This week we discussed the critical importance that origin myths and material objects have in the composition, sustenance, and interpretation of sacred spaces. How does an act of divination encompass the space around it and makes it sacred? How does an object, like a tray, become more than a mere marginal ornament or a prop in the constitution of such sacred space? How does a person go from holding an object, or even merely looking at it, to engaging a whole cosmology? How can such an action and the event it generates lead them to experience the Homeland, even if they are not there? How do objects get woven with poetics, mimesis, and/or devotion to lead to the experience of the sacred and the constitution of a sacred space or place? How does the Yorùbá religion depend on objects like this for branding a space sacred, for everyone to see and grasp the hierophantic? What other objects can you think of in your own experience of the sacred that are equivalent in this matter?
Write a reflection in which you consider these questions and answer some of them. The post is due on Sunday October 27 at midnight.
This week’s readings covered until the unit of Myth and Rituals, Cosmologies, and Evidence, discussed Yoruba religion and the use of mimesis and poetics in Al-Ambrah. While I found Robinson reading “Marginal Ornament. Poetics, Mimesis, and Devotion” to be more challenging (not the easiest read) I thought the Olupona chapter “A Sense of Place” much more interesting. As I continue to mull over the question I asked in class, whether Olupona is comparing the Yoruba faith, practice, and conceptions to Judeo-Christian religion, to what degree, and to what point, I find myself running in circles. He purposefully brings as comparison Jerusalem and calls out Judeo-Chrisitan belief and practice. And I see many similarities between the two systems of faith: central places of worship, three-tiered world system, deities/gods residing in a “place”, to name but a few. And I see the point that Olupona makes, where for the Yoruba, Ile-Ife is the mythic center of creation as well as being the center of the religion whereas in terms of the Judeo-Christian narrative, the world was created with no specific physical point of origin (at least not in the narrative of the Bible). However, I am unsure exactly as to what difference that distinction makes in terms of lived practice. What does the city of Ile-Ife being both the mythic and religious center of the Yoruba religion make in terms of the system of religious practice or thought in comparison to Jerusalem, for example. Although Jerusalem is not considered the origin point of the world in Judeo-Christian narrative (although some Jewish commentary proposes different theories) it still serves comparable functions, purposes, and significance. The Jews used to have a physical place where the spirit of God manifested itself, the Tabernacle. How does this conception of holy place, although not static, compared to the multiple points where deities reside in Yoruba belief? I am still very curious about the comparison between the two systems and to what degree they have actual lived or demonstratable differences.
In the reading, Marginal Ornament: Poetics, Mimesis, and Devotion in the Palace of the Lions, I was most engaged by the discussion regarding Islamic architecture and poetry. Poetry is the avenue through which mimesis flows. It is the category through which things from the real world can be brought into sacred spaces. The basis of intertextuality between compositions inscribed on the walls and the poetics articulated by Hazim Qartajanni use mimesis to aid in creating the visual and verbal aesthetic. Poetry is innately devotional and is used in this religious context as a direct form of devotion through the use of mimesis. This allows the devotee to articulate their connection to the sacred space fully. The iconography of The Alhambra, and specifically the Palace of the Lions, rejects the effort to remove its inherently Islamic roots. These qualities and objects that exist within this space refuse to allow the history of Alhambra to be forgotten.
This week I kept asking myself how marginal ornamentation contributes to sacred spaces and how marginal ornamentation supersedes the notion that that objects create sacred spaces. In “Marginal Ornament: Poetics, Mimesis, and Devotion in the Place of the Lions,” Robinson articulates that while objects and ornamentation play a key role in the creation of sacred spaces, they are not what defines a space as sacred. Robinson says, “Itt is precisely Grabar’s concept of an “iconography”– a set of images, both architectural and ornamental, to which both patrons and public attached significance, and which were always understood through the interpretive lens offered by the verses inscribed on the walls that serves to unlock the multiple layers of meaning in these buildings” (1). I appreciate Robinsons discussion on the role marginal ornamentation plays, but how this ornamentation is not a defining characteristic to sacredness. For example, a material object can add to the aesthetic of a sacred space, but is considered sacred because it evokes feelings and actions of sacred religious experiences. If an object is used in a religious or sacred ritual, it has the ability to transcend physicality into spirituality. While people often ascribe significance with iconography, or images on walls or in sacred spaces, the significance lies in the spiritual meaning, not in the physical design. Objects and images take on further meaning when they are engaged in devotional practices, poetry, or mimesis.
