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Vol. 16 No. 1 (2023)

Sacred Spaces in North America—RIAS Vol. 16, Spring–Summer (1/2023)

Published: 2023-08-29

The connections between the spiritual and natural world and the temporality and permanence of sacred places have found constant expression throughout the history of North America. Places of power drew ancient Indigenous peoples, who came to them to “communicate and commune with higher spiritual powers,” to use the words of Vine Deloria, Jr. They interacted with the landscape, developing a unique sense of space, building shrines, roads, mounds, and other structures. While some of these places may have been abandoned over time (some due to demographic changes before the arrival of the Europeans, others due to the forces of settler colonialism), they continue to hold spiritual meaning for contemporary Native Americans. However, Native claims to these places of power are often challenged by competing claims from the dominant society that often feels entitled to ownership of these places.

As European colonial settlement advanced, many sites sacred to the Indigenous peoples were abandoned (often forcibly), desecrated, destroyed, or left in obscurity for their own protection, only to gain new meanings within the conquering or enslaved cultures taking root. The newly arrived settlers interacted with the landscape, bringing with them their own cultural perspectives. Some of these communities settled in areas where the land’s topography and sounds reminded them of their homelands, and they named them accordingly. The settlers’ religious institutions often played a significant role in the establishment of their communities, producing “shrines and sacred sites discerned by the occupying people” (to borrow Deloria’s words again), from the colonial era through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. As the occupation of the land by the newcomers continued, places of worship and reverence developed and were layered over those that came before them. The landscape then became a visual record of the various expressions of the diverse cultures. Thus, we see the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City rising from the grounds which were once occupied by Tenochtitlán’s sacred pyramids, or the likenesses of US presidents carved into the granite face of the Paha Sapa (Black Hills), sacred to the Lakota and the Tsistsistas (Cheyenne) people.

The questions surrounding ownership and authenticity point to problems inherent in the term “sacred” and, although the title of this issue of RIAS is “Sacred Spaces in North America,” that concept can be misleading as the Western tradition tends to define the “sacred” in opposition to the “profane” or secular. The articles included here aim to broaden the understanding of these and other terms by approaching “sacredness” from a wide range of disciplinary and conceptual approaches to examine the temporality and permanence of the ancient and the modern, the contested definitions of sacredness with their legal and political ramifications, or the questions of cultural appropriation of the Indigenous sacred in art and entertainment, inviting their consideration across the vastness of North America.

(Read more in Lucie Kýrová and Nathaniel Racine’s “Intro”)

Number of Publications: 15

Download full issue (pdf)

FRONT MATTER/CONTENTS

Masthead and Table of Contents

RIAS Editors
Language: EN | Published: 28-08-2023 | Abstract | pp. 1-4


ED/NOTE

A New Opening: Presidential Address for the 11th World Congress of the IASA, Katowice, Poland, 7-10 September 2023

Paweł Jędrzejko
Language: EN | Published: 28-08-2023 | Abstract | pp. 5-14


INTRO

Contestations Over Sacred Spaces in North America

Lucie Kýrová , Nathaniel R. Racine
Language: EN | Published: 28-08-2023 | Abstract | pp. 15-30


FEATURES

Our Death is Our Strongest Surviving Tradition. A Guest Essay by the Artist of Our Cover Image

Ukjese van Kampen
Language: EN | Published: 28-08-2023 | Abstract | pp. 31-47

Ritual Roadways and Places of Power in the Chaco World (ca. AD 850-1150)

Robert Weiner
Language: EN | Published: 28-08-2023 | Abstract | pp. 49-86

Reinterpretation of ‘Sacred Space’ at The Newark Earthworks and Serpent Mound

Settler Colonialism and Discourses of 'Sacred'

Sandra Garner
Language: EN | Published: 28-08-2023 | Abstract | pp. 87-114

Czech Sacred Places in Texas as the Key Element for Preserving Czech Identity

Lukáš Perutka
Language: EN | Published: 28-08-2023 | Abstract | pp. 115-142

Making Indigenous Religion at the San Francisco Peaks

Navajo Discourses and Strategies of Familiarization

Seth Schermerhorn
Language: EN | Published: 28-08-2023 | Abstract | pp. 143-186

Onondaga Lake as Sacred Space and Contested Space

Holly Anne Rine
Language: EN | Published: 28-08-2023 | Abstract | pp. 187-221

Indigenous Burial Spaces in Media: Views of Mi'gmaq Cemeteries as Sites of Horror and the Sacred

Jennifer Stern
Language: EN | Published: 28-08-2023 | Abstract | pp. 223-258

As the Digital Teocalli Burns: Mesoamerica as Gamified Space and the Displacement of Sacred Pixels

Joshua Jacob Fitzgerald
Language: EN | Published: 28-08-2023 | Abstract | pp. 259-306


REVIEWS

Building the Brafferton: The Founding, Funding, and Legacy of America's Indian School edited by Danielle Moretti-Langholtz and Buck Woodard

(A Book Review)

Libby Cook
Language: EN | Published: 28-08-2023 | Abstract | pp. 307-312

Lacrosse – It’s a Way of Life, dir. Lívia Šavelková, Tomáš Petráň and Milan Durňak, Global Lacrosse Village/Lakrosová vesnice, dir. Lívia Šavelková and Milan Durňak, On the Shore/Na Břehu, dir. Lívia Šavelková and Milan Durňak

(Film Reviews)

Zuzanna Kruk-Buchowska
Language: EN | Published: 28-08-2023 | Abstract | pp. 313-317

Empire of Ruins: American Culture, Photography, and the Spectacle of Destruction by Miles Orvell

(A Book Review)

Julia Faisst
Language: EN | Published: 28-08-2023 | Abstract | pp. 319-326


END/NOTE

RIAS Editorial Policy / Stylesheet

RIAS Editors
Language: EN | Published: 28-08-2023 | Abstract | pp. 327-331


Vol. 17 No. 2 (2024)
Published: 2024-12-31



eISSN: 1991-2773
Logo DOI 10.31261/RIAS

Publisher
University of Silesia Press

Licence CC

Licencja CC BY-SA

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