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Front Cover IllustrationOur “cover girl” shows one of the most famous paintings of German romanticism: “Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer” (Wanderer above the Sea of Fog) painted by Caspar David Friedrich in 1818. We believe this painting to be an especially suitable cover because many of archaeologists’ convictions on prehistoric religion are deeply rooted in romanticism. To name only a few we want to point to frequent statements on religion as the irrational, i.e. non-functional, on natural sacredness of sites (“naturheilige Plätze”) and we point to emotional and experiential approaches to religion and especially to phenomenology. Friedrich’s painting includes many of these aspects, most obviously the emotionality of a magnifi cent landscape. Moreover the fog may be interpreted as a metaphor for the hidden religions of the past that some
archaeologists seek to reveal (or revive?).
ISBN 978-963-9911-24-6
HU-ISSN 1216-6847
© by the authors and Archaeolingua Foundation All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, digitised, photo copying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
2014
ARCHAEOLINGUA ALAPÍTVÁNYH-1250 Budapest, Úri u. 49
Copyediting by Melanie Strub, Thomas Meier and Petra TillessenDesktop editing and layout by Rita Kovács
Printed by Prime Rate Kft
Table of Contents
Preface by the editors ......................................................................................... 7
THOMAS MEIER together with PETRA TILLESSENArchaeological imaginations of religion: an introduction from an Anglo-German perspective ................................ 11
JOHN BINTLIFFSacred worlds or sacred cows? Can we paramaterize past rituals? ....... 249
ERICA HILLImagining animals in prehistoric religions ............................................ 265
ROBERT J. WALLISAnimism, ancestors and adjusted styles of communication: Hidden art in Irish passage tombs .......................................................... 283
MIRANDA ALDHOUSE-GREENStyle over content .................................................................................. 315
LIV NILSSON STUTZDialogues with the dead. Imagining mesolithic mortuary rituals .......... 337
KATJA HROBAT VIRLOGETConceptualization of space through folklore. On the mythical and ritual signifi cance of community limits ................ 359
TIINA ÄIKÄSThe concept of liminality and Sámi sacred landscapes ......................... 383
About the authors ........................................................................................... 401
Imagining Animals in Prehistoric Religion
ERICA HILL
SummaryEthnographic evidence indicates that animals play complex, overlapping roles as food, sacred objects, and mythic creatures. Yet our reconstructions of animals in religions of the past tend to represent functional categories in which animals are objects to be dominated. In this chapter, I suggest that we fail to appreciate the range of roles animals played in prehistoric religions, in part because we have few modern Western analogs. This chapter takes a critical look at our neglect of animals in past religions and advocates greater attention to animals as agents and mythic subjects.
Contributors to this volume have presented several approaches to religion in the past, focusing on place and landscape, material culture, and the perennial question of the sacred / profane dichotomy. In this chapter, I examine the relationship between animals and religion, an area of study in which, I suggest, archaeologists have experienced a failure of the imagination. It is my contention that, despite their representation at archaeological sites in the form of representational imagery, teeth and bone, antler, horn and hide, animals as rich symbolic subjects in ancient belief systems have been generally neglected, despite the attention they have received in cultural anthropology (e.g. MULLIN 1999; NOSKE 1993; SHANKLIN 1985).
This neglect by archaeologists has contributed to the simplifi cation of the role of animals in religion prehistorically, limiting them to feast foods and to the functional category of “ritual”. I suggest that there are three reasons for our failure to creatively explore the roles of animals in religions of the past: fi rst is the discipline-wide neglect of religion as a subject of study, particularly in North America; second, mainstream Western culture limits animals to only three, clearly defi ned and mutually exclusive categories; fi nally, zooarchaeology has fostered an instrumentalist and materialist perspective on human-animal relations that privileges subsistence and ecology over ritual and cosmology.
In the fi nal section of this chapter, I suggest ways in which archaeologists might “reimagine” animals in the past, fi rst by considering what features of their biology and behavior make them “good to think.” Additional examples illustrate how animals act as agents or mythic subjects in some cosmologies. These
266 Erica Hill
examples provide us with new analogies for human-animal dynamics and expand our understanding of prehistoric animal roles.