The questions above that have always really fascinated me are “How does an object, like a tray, become more than a mere marginal ornament or a prop in the construction of such a sacred space?” and “How does a person go from holding an object, or even merely looking at it, to engaging a whole cosmology?”…I have always wondered what it takes, exactly, for an object to achieve religious significance and the fact that these symbols can encapsulate the entirety of a religion and everything it stands for is astounding to me. What Olupona’s text brought to light in this particular conversation, to me, was the fact that these questions apply to all religions across all cultures. The thing that I found most striking, or at least most memorable, about last week’s discussions is the fact that people interpret African (or practically all foreign, unfamiliar) religions through the Judeo-Christian lens. As simple as this idea might be, the reason why I found this point striking is because I often find myself at fault for this bias having grown up in the Christian church. It’s easy to compare “other” things with the one thing that you are most familiar with without regard for the fact that others might think the same of you. The matter of fact is, the Yoruba religion has much more in common with the Judeo-Christian religions than people probably like to admit (in fact, I believe the same thing can be said about most religions in the grandest scheme of things). The ways in which objects become sacred, therefore, is a divine mystery in both religions and each object is able to represent the entireties of each religions and tis values. When reflecting on the second question, I think of how once an object, such as the tray, becomes woven within poetics, mimesis, and devotion, its ability to achieve sacredness is inevitable in many cases. Our class previously discussed how poetics allow people to apply religious teachings to their own contexts and allow for interpretations that are fitting to whoever the reader/observer might be. When any given object achieves a symbolic purpose or poetic meaning within the context of a particular religion, the object is then given the responsibility to represent the beliefs of and the religion itself. Because the religious object, such as the tray, is able to achieve this poetic purpose, it also allows people to engage with the “whole cosmology” that is the religion that the object stands for.
Religions all over the world use objects to ascribe meaning to their beliefs and to bring sacredness into the world in a very physical way. This is true of the Yoruba religion and it is also true of Judeo-Christian tradition as well as many other religious traditions worldwide. Though Olupona’s main focus is the Yoruba religious tradition, it ultimately points out how religions that may be perceived as different are actually quite similar in practice in ways such as giving meaning to objects. We specifically pointed out the parallels between the cross in the tray for the Yoruba religion and the cross as a symbol for Christianity. There is an aspect of mobility to most religions but there is an apparent contradiction of static and mobile so many religions use objects to connect back to the origin, base, or homeland. Poetry and mimesis is the catalyst or the sort of bridge that helps to give a specific object like a tray meaning. According to Robinson, poetry is the avenue in which mimesis can occur because poetry is the broader category in which things from the real world and nature can be brought into sacred spaces so they are completely interrelated. I too have been mobile for a good portion of my life, and although I don’t follow a specific religion, there are very specific objects that hold great meaning to me and remind me of the people and things I find important. One of these objects is a small wooden box that I was given in Morocco. It means a great deal to me because of the people who gave it to me and the reasoning behind it so whenever I move, I make sure to travel with it close by.
The question of “how does an act of divination encompass the space around it and make it sacred” is a difficult question to say the least. The reason I say this is because in order to answer the question you must know what is an act of divination really is? The best way answer I could articulate is that the divine act is whatever a community uniformly (and when I say uniformly, I do not mean everyone, but a large enough portion that it matters) defines as such. Not just what the present community believes, but the past generations of that community as well. This is act must be passed down through the generations through stories and its repeated performances. Therefore, I believe many divine acts are more cultural traditions in a sense. If that’s the case however, then it blurs the line between what a cultural tradition and act of divination act is. Or it could be that they are the same thing. In any case, if that is the answer to what is a divine act, then the basic answer to how sed act encompasses the space around it and what makes it sacred is how much the ritual performed depends on the location of the act. To what extend your specific location, bodily positioning, the space around you plays in the actual ritual I believe determines how important it is. That importance will mostly likely give it an attribute of sacredness.
