The Ensouled Body: A Cross-Cultural Meta-Analysis of Spiritual Beliefs about Human Bodily Parts and Substances

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Embodied Essence: Anthropological, Historical, and Archaeological Perspectives on the Use of Body Parts and Bodily Substances in Religious Beliefs and Practices" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In many societies, human bodily parts and substances have been seen as symbolically significant and imbued with spiritual power. Over the years, several scholars have recognized the importance of these bodily parts and substances in various religious beliefs and behaviors. However, their research often focuses on specific regions or time periods. Therefore, the full global scope of these ideas is currently unclear. To address this issue, we conducted a meta-analysis of 25 scholarly works that discuss ethnographic and other firsthand accounts of symbolically powerful human bodily parts and substances. We organized the cultures presented in these works based on geography and language family. Thereafter, we coded which bodily parts or substances were viewed as symbolically powerful. Finally, we outlined the culturally held understandings about why these bodily parts and substances are believed to hold power. Through this analysis, we collated a global sample of cultures that held similar beliefs about the symbolic importance of bodily parts and substances. We propose that these beliefs are widely seen cross-culturally and are an important part of many religious beliefs and practices. This study suggests that researchers should consider these types of ideologically based explanations for archaeological remains of bodily parts and substances.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Embodied Essence: Anthropological, Historical, and Archaeological Perspectives on the Use of Body Parts and Bodily Substances in Religious Beliefs and Practices   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38645.0