Obstacles to Imagining Animals in Prehistoric Religion
The Archaeological Study of Religion
In North America, prehistoric religion has only lately become a focus of study, as archaeologists move beyond studies of ritual behavior into the realm of prehistoric belief (e.g. FOGELIN 2007; VANPOOL et al. 2007). This neglect is in part due to the limited interest that many processualists have in questions of religion or cosmology. Early in the development of the New Archaeology, Lewis BINFORD (1962) acknowledged the role of “ideotechnic” artifacts – “items which signify and symbolize the ideological rationalizations for the social system” (BINFORD 1962: 219). However, his later work implicitly denied the importance of cognitive phenomena in favor of the “technomic” and “sociotechnic” features of human adaptations (e.g. BINFORD 1978; 1981; 2001). Later North American processualists tended to follow his lead, despite calls for greater attention to religion, ritual, and ideology (LEONE 1982). Therefore, despite the fact that processualism as originally outlined encompassed those ideological or cosmological facets of human existence, in practice, beliefs, ideas, and feelings were located within the realm of the epiphenomenal (LEONE 1982: 746; WHITLEY 1998: 303; but see KINSEY 1989 for a processual analysis of animal imagery).
North American archaeologists interested in complex societies, particularly those of Mesoamerica, made some progress in the 1970s (e.g. FLANNERY – MARCUS 1976; HALL 1977; MARCUS 1978), but were pessimistic that an archaeology of religion could develop without ethnohistory. Marcus wrote in 1978 that “without [ethnohistory] one could not even glimpse prehistoric cosmology, interpret ancient public buildings, understand the contexts of ritual paraphernalia, or analyse [...] iconography” (MARCUS 1978: 173). Yet BROWN (1997: 466) has noted that ethnohistory may also dominate our views on prehistoric religion to such an extent that our imaginations are limited to that which was recorded following European contact.
In the United Kingdom, the study of religion in archaeology followed a different trajectory, with interest in ideology and belief systems expressed in the form of “cognitive processual archaeology” (e.g. RENFREW 1985; 1994b; RENFREW – ZUBROW 1994), the “study of past ways of thought as inferred from
267Imagining Animals in Prehistoric Religion
material remains” (RENFREW 1994b: 3). The scope of cognitive archaeology included the study of design, measurement, representation, and symbols. Renfrew (RENFREW 1994b) argues that archaeologists employing a cognitive processual approach should focus on the use of symbols in social relations, iconography, and in activities related to the supernatural. He locates the search for the meaning of symbols within the realm of interpretive, idealist archaeologies (MORPHY 1989: 10–11).
Renfrew makes explicit reference to animals as symbolic objects and indicators of ritual activity, when they “relat[e] to specifi c deities or powers” (RENFREW 1994a: 51–52). In the same volume, POSTGATE (1994) explores the function of dog fi gurines in ancient Mesopotamia. He identifi es the dogs as either apotropaic devices or as gifts to the goddess Gula in place of actual dogs. In each case, the fi gurines are interpreted in functional terms. The fact that dogs are represented, rather than some other animal, appears irrelevant, or at least epiphenomenal. For Postgate, the fi gurines are understood only in reference to their associated deity, and the focus is on human manipulation of images, rather than upon the dynamics of human-animal relations.
Postgate’s functional interpretation works well within the framework of cognitive processual archaeology, but it also reproduces the idea that animals and their representations are created objects to be acted upon. The dog as a living symbol with specifi c biological and behavioral features, embodied and able to actively protect as an apotropaic device, forms no part of the interpretation. However, the dog may be more than an emblem or symbol of the goddess; the dog may be the goddess herself (ORNAN 2004). Burial of fi gurines then, may have been an effort to harness the power of the goddess in dog form. As apotropaic devices, dogs are especially apropos, given their tendency to behave protectively and to sound alarms by barking. The choice of a dog is therefore nonrandom, as its behavioral characteristics likely made it an especially appropriate symbol or avatar.
Although both processual and cognitive archaeologies explicitly addressed the issue of religion in their early formulations, recent developments suggest that interest in the topic has taken a contextual and interpretive turn. Archaeologists are exploring familiar data sets, including faunal remains, in new ways (e.g. DEFRANCE 2009). Maya archaeologists, for example, are actively interpreting the composition and distribution of animal remains in light of Maya myth and iconography (e.g. EMERY 2004a; 2004b; MASSON 1999). Given that animals play such central roles in religious belief and practice – as symbols, as deities, as
268 Erica Hill
metaphors, as sacrifi ces – increased attention to prehistoric religion may foster greater interest in animals. Such a pattern is already emerging in studies of European and Near Eastern sites (e.g. PLUSKOWSKI 2005).