I also believe the answer to that question tends to provide a good answer to this next one: how an object does, like a tray, become more than a mere prop concerning the establishment of a sacred place. Once again, how involved that object is concerning the establishment process will determine its significance within the establishment of a sacred place. This involvement will also be determined by the cultural tradition and history that the sacred ritual has. This does not mean that this object’s involvement cannot change over time. After all, many rituals are altered through the passing down of one generation to the next. That alteration could affect that object’s significance and potentially render it as a “mere prop” within the future. This goes to show the potential of sacred objects (and spaces) to be more fluid and dynamic. However, this dynamic nature is most likely one slow in pace, so that fluidity can be in many cases stifled. However, this is ultimately dependent of the current generation of community practicing these sacred rituals and how much they want to change it.
It was interesting to me when we delved into how the tray of the Yoruba served as a connection between them, the Yoruba, and their divine as well as how an event or action can contribute to the creation of homeland because it made me realize how similar although not the same my way of Christianity might be similar to how the Yoruba experience their religion. In my own experience, a bible is an object that I view as the connection between me and Jesus. I believe that by reading the bible, I am connected to God through Jesus, because 1 Timothy 2:5 says, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” I form a relationship with God by reading the bible which through its stories transports me to many of the places Jesus went and enables me to experience his miracles. The bible has also caused me to connect the church as a sacred place. The church to me is sacred concerning the bible because it was through me going to church constantly that I developed the idea of the bible as a sacred book. The bible has also made me view places such as Jerusalem and Nazareth as sacred places. The bible states that Jesus was born in Nazareth which has caused me to view Nazareth as a very important place as well as Jerusalem in it as the promised land.
This week’s readings had me ask myself, what makes a place sacred? Olúpònà writes, “sacred places are designed for humans to communicate with the ultimate being.” Drawing from this, I understood that any place where the Ifa divination ritual takes place is sacred because it allows for communication with Olodumare, the supreme being in Ifa. For this reason, I understand a sacred place as being a dynamic place. Because this divination ritual can take place in Ife-ile, but is also being practiced in other places of the African Diaspora such as Cuba and Puerto Rico, the opening of the human realm to the first sphere is what makes a place sacred. At the same time, while these other places might not have the historical landmarks that influence Yoruba religious experience in Ile-Ife, I think that the Black experience, pain, and struggle on other lands as a result of the Transatlantic Slave Trade makes other places in the African Diaspora sacred and historically personal in their own way.
I also understood from Olúpònà’s point of view that home makes a place sacred. It makes sense for people who migrate outside of Ile-Ife to still revere Ile-Ife as a sacred city because of the city’s history and origin for these people. However, how does the concept of home affect Black people who have been displaced due to the Transatlantic slave trade? At what point do newer generations stop seeing this city as home, and instead, deem where they were born as their origin?
This week’s readings provoked thought about sacred spaces and their permanence. Olupona brought up the concept of two models of sacred spaces: “dynamic” and “static.” This concept spoke to me because I have grown up without religion. I find myself now searching for places that can bring me peace, and have found that more than a church or other physical space, my peace comes from within. This week’s readings were in some ways reassuring to me that my experience is valid.
At the same time, I was struck by the Yoruba culture and Alhambra in that these are celebrations of static sacred space. Places such as Ile-Ife were examples of sacred spaces in exact geographic locations, left unmarked. I wonder what the experience is of the Yoruba people to learn of sacred spaces and to grow up around these areas that are sacred to a whole people; to feel a collective sense of community in the respect and worship given to spaces otherwise seemingly random. Alhambra is a sacred space visited by people from all over the world–but few really understand its significance, just as in Ile-Ife. These readings made me think about where I come from. In many ways, I am the outsider Olupona spoke about–but with all organized religions. I am unsure if I would have wanted to grow up in a religion–my parents intended our upbringing to bring us freedom later in life in choosing what to believe–and yet I am not sure that I have the information (especially when it comes to traditions) to treat sacred spaces with the reverence they might deserve.
While reading the Olúpònà piece, I originally skimmed the section describing the divination tray. In my mind it was just another detail of the overall origin story and wasn’t essential to the overall argument. After our discussion on Tuesday, however, I went back and reread the section and subsequently realized the importance of this ceremony. The chain and tray are essential to understanding how the Yorùbá connect to their origin. The chain is an allegorical (to steal the term from Robinson’s reading) representation of the connection to the heavens. It may be more than a metaphor in that the chain itself is an actual connecting point to the divine. Not only this, but the chain helps bring back the idea of origin and homeland. In this tradition, the city Ilè-Ifé, as the site of the creation’s origin, is what every Yorùbá person can cling to in order to return to “homeland”. It is the ultimate center. The city is sacred through this divine connection and is the prime sacred space.
