Anders Kaliff's Books

The Source of the Blue Nile

Water Rituals and Traditions in the Lake Tana Region

By: Gedef Abawa Firew,Anders Kaliff

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The Source of the Blue Nile

Water Rituals and Traditions in the Lake Tana Region

By: Gedef Abawa Firew,Anders Kaliff

Ethiopia has a rich and fascinating cultural heritage structured around water. The River Nile has been seen by many as the most important river in the world, and the secrets of the sources of the Nile and their mysteries have, from the dawn of civilization, attracted philosophers, emperors and explorers searching for answers. The source of the Blue Nile, Gish Abay, is believed to be the outlet of the biblical river Gihon, flowing directly from Paradise, linking this world with Heaven. The holiness of Abay (the Blue Nile) and its source in particular still has an important role in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. In the Lake Tana region, there are also numerous other myths, traditions and rituals concerning the river. Several of the island monasteries are incredibly holy, and indigenous practices and sacrifices to the river are still conducted. The most important celebration in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is the Timkat festival, which is an annual commemoration of the importance of baptism. Despite the importance of the River Nile from antiquity to present-day practices and beliefs in Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, very little research has been conducted on the cultural and religious aspects of the Blue Nile in general and its source, Gish Abay, and Lake Tana in Ethiopia in particular. This book combines historic sources and new empirical ethnography, presenting parts of this cultural heritage and the traditions of water along the Blue Nile.

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170

Publisher

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1443867918

ISBN 13

9781443867917

Cremation, Corpses and Cannibalism

Comparative Cosmologies and Centuries of Cosmic Consumption

By: Anders Kaliff,Terje Oestigaard

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Cremation, Corpses and Cannibalism

Comparative Cosmologies and Centuries of Cosmic Consumption

By: Anders Kaliff,Terje Oestigaard

Death matters and the matters of death are initially, and to a large extent, the decaying flesh of the corpse. Cremation as a ritual practice is the fastest and most optimal way of dissolving the corpse’s flesh, either by annihilation or purification, or a combination. Still, cremation was not the final rite, and the archaeological record testifies that the dead represented a means to other ends – the flesh, and not the least the bones – have been incorporated in a wide range of other ritual contexts. While human sacrifices and cannibalism as ritual phenomena are much discussed in anthropology, archaeology has an advantage, since the actual bone material leaves traces of ritual practices that are unseen and unheard of in the contemporary world. As such, this book fleshes out a broader and more coherent understanding of prehistoric religions and funeral practices in Scandinavia by focusing on cremation, corpses and cannibalism.

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205

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Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1443891800

ISBN 13

9781443891806

Indo-European Fire Rituals

Cattle and Cultivation, Cremation and Cosmogony

By: Anders Kaliff,Terje Oestigaard

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Indo-European Fire Rituals

Cattle and Cultivation, Cremation and Cosmogony

By: Anders Kaliff,Terje Oestigaard

Indo-European Fire Rituals is a comparative study of Indo-European fire rituals from modern folklore and ethnography in Scandinavia and archaeological material in Europe from the Bronze Age onwards to the Vedic origins of cosmos in India and today’s cremations on open pyres in Hinduism. Exploring Indo-European fire rituals and sacrifices throughout history and fire in its fundamental role in rites and religious practices, this book analyses fire rituals as the unifying structure in time and space in Indo-European cultures from the Bronze Age onwards. It asks the question how and why was fire the ultimate power in culture and cosmology? Fire as an agent and divinity was fundamental in all major sacrifices. In Europe, ritual fires in relation to agriculture and fertility may also explain the enigma of cremation. Cremated remains were ground and used in fertility rituals, and ancestral fires played an essential role in metallurgy and the creation of cosmos. Thus, the role of fire rituals in culture and cosmology enables a unique understanding of historic developmental processes. For students and academics studying Indo-European culture history from the Bronze Age onwards, this book has a broad interdisciplinary audience including archaeology, ethnography, folklore, religious and Indo-European studies.