Limited Roles for Animals in the Western Tradition
A second reason that archaeologists have tended to neglect the roles of animals in religion is the simple fact that we have few historical examples or Judeo-Christian analogs that represent animals as anything other than symbols, entertainment, pets, or food and raw materials. While some animals are edible, Leviticus and Deuteronomy proscribe those which are vile, unclean, and therefore inedible (DOUGLAS 1966). In Genesis, animals are described as gifts given by God specifi cally for human use. Elsewhere, scriptural sources dictate how certain domesticated animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, and doves should be used for sacrifi cial purposes or as offerings to expiate sin (BOROWSKI 1998: 214). The fact that animal sacrifi ce is such a prominent theme in the Old Testament may have contributed to the frequent interpretation of structured animal deposits as sacrifi ces or offerings when encountered at archaeological sites (e.g. DEFRANCE 2009; FLORES 2003; LUCAS – MCGOVERN 2007; ROFES 2004).
With the exception of the various inedible creatures, the role of most Biblical animals is at least partially dietary. The use of cattle, sheep, and goats in Leviticus involves consumption either by humans or by God in the form of burnt offerings. While animals do appear as representatives of deities – the golden calf of Exodus, for example – such animals are textually associated with idolatry and punishment. Further, animal idols are explicitly described as incapable of action (e.g. Habakkuk 2: 18–9). In all examples of righteous religious behavior, animals are objects – symbols, sacrifi ces, subsistence. They are not persons, and they have no souls, spirits, or powers.
Christianity limits the use of animals secondary symbolic functions, usually derived from earlier Old Testament precedents. Examples include the lamb as a symbol of purity and innocence; the serpent as the embodiment of evil; and the lion, ox, and eagle as symbols of the evangelists Mark, Luke, and John, respectively. With the exception of the serpent, each animal is understood as a symbol associated with a specifi c person. In contrast with other Near Eastern belief systems, animals are neither avatars nor representations of persons. Rather, they are objects associated with persons.
269Imagining Animals in Prehistoric Religion
Building upon this instrumentalist Judeo-Christian foundation, Renaissance thinking and colonialism in the Americas and elsewhere associated Native peoples with animals and nature, and therefore with savage and uncivilized behavior. Colonies in the Americas, Africa, and Asia represented untamed natural worlds awaiting the imposition of Christian order. The colonial powers were part of a divinely-ordered hierarchy that gave them dominion over animals (and animal-like humans) (MULLIN 1999). Here again is the idea of God-given “power over,” which limits and obscures agency and conceptually expands Judeo-Christian instrumentalism to include new categories of animals and humans.
Related to the idea that animals are objects to dominate is the persistent Euro-American belief that humans and animals are discontinuous categories (MESKELL 2008; NOSKE 1993). This belief is reinforced in the science of taxonomy and the species concept in biology, which constructs animals as discrete genetic packages. Humans stand apart and above animal categories, in part because they possess language and culture, essentialist ideals that supposedly distinguish humans from other forms of life (D’ANDRADE 2002; PÁLSSON 1996), although recent research on primates and marine mammals is destabilizing this belief amidst heated debate (e.g. PENNISI 2006; SIMMONDS 2006).
Judeo-Christian anthropocentrism stands in contrast to the ontologies of many Native American societies of the Subarctic (e.g. BRIGHTMAN 1993; NELSON 1983) and Amazonia (e.g. ÅRHEM 1996; FAUSTO 2007; VIVEIROS DE CASTRO 1998) in which humans and animals exist along a continuum. In such societies, the boundaries between humankind and the animal world are permeable and dynamic. Relations with non-human animals are cooperative, rather than antagonistic (PÁLSSON 1996), and animals themselves are persons with agency, culture, and society (ÅRHEM 1996). Similar ontological alternatives were likely operative in the past, and should be considered in our reconstructions of ancient religious systems.
