Abstract
This paper examines the socio-political processes surrounding spectacular religious parades and more private acts of veneration and supplication within the Hueda Kingdom (c. 1650–1727 AD) in the Republic of Bénin, West Africa. The first goal of this paper is to posit the role that such public and private ceremonies played in framing negotiations of political and moral authority. It argues that ceremonial hosts and assembled audience members worked to channel toward their own interests the social, political, and economic outpouring that resulted from ritually sanctioned performances of wealth. The second goal of the paper is to illustrate material and spatial dimensions of such ceremonial spaces. These themes, drawn from a historically well-known polity, work together to aid in comparative theory building on feasting and the politics of spectacle in the deeper archaeological past.
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Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank Adria LaViolette, Kenneth Kelly, J. Cameron Monroe, Jeffrey Hantman, Jerome Handler, and Joseph C. Miller for comments on earlier versions of this paper and/or the dissertation project from which it is drawn. I am indebted to Jeffrey Fleisher and Stephanie Wynne-Jones who offered detailed suggestions. Alexis Adandé served as the local coordinator of my project and offered his considerable knowledge of the archaeology of southern Bénin. Joseph Adandé, Obaré Bagodo, Souayibou Varissou, Bienvenue Olory, Didier N’dah, and Elisée Soumoni deserve special thanks for their kind encouragement and local logistical assistance. Early field efforts in 2003–2004 were supported by The Explorers Club Washington Group; the Graduate School of Arts and Science, University of Virginia (UVa); the Department of Anthropology, UVa; and the Center for Academic Excellence, UVa. The longer field campaign in 2005–2006 was funded by a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant (#0432893), a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship (#P022A0500), and a special grant by the Embassy of the Netherlands to Cotonou. A grant from the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the College of William and Mary allowed for follow-up fieldwork in the summer of 2010. The paper was strengthened through the comments of two anonymous reviewers. All errors and omissions of fact are the sole responsibility of the author.
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Norman, N.L. Feasts in Motion: Archaeological Views of Parades, Ancestral Pageants, and Socio-Political Process in the Hueda Kingdom, 1650–1727 AD. J World Prehist 23, 239–254 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-010-9037-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-010-9037-z