I find this a truly beautiful way for people to connect to their ultimate origin and their culture as a whole. Coming from a Christian background, it is hard for me to think of parallel idea that helps me connect to my origin. As Diana mentioned in class, this Yorùbá tradition is fundamentally different from Christianity in that it places a strong focus on origin and place. However, a practice that allows me to tangibly draw upon the connection with the divine is Communion. During this ritual, I reaffirm my faith within community, ultimately feeling the connection between creation and the promise of God.
According to Oluphona’s reading, one of the factor that defines sacredness of spaces is said to be the understanding of cosmology. Yoruba people utilized celestial metaphors to represent the distinction of many divine gods, sun and moon for example and divided worlds into three tiers: sky (heaven), world, and ground (underworld). And, where each gods live determines their extent of sacred power. And, “sacred” place in human’s world is a place that officially attempts to connect to The Supreme being in the upper tier world. For example, “the tray” is circularly shaped with four cardinal points and center in order draw connection between universe, referred as ground, and spirit realms, referred as celestial objects. It feels like references to celestial objects are made in order to emphasize the intangible-ness (abstract realm) of upper tier’s hierarchy from human tier. I thought it was intriguing how Yoruba people referred to celestial objects as the foundation of their cosmologies and origins. However, a silly question arose in my head after receiving that question. Noting celestial objects like sun, moon, and stars is just a reflection of light traveling from other planets out of our galaxy perhaps multi-million light years apart but they in fact can be physically reached, I am wondering how the myth and cosmology and even perspectives of Yoruba would change toward how they define scared places if people of Yoruba knew about It. Perhaps, tangible factors are not the only factors that determine the definition of sacred places and just faith in general.
This week a resonating theme that connects the threads is the idea of religious branding, and its role in constituting a sacred space. In A Sense of Place: The Meaning of Homeland in Sacred Yoruba Cosmology, Jacob K. Olupona portrays ideologies and beliefs in the Yoruba religion, and how they were represented into myths, material objects such as the plate. The three-tiered sphere with heaven, the world/universe, and the underworld was reflected through the Ifa divination process with the use of plate, that acts as an intermediate that connects human beings to higher spiritual power. The spiritual potency infuses the space, and human beings are participants in the space of power. Interestingly, as we connected the dots in class with the Yoruba religion to Christianity, there is some similarities in terms of the use of a material object (like having bread and wine representative of Christ’s sacrifice in church gatherings), and the sense of origin (the city of Ile-Ifé comparing to Jerusalem). In comparison, in Marginal Ornaments: Poetics, Mimesis, and Devotion, we connected back to Islamic geometric patterns and its poetic expression for sacredness. It is the materiality of the objects that helps brands the place sacred, because we can reach a common ground for understanding of what sacredness is through tangible objects. It is the objects that influence our perception of what higher spiritual powers are, and what a sacred place is.
Defining a ritual object as sacred is a difficult line to draw, as is defining a sacred space/area. In this week’s reading about the Yoruba religion, we discussed an act of using a tray as part of a prayer to their gods. Outside of this ritual, it is essentially a sand filled tray. It is the act that it is a part of that makes it sacred; this is similar to people making a place sacred-not a place being sacred on its own. The people are the ones that make the objects sacred by using them, and interpreting them as connections to higher powers.
Similar to our reading of the Tepeyac, despite being far from its original location, the Second Tepeyac in Chicago holds just as an important meaning for those making the pilgrimage. People performing religious acts, like prayer, baptisms, etc connect them to their “Homeland” even if they are far from it. Religion and faith are able to transcend borders and oceans. Similar to the Yoruba tray, objects like holy water have important meaning to those of Christian faith; outside of this faith, it appears to just be blessed water. In Christian faith it is used to cleansing.
Sacred objects and places are made by the people who believe in them. Their meanings come from the faith of the people using them.