Instrumentalist constructions of animals in the West are also apparent in the contexts of entertainment and companionship. Non-edible animals such as polar bears, dolphins, and tigers are tourist attractions; they are also highly contested symbols of confl icting political and environmental values. Euro-American familiarity with such rare and “charismatic” species has a long history: the Tower of London once housed a number of big cats, and the practice of keeping an exotic animal menagerie started as early as the thirteenth century in England (O’REGAN 2002; O’REGAN et al. 2005). The use of animals as entertainment at the Roman
270 Erica Hill
Coliseum suggests that such practices date back more than two millennia in the Western tradition.
A fi nal category of animal use that we imagine in the past is the prehistoric pet, although ethnographic (VIDAS 2002) and emerging archaeological evidence (THOMAS 2005) indicates that animals in many societies were treated in ways that bear no resemblance to the specially fed, groomed, and medicated pets of today. Intact, articulated skeletons of animals are frequently interpreted as companion animals treated like humans in death (FILER 1995; WOOSLEY – MCINTYRE 1996: 281, 83). “Prehistoric pets” may also be recovered in human burial contexts where an animal, especially a dog, is interred with a human. Implicit is the idea that people in the past related to and treated their animals similar to the ways we do today, an interpretation that generally has limited archaeological support. While dogs are often candidates for prehistoric pets, burials of humans with other animals tend to be interpreted merely as ritual, for example in the report of a child buried with a bright pink water bird (PARMALEE – PERINO 1971).
Our desire to fi nd prehistoric analogs for modern human-animal relationships extends to certain species of birds. Recent faunal analysis of parrot remains recovered from a Moche tomb in Peru revealed that one bird had a healed mandible. The investigator noted that healing indicates that care and feeding were necessary to keep the bird alive until its jaw healed. Such evidence, in concert with iconography, suggested to the investigator that “affectionate bonding” occurred between humans and parrots (WAKE 2007: 230). No other interpretation is proposed; yet the iconographic evidence supplied in support of this close association likely represents use of the birds as a source of feathers (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1. Detail of parrot or macaw between two Moche men. Both men appear to be holding feathers (after WAKE 2007: fi gure A.16)
271Imagining Animals in Prehistoric Religion
Ethnographic evidence indicates that in several prehistoric societies, young birds were captured and kept caged or tethered; their long iridescent fl ight feathers were then plucked as needed (HILL 2000). This practice likely occurred among the Moche; remnants of a headdress and tunic from another tomb at the same site provide evidence for the use of feathers on clothing (DONNAN 2007: 83, 89), indicating that parrots were sources of raw materials. The interpretation of the healed mandible as evidence of care and affection better represents the twenty-fi rst-century attitude toward psittacids than the sentiments of the Moche, who may have been more concerned with keeping a valuable source of decorative ritual objects alive and productive. While “prehistoric pets” likely do occur in the archaeological record, making such an argument requires us fi rst to reject received notions of how specifi c classes of animals should be treated and base our inferences on archaeological evidence, analogy, and consideration of the wide range of animal roles in the past.
Instrumentalism in Zooarchaeology
The third issue that stands in the way of imagining animals in prehistoric religion is zooarchaeology itself. The emphasis on diet and economy, calorie counting and catchment areas means that there is rarely careful consideration of the other roles that animals fulfi lled in ancient societies. Rather, animals are “economic resources, commodities and means of production for human use” (NOSKE 1993). The explicitly materialist, utilitarian approach that zooarchaeologists often take toward animal remains implicitly denies any role to the supernatural or the cosmological. Taxonomy, taphonomy, and relative contributions of species to an archaeological assemblage can – and should – remain major concerns of faunal analysts; however, reconstructing the roles of animals in prehistoric religion requires us to consider how humans relate to animals in cognitive terms. The appearance, habitat, behavior, and relative scarcity of animals affects how humans conceptualize them, and should therefore be considered in any discussion of animal remains in ritual contexts.