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249

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Published Date

ISBN 10

1000822877

ISBN 13

9781000822878

Religion at Work in Globalised Traditions

Rainmaking, Witchcraft and Christianity in Tanzania

By: Anders Kaliff

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Religion at Work in Globalised Traditions

Rainmaking, Witchcraft and Christianity in Tanzania

By: Anders Kaliff

Why do traditions disappear? How is the disappearance of tradition also a vehicle for social change and re-inventions of practices and new traditions? Using case studies from one Sukuma area along the southern shores of Lake Victoria in Tanzania, global processes of how religions work in practice are analysed by focusing on rainmaking, witchcraft and Christianity. Traditionally, Sukuma society was culturally and cosmologically structured around the chief, the ancestors and rainmaking. Everything was dependent upon the rain. Rainmaking as a ritual practice has disappeared and ancestral propitiations are declining, while, at the same time, Christianity is spreading and witchcraft and witch killings are increasing. Although Christianity as a religion may provide answers and hopes for life after death, the religion provides few solutions in the here and now when it comes to poverty and suffering; problems and challenges that have to be solved. Witchcraft, on the other hand, does, or is believed to do so – and the increase in witchcraft is analysed in relation to the impacts of more than a century of globalisation from the missionaries and colonizers onwards. With the declining ancestral tradition, witchcraft and Christianity as religious practices supplement each other in the ways they are believed to work in providing answers, solutions or divine interferences in different realms; this world and the Otherworld. Offering an approach going beyond structural functionalism on different premises, the book’s focus on religion at work will facilitate new understandings of how to study religion as it is perceived and believed in practice.

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320

Publisher

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1443858765

ISBN 13

9781443858762

Old Norse Religion in Long-term Perspectives

Origins, Changes, and Interactions : an International Conference in Lund, Sweden, June 3-7, 2004

By: Anders Andrén

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Old Norse Religion in Long-term Perspectives

Origins, Changes, and Interactions : an International Conference in Lund, Sweden, June 3-7, 2004

By: Anders Andrén

The study of Old Norse Religion is a truly multidisciplinary and international field of research. The rituals, myths and narratives of pre-Christian Scandinavia are investigated and interpreted by archaeologists, historians, art historians, historians of religion as well as scholars of literature, onomastics and Scandinavian studies. For obvious reasons, these studies belong to the main curricula in Scandinavia but are also carried out at many other universities in Europe, the United States and Australia a fact that is evident to any reader of this book. In order to bring this broad and varied field of research together, an international conference on Old Norse religion was held in Lund in June 2004. About two hundred delegates from more than fifteen countries took part. The intention was to gather researchers to encourage and improve scholarly exchange and dialogue, and Old Norse religion in long-term perspectives presents a selection of the proceedings from that conference. The 75 contributions elucidate topics such as worldview and cosmology, ritual and religious practice, myth and memory as well as the reception and present-day use of Old Norse religion. The main editors of this volume have directed the multidisciplinary research project Roads to Midgard since 2000. The project is based at Lund University and funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation.

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417

Publisher

Nordic Academic Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

918911681X

ISBN 13

9789189116818

Gods and Cults in Scandinavian Rock Carvings

By: Anders Askåsen

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Gods and Cults in Scandinavian Rock Carvings

By: Anders Askåsen

The Bronze Age in Scandinavia is a period of significant societal changes where religious cult activity thrived. The rock carvings scattered throughout the landscape hold incredible cultural value and perhaps the key to unlocking the mystery of the religion of the time. However, the absence of written sources and the complexities of interpretation have left much of the meaning shrouded in enigma. The author, inspired by the local rock carvings in Askim and around western Sweden, aims to unravel their secrets, particularly their religious significance to the Bronze Age peoples. Although the interpretations of rock carvings vary, the author aims to identify religious elements and provide a complementary picture of their connections and parallels to later religious practices. The book explores the development of worldview from the Bronze Age to the Viking Age mythology and examines whether there are traces of cultural and religious exchanges with other parts of the world. By comparing the petroglyphs with symbolism worldwide, the author shows the intimate relationship between spirituality, religion, society, and humans. The book serves as a testament to the afterworld, attempting to shed light on the enigmatic Scandinavian petroglyphs and archaeologists' interpretations of them. Despite extensive studies of the petroglyphs, the mysterious and arcane nature of these ancient carvings often leaves more questions than answers.