In both the readings for this week, there was discussion of the sacredness revolving around ornamentation and object. In the Robinson reading, the author discussed how ornamentation and design highlight the sacred aspects of Al-Ambrah. In the Olupona reading, the author discussed the Yoruba religion and more specifically, the significance of tray used in the divination ritual. We have previously discussed in this class how humans are what give a space its sacredness. Humans build space or create stories that surround a space that give it a sense of significance. This has always been a somewhat difficult concept for me, as I thought that there was no physical way of determining this. I thought that this sacredness could only be felt when people were in the space, but I did not think that it could be seen. These two articles changed this perspective for me. The organic decorations and ornamentation of Al-Ambrah as well as the Yoruba tray serve as physical manifestations of this sacredness. The decoration associated with them shows a dedication to them that goes beyond necessity. If humans are willing to spend many hours creating beautiful plantlike art on the walls of Al-Ambrah, then there must be significance to it. This same concept applies to the ornamentation of the Yoruba tray. Decoration allows for someone to enter into a space and immediately understand that it is sacred. It shows that space has more meaning than a simple shelter. Ornamentation and decoration represent days spent on ultimately unnecessary aesthetic components that contribute massively to the sacredness of the space.
In both the readings for this week, there was discussion of the sacredness revolving around ornamentation and object. In the Robinson reading, the author discussed how ornamentation and design highlight the sacred aspects of Alhambra. In the Olúpònà reading, the author discussed the Yoruba religion and more specifically, the significance of tray used in the divination ritual. We have previously discussed in this class how humans are what give a space its sacredness. Humans build space or create stories that surround a space that give it a sense of significance. This has always been a somewhat difficult concept for me, as I thought that there was no physical way of determining this. I thought that this sacredness could only be felt when people were in the space, but I did not think that it could be seen. These two articles changed this perspective for me. The organic decorations and ornamentation of Alhambra as well as the Yoruba tray serve as physical manifestations of this sacredness. The decoration associated with them shows a dedication to them that goes beyond necessity. If humans are willing to spend many hours creating beautiful plantlike art on the walls of Alhambra, then there must be significance to it. This same concept applies to the ornamentation of the Yoruba tray. Decoration allows for someone to enter into a space and immediately understand that it is sacred. It shows that space has more meaning than a simple shelter. Ornamentation and decoration represent days spent on ultimately unnecessary aesthetic components that contribute massively to the sacredness of the space.
This week, we read the passage “”Marginal Ornament. Poetics, Mimesis, and Devotion in the Palace of the Lions” to understand how these three concepts are interrelated in the creation of something sacred. Poetry contributes an integral part towards the transformation of the palace into a sacred space as the walls are inscribed with countless poems. According to the Nasrid scholar, al-Qartajanni, the purpose of these poems are to portray a subject in an image that captures the general essence of a higher subject. The Palace of the Lions manifests these ideas as it incorporates many beautiful images of stars and gardens and water as a physical representation of sacred Islamic ideologies. This introduces the idea of mimesis, imitation of the real world in literature, as the poems themselves are written with personifications as if the objects are describing themselves. The use of mimesis in poetry describing an object can make them seem more meaningful and facilitate the association of sacredness. I found this idea to be very intriguing because I think it shows that the Nasrids were aware of their own mortality and wanted the objects in the palace itself to articulate their own self worth even after the architects were no longer around to speak on their behalf. Devotion is another essential element of sacred association in objects as it is it demonstrates that people truly care about it. The element of devotion is evident in the Palace of the Lions through the attention to detail in every design and even the fountain, as they had to engineer an entire system of aqueducts to get water up a mountain in order to convey religious imagery of the heavenly garden of Islam. Though the sacredness of marginal ornaments at the Palace of the Lions are expressed through poetics, mimesis, and devotion, I think that all sacred items attribute their sacredness from the larger concepts associated with any of these three ideas: a meaning related to something already established as sacred (poetry), an intrinsic value of sacredness that is self-evident (mimesis), or simply something that a person cares about very much (devotion).
“In addition to its literary and devotional connotations, this area of the palace, in fact, introduces other visual representations certainly intended to be perceived as both images and allegories of gardens.” (Robinson, pg. 199).
Poetry, mimesis, and devotion all interrelate through decorum in the Palace of the Lions. Mimesis is the representation of something from the real world in art or literature. In this particular passage, Robinson is referring to a garden with many decorations, including several paintings, that represent literal gardens and additionally all of their sacredness through poetics. This decorum uses mimesis through both art and poetry to reflect the devotion of the former ongoings inside the palace.