research woes, now, too

[rivendellrose]

Gods damn it all to hell. I'm sorry I'm spamming you lot all of a sudden, but I'm going mad trying to figure out how I can get at the concept of superstitions surrounding boats (or swords, or musical instruments) - I'm trying to get at the idea of man-made objects that are sometimes held to have spirits or souls.

Any thoughts, fellow academians?

Comments

[iamlovely.livejournal.com]

I think the spirits in man-made objects tend to be our personification of the purpose/use/idea of the object.

Don't worry about the spamming, your entries aren't long enough to be a bother.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

That's it exactly. But I can't seem to find anything academic or even pseudo-academic on the subject. My stupid university thinks follkore studies don't exist. XP

[iamlovely.livejournal.com]

Well that is a complete bummer! If you find anything let me know, I find it extremely interesting as well.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Well, I eventually found references on the superstition that changing a ship's name will cause certain disaster, and ended up digging into pantheon.org for the sword and musical instrument bits. I'm still not finding exactly what I'm looking for, but it's close enough details that I think I can use them.

[gin2001.livejournal.com]

This might be completely unhelpful, but what about connecting said objects to having a significance to the person(s), cultures, etc.

Or looking at the occurance of that-- is the association more common with things that are of vast importance/significance to the culture/way of life/beliefs/etc of the people who assign it said meaning?

How is oral tradition important to this?

Are there similarites in the objects that different groups/individuals assign this trait?

That probably made no sense. Sigh. I miss school. :-(

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I was looking more for specific details, but this definitely gives me food for thought. Thanks!

Sigh. I miss school.

Already? *Pats* I figured it'd take you at least til the end of this quarter to miss it.

[scearley.livejournal.com]

boats are easy. boats are a method of conveyance. and many times you would send the dead body off on a boat so naturally it would follow that the spirit was also carried "across the river" - this was especially true if the boat was destroyed as well; the spirit of both carry on.

this would then corrupt into beliefs that of the boats made specifically for this purpose, they should also have some kind of "exalted" meaning. in much the same way that the paper holy verse is written on has a somewhat higher status than other paper. so then the makers put so much of themselves into the making of these vessels (and this later shows up with putting your blood sweat and tears into something meaning you poured your emotion And therefore extra effort into it) that "a piece of them" would be left in it.

is that what you were looking for?

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Not exactly, but that's a fascinating theory! My understanding of it had always been an association with something upon which a person's life depended in very tenuous situations - ships on a capricious ocean, swords in war, guns in more modern warfare... and musical instruments for those who live by them, like old bards and troubadours.

[scearley.livejournal.com]

generally items made from something already presumed to have a spirit in it are said to contain that spirit.

So what you're thinking of are more "haunted" artifacts.

This usually happens when the importance of the event itself is exalted. By extension all associated memorabilia are then exalted. For instance, Edison's "last breath" is in the Ford museum. Many civil war fields are considered sacred ground in the South. It's merely an accident of place.

The best "modern" comparison would be Marcel Duchamp's 'White Urinal' (http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=27002006) which is just a urinal from 1917 he pulled off the production line and hung on a wall as "art." And forever more was emblazoned with the title of "art" because of it. Simply said, at some point, someone gave it a quality of reverence. Whether or not it is deserved, it sticks. Look at all of the "haunted" items for sale on eBay. Why are they haunted? Because someone says they are. Why do so many people rush to waterstains on walls that look like the Virgin Mary? Because someone said it looked like the Virgin Mary and is therefore holy.

So it's more than a life-or-death situation. it's just someone with at least some semblance of authority saying "yeah, that's important" and then people think it's important.

cf. Iraq Invasion

[ursula]

If you specifically want boats, you might look into traditional ways of painting boats. Googling 'boats eyes' yields pictures of fishing boats with eyes from Malta and Vietnam.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Huh. That's not exactly what I'm looking for - I'm in the market more for anecdotal evidence that one or more of the objects I mentioned are believed to have spirits, something usable in an informal essay - but that's definitely an avenue for future research. Didn't the ancient Greeks have much the same thing?

[ursula]

But eyes could be a way for the spirit of the boat to look out? Try this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/main.jhtml?xml=/travel/2001/09/21/etcruises21.xml

and there's also this article:

http://www.iht.com/articles/1997/04/08/edmike.t.php

with the following quote:

On another wall was a small altar with joss sticks, balls of rice, knotted string and a piece of rare forest wood. "These are offerings to the spirit of the boat and the spirit of the river," Mr. Xiang said. "They, too, have helped me to escape a fatal accident."

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Aha! Oh, thank you - that first article is exactly what I was looking for!

[ursula]

You're welcome!

[windrose.livejournal.com]

I love this kind of magical thinking--one sees it all the time in folk tales from around the world. That said, I'll be damned if I can think of a single scholarly text that examines it.

Boats are anthropomorphized because of the precarious nature of life at sea. People in life-threatening situations tend to become attached to those things that keep death at bay. In the case of sailors, the boat is all that protects them from the sea. It's more than just a conveyance, it's the whole of their world.

That's about all my brain is capable of coming up with off the top of my head. I'll dig through my folklore books tomorrow, see if I can find anything useful for you.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

That's exactly it - it's as though it's so common that it's nearly impossible to find anything about it!

And thank you for saying this: Boats are anthropomorphized because of the precarious nature of life at sea. That's exactly the impression I've always had (hello, superstitious worlds of gamblers, soldiers, sailors, and actors...), but you say it much more clearly than I can.

It's okay, really - I think I found everything I need for my paper. But I'd still be very much interested in seeing whatever you turn up, just for the heck of it. The side of anthropology that touches folklore and mythology is still my favorite area of study in the whole world, and it just doesn't get dealt with at my school.