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206

Publisher

BoD - Books on Demand

Published Date

ISBN 10

9180803911

ISBN 13

9789180803915

The End of the World in Scandinavian Mythology

A Comparative Perspective on Ragnarök

By: Anders Hultgård

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The End of the World in Scandinavian Mythology

A Comparative Perspective on Ragnarök

By: Anders Hultgård

The End of the World in Scandinavian Mythology is a detailed study of the Scandinavian myth on the end of the world, the Ragnarök, and its comparative background. The Old Norse texts on Ragnarök, in the first place the 'Prophecy of the Seeress' and the Prose Edda of the Icelander Snorri Sturluson, are well known and much discussed. However, Anders Hultgård suggests that it is worthwhile to reconsider the Ragnarök myth and shed new light on it using new comparative evidence, and presenting texts in translation that otherwise are available only to specialists. The intricate question of Christian influence on Ragnarök is addressed in detail, with the author arriving at the conclusion of an independent pre-Christian myth with the closest analogies in ancient Iran. People in modern society are concerned with the future of our world, and we can see these same fears and hopes expressed in many ancient religions, transformed into myths of the future including both cosmic destruction and cosmic renewal. The Ragnarök myth can be said to be the classical instance of such myths, making it more relevant today than ever before.

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Page Count

474

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0192692844

ISBN 13

9780192692849

Tracing Old Norse Cosmology

The World Tree, Middle Earth and the Sun in Archeaological Perspectives

By: Anders Andrén

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Tracing Old Norse Cosmology

The World Tree, Middle Earth and the Sun in Archeaological Perspectives

By: Anders Andrén

The study of Old Norse religion is a truly multidisciplinary and international field of research. The rituals, myths, and narratives of pre-Christian Scandinavia have been studied and interpreted in detail relying mainly on Christian Icelandic literature from the Middle Ages. Here, Anders Andrén offers a long-term perspective on Old Norse cosmology and argues that the fundamental ideas of an ordered universe, time, and space in Old Norse religion can be studied in a dialogue between archaeology and the Icelandic narrative tradition. Ideas about the world tree, middle earth, and the sun can be traced in images and material culture from Scandinavian prehistory. By combining the prehistoric representations with the later written record the author presents a fresh and nuanced study of the fascinating Old Norse world.

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248

Publisher

Nordic Academic Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

9187675013

ISBN 13

9789187675010

Indo-European Fire Rituals

Cattle and Cultivation, Cremation and Cosmogony

By: Anders Kaliff,Terje Oestigaard

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Indo-European Fire Rituals

Cattle and Cultivation, Cremation and Cosmogony

By: Anders Kaliff,Terje Oestigaard

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Page Count

249

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Published Date

ISBN 10

1000822877

ISBN 13

9781000822878

Cremation, Corpses and Cannibalism

Comparative Cosmologies and Centuries of Cosmic Consumption

By: Anders Kaliff,Terje Oestigaard

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Cremation, Corpses and Cannibalism

Comparative Cosmologies and Centuries of Cosmic Consumption

By: Anders Kaliff,Terje Oestigaard

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Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

205

Publisher

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1443891800

ISBN 13

9781443891806

Book's by Anders Kaliff

The Source of the Blue Nile

The Source of the Blue Nile

Cremation, Corpses and Cannibalism

Cremation, Corpses and Cannibalism

Indo-European Fire Rituals

Indo-European Fire Rituals

Religion at Work in Globalised Traditions

Religion at Work in Globalised Traditions

Old Norse Religion in Long-term Perspectives

Old Norse Religion in Long-term Perspectives

Gods and Cults in Scandinavian Rock Carvings

Gods and Cults in Scandinavian Rock Carvings

The End of the World in Scandinavian Mythology

The End of the World in Scandinavian Mythology

Tracing Old Norse Cosmology

Tracing Old Norse Cosmology

Indo-European Fire Rituals

Indo-European Fire Rituals

Cremation, Corpses and Cannibalism

Cremation, Corpses and Cannibalism

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