to devise programs for the needs of specific groups—most often for the Negroes dwelling in the festering slums of our northern and western cities; and generous government and private subsidies have drawn into the act many teachers and administrators—most of them, I trust, well meaning—who not only have made no studies of dialect differences, but have ignored the studies and archives that are available, even those dealing with their own cities.


Author(s):  
Андрей Андреевич Бадмаев

В современности духовное наследие народов России, включая их традиционную картину мира, является объектом общественного и научного интереса. В этом ключе представляется важным реконструкция народных воззрений о животном мире. Целью работы является выявление значений волка в мифологических суждениях бурят и включенности этого дикого животного в их обрядность. Источниками для исследования послужили различные этнографические, фольклорные и лингвистические материалы. В работе использован в качестве основного структурно-семиотический метод. Анализ показывает, что у бурят сформировался неоднозначный образ волка, характеризующийся амбивалентностью коннотации. Выявлена в представлениях об этом звере особая роль символики цвета. Волк имел небесную (белый волк) и мужскую символику. Положительная коннотация выражалась также в признании апотропейной функции его шкуры. О сакральности его образа указывает соблюдавшийся охотниками обычай снятия с убитого хищника шкуры с головой и некоторыми внутренними органами. Отрицательная характеристика волка связывалась с тем, что этот зверь воспринимался как медиатор между мирами. Он отождествлялся с бедой. Полагали, что он имеет демоническую природу, служит транспортом для нечистой силы. На хтоническое происхождение хищника указывала его взаимосвязь с вороном. Волк также нес символику агрессии и увязывался с воинским культом. В этом контексте следует рассматривать его ассоциацию с оружием и идею оборотничества. Выяснено, что в шаманской обрядности бурят волк имел священный статус, что проявилось в поэзии и атрибутике шамана (в ритуальной одежде, в использовании волчьего фетиша). Определено, что народные воззрения бурят о волке находят параллели в традиционном мировоззрении других народов, что указывает на универсальные и типологические феномены в бурятской мифологической фауне. In modern times, the spiritual heritage of the peoples of Russia, including their traditional picture of the world, is an object of public and scientific interest. In this context, it is important to reconstruct popular views about the animal world. The purpose of the work is to identify the meaning of the wolf in the mythological judgments of the Buryats and the inclusion of this wild animal in their rituals. Various ethnographic, folklore, and linguistic materials were used as sources for the research. The paper uses the structural-semiotic method as the main one. The analysis shows that the Buryats have formed an ambiguous image of the wolf, characterized by ambivalent connotations. The special role of color symbolism is revealed in the ideas about this animal. The wolf had a heavenly (white wolf) and male symbolism. A positive connotation was also expressed in the recognition of the apotropaic function of his skin. The sacredness of his image is indicated by the custom observed by hunters of removing the skin from the killed predator with the head and some internal organs. The negative characteristic of the wolf was associated with the fact that this beast was perceived as a mediator between worlds. He was identified with trouble. It was believed that it has a demonic nature, serves as a transport for evil spirits. The chthonic origin of the predator was indicated by its relationship with the raven. The wolf also carried the symbolism of aggression and was associated with a military cult. In this context, we should consider its association with weapons and the idea of werewolves. It was found out that in the shamanic rites of the Buryats, the wolf had a sacred status, which was manifested in the poetry and attributes of the shaman (in ritual clothing, in the use of a wolf fetish). It is determined that the Buryat folk beliefs about the wolf find parallels in the traditional worldview of other peoples, which indicates universal and typological phenomena in the Buryat mythological fauna.


2020 ◽  
pp. 42-50
Author(s):  
V. E. Ugryumov

The article analyzes the biblical motifs and mythopoetic elements in the second part of S. Aksakov’s autobiographical trilogy Years of Childhood [Detskie gody Bagrova-vnuka]. The first experiences of a child in understanding the world are interpreted as ‘living knowledge’ (a term coined by A. Khomyakov). The image of the boy’s wet-nurse represents characteristics of the divine nature, the source of the vital force. The poetic image of ‘the torch of life’ is an allusion to the inextinguishable lamps with which the New Testament’s wise virgins greeted the bridegroom in anticipation of the symbolic wedding feast and life eternal. The chapter ‘First spring in the village’ is written to strongly resemble the biblical account of the Creation of the world, both in style and the manner of artistic associations. The book’s mythopoetic element, enduring imagery, and real-life situations create a unity of the cultural space. The Old and New Testaments’ motifs are depicted to be in natural coexistence. The world is shown through the eyes of a child, with childhood portrayed as a cultural phenomenon.


Crisis ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sudath Samaraweera ◽  
Athula Sumathipala ◽  
Sisira Siribaddana ◽  
S. Sivayogan ◽  
Dinesh Bhugra

Background: Suicidal ideation can often lead to suicide attempts and completed suicide. Studies have shown that Sri Lanka has one of the highest rates of suicide in the world but so far no studies have looked at prevalence of suicidal ideation in a general population in Sri Lanka. Aims: We wanted to determine the prevalence of suicidal ideation by randomly selecting six Divisional Secretariats (Dss) out of 17 in one district. This district is known to have higher than national average rates of suicide. Methods: 808 participants were interviewed using Sinhala versions of GHQ-30 and Beck’s Scale for Suicidal Ideation. Of these, 387 (48%) were males, and 421 (52%) were female. Results: On Beck’s Scale for Suicidal Ideation, 29 individuals (4%) had active suicidal ideation and 23 (3%) had passive suicidal ideation. The active suicidal ideators were young, physically ill and had higher levels of helplessness and hopelessness. Conclusions: The prevalence of suicidal ideation in Sri Lanka is lower than reported from the West and yet suicide rates are higher. Further work must explore cultural and religious factors.


1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 356-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fouad A-L.H. Abou-Hatab

This paper presents the case of psychology from a perspective not widely recognized by the West, namely, the Egyptian, Arab, and Islamic perspective. It discusses the introduction and development of psychology in this part of the world. Whenever such efforts are evaluated, six problems become apparent: (1) the one-way interaction with Western psychology; (2) the intellectual dependency; (3) the remote relationship with national heritage; (4) its irrelevance to cultural and social realities; (5) the inhibition of creativity; and (6) the loss of professional identity. Nevertheless, some major achievements are emphasized, and a four-facet look into the 21st century is proposed.


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