Abstract
Our Sacred Sites, Contested Rites/Rights project examines contemporary Pagan engagements with pasts in Britain, focusing on archaeological monuments and associated material culture held in museum collections. These engagements take diverse forms, from protesting against road-building and quarrying affecting monuments, and performing public and private rituals at “sacred” locations including sites and museums, to leaving votive offerings or clearing the ritual litter of previous celebrants and taking an interest in the curation of ancient human remains. Discourse between Pagans, archaeologists, museum curators and heritage managers results, involving tension, negotiation and attempts at understanding. In this chapter, we situate ourselves reflexively as scholar-practitioners, summarise our findings pointing to issues of difference and convergence between the interest groups, and focus on Pagan interest in human remains, from “respect” to reburial. Issues emerge of competing claims on “heritage”, how “ancestors” are constituted, contest regarding institutional authority and the diversity of Pagan voices, from those committed to the “return to the earth” of all excavated pagan remains to those adhering to the “preservation ethos” of scientific archaeology and heritage management. We conclude that in order to move on from entrenched stereotypical attitudes, all interest groups need to engage in dialogue and be prepared to re-negotiate their positions.
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Notes
- 1.
In this chapter, contemporary Pagans and Paganisms are given an upper case “P” for consistency. A small “p” is used for ancient paganisms.
- 2.
On comparable indigenous and prehistoric conceptions of place, see Bradley 2000.
- 3.
The preface to this journal, Tyr, is available online at http://tyrjournal.tripod.com/about_the_journal.htm.
- 4.
Tim Sebastian (aka Sebastion and Woodman), Chosen Chief of the SODs, died in 2007. See pages in his memory at www.grahamharvey.org/Tim.htm.
- 5.
The situation at Stanton Moor involving a protest camp “protecting” the moorland from quarrying, and largely focusing around sacredness of landscape, has been extensively discussed by doctoral researcher Aimee Blease-Bourne (2011).
- 6.
A famous example is the ‘dialogue’ instituted between archaeologist Ian Hodder and Anita Louise, a leading member of the Goddess movement: see the Catalhöyük excavation webpages at http://www.catalhoyuk.com/, and a view from the Goddess community at http://www.awakenedwoman.com/goddess_in_Anatolia.htm. For discussion of these issues, see Rountree 2003.
- 7.
This is demonstrated in a BBC documentary, National Trust: The Stones. In this, Brian Viziondanz, campaigner and round-table member, commented that the “table” was “pear-shaped” rather than round. Brian, who died in 2011, is one of the people referred to in the Director’s Diary (accessible from the programme website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/nationaltrust5.shtml) as “outside society’s boundaries” and it is implied there that he is “a druid”. He was a leading campaigner for the Stonehenge event, but Druidry was not his spirituality. Likewise, his day job located him within “society’s boundaries”—he was a roofer, indicated in the documentary, in addition to being a highly articulate social critic.
- 8.
The initial Avebury consultation documents are online at http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.19822. The contribution from our Sacred Sites, Contested Rites/Rights project is at http://www.sacredsites.org.uk/news/Avebury_response.html. The website of Honouring the Ancient Dead (HAD) is accessible at http://www.honour.org.uk/.
- 9.
See the HAD website at www.honour.org.uk.
- 10.
See also http://www.warband.org.uk/page5.htm.
- 11.
See Aburrow’s Wiki: http://pagantheologies.pbwiki.com/Finding+a+compromise.
- 12.
See Pagans for Archaeology on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16336348284; also the Pagans for Archaeology Blog at: http://archaeopagans.blogspot.com/ and Pagans for Archaeology Yahoo group discussion list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/archaeopagans/.
- 13.
Druid politics are complex. Here, in an example of this, Davies’ actions were deemed inappropriate by other members of CoBDO, leading to the splitting of interested parties into the (“official”) CoBDO and CoBDO West (of which Davies was a member, though no longer). In a further layer of complexity, CoBDO’s standpoint on reburial is almost identical to that of Davies/CoBDO West. Tensions between personalities often drive such Druid politics.
- 14.
- 15.
- 16.
It should be noted that their claims were for British and European connections in general and not for Druid or Pagan groups alone.
- 17.
This is a point also made by HAD in their (2009) press release on the Avebury Consultation, available online: www.sacredsites.org.uk/news/HAD%20Press%20Release.pdf; see also Restall Orr 2009.
- 18.
- 19.
These remains were displayed at MUM twice prior, in 1987 and 1991.
- 20.
See our discussion of archaeologists’ comments on the Avebury Consultation on the World Archaeological Congress email discussion list (Wallis and Blain 2011).
- 21.
The funding has been awarded to Dr Jenny Blain and research associate Ian Woolsey at Sheffield Hallam University by the Social Sciences Small Grants Scheme of The Nuffield Foundation: http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/go/grants/smallgrants/page_123.html.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Andy Letcher (post-doctoral researcher), Ian Woolsey (research fellow) and Aimee Blease-Bourne (doctoral researcher) for their work on the Sacred Sites project, and acknowledge the support of the Economic and Social Research Council (grant RES-000-22-0074) and the Social Sciences Small Grants Scheme of The Nuffield Foundation.
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Blain, J., Wallis, R.J. (2012). Negotiating Archaeology/Spirituality: Pagan Engagements with the Prehistoric Past in Britain. In: Rountree, K., Morris, C., Peatfield, A. (eds) Archaeology of Spiritualities. One World Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3354-5_3
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