An attempt to imagine prehistoric religion, for example, should explore what common feasting animals mean to those who consume them. Certainly subsistence economics – fat, protein, and calorie content, relative abundance, energy expenditure – played a role in the selection of certain species. In a study of feasting in the American Southwest, Potter (POTTER 1997: 359) notes that animals suitable for feasting are those which were abundant and amenable to
272 Erica Hill
communal hunting. He argues that hares (Lepus spp.) may have been a preferred feast food due to the fact that humans must work together, and thereby form extra-kin social bonds, to harvest them. While strengthening social bonds may be result of communal hunting and feasting, the signifi cance and symbolism of the animal to the consumer are also part of the equation. Identifying a ritual function in archaeological faunas is critical to the development of a zooarchaeology of religion; we now need to explore how such “ritual” animals fi t into the cosmologies of the consumers – why the dead prefer some species of animal offerings, why certain taxa make good sacrifi ces, and what feast animals signify to ritual participants.
In sum, the slow development and functional biases of archaeologies of religion, the limited roles that Western society assigns to animals, and the emphasis placed on materialist, utilitarian assessments of faunal remains in isolation from other lines of archaeological evidence have led us to interpretations that are fl awed and unimaginative. Through a better understanding of the variety of roles animals play in religion cross-culturally, we may improve upon our reconstructions of the past. Below I outline how the study of animals in religious contexts may go beyond function and into the realm of meaning.
Reimagining Animals in Prehistoric Religion
Biology and Behavior
In the study of ancient belief systems, one question concerning animals that we should focus on is why certain species were used in the ways that they were. Some animals were chosen as feasting foods, whilst others were used for augury. Certainly economic considerations play major roles in species selection; however, biological and behavioral characteristics may make some animals especially good to think.
Addressing such questions does not require the rejection of the standard methods or techniques of zooarchaeology. Rather, interpretations of animal remains as status signals (e.g. EMERY 2003; ERVYNCK 2004; POTTER 2004) or as fat- and calorie-rich treats (e.g. MULVILLE – OUTRAM 2005) are compatible with the exploration of the roles of animals in religion and cosmology. For example, Jonathan Driver emphasized the singularity of raven (Corvus corax) remains at a Paleoindian site in British Columbia, noting the lack of evidence for butchery or secondary processing of the bones, while at the same time highlighting
273Imagining Animals in Prehistoric Religion
the behavioral attributes of the bird – its vocality, distinctive appearance, and preference for cliff habitats (DRIVER 1999). When these characteristics are considered relative to the context of the site – a promontory and cave with a distinctive natural “pillar” formation – interpretive possibilities are expanded and enriched. DRIVER (1999) concludes that he has insuffi cient evidence to demon strate the deliberate deposition of raven skeletons by Paleoindian foragers; however, his detailed discussion of raven behavior, site context, and landscape provides the foundation for interpretations that accommodate the possible cosmological and religious signifi cance of the birds. By exploring ravens as mythic creatures, harbingers, and creators, Driver links the distinctive appearance and behavior of the birds to beliefs about their meaning.
Animals as Agents
Another way to reimagine animals in prehistoric religion is to consider them agents. Above I argued that we generally consider animals in the past in functional or utilitarian terms, often involving a value hierarchy in which humans dominate. While we may acknowledge that animals played a part in ritual, we tend to construct them as objects. Ritual objects, perhaps, but still objects manipulated according to the needs of human users. Interpretation ends at the level of function, leaving deeper questions of symbolism and cosmology unexplored. Yet there is abundant evidence – among the ancient Egyptians and Maya, for example – that animals played prominent roles in origin stories, as actors in myth, and as harbingers of future events.
In each case, animals act as agents, effecting change, infl uencing events, helping humans or avoiding them as recompense for a perceived offense. For example, in Alaska among traditional Tlingit and Haida people, ravens are believed to have the ability to transform themselves and engage in fundamentally creative acts. Raven brought light into the world and had a central role in the origins of humankind. Today, many Tlingit in southeast Alaska are members of the Raven moiety and identify themselves as Ravens. Identity is linked directly to religious belief, as each clan and moiety owns stories describing their own origins and that of the world itself. Ravens and humans share personhood, and through Raven’s agency, places on the landscape were named and made known to humans (THORNTON 2008).
In the boreal forest regions of Alaska and Canada, certain prey animals possess a different kind of subjectivity (BRIGHTMAN 1993; NELSON 1983). They
274 Erica Hill
determine whether a hunter will be successful in harvesting them. A number of taboos surround hunting and butchering; these are part of a religious ontology in which animals are embodied persons and active participants in a hunt. If a hunter boasts about his hunting success, for example, animals may be offended and refuse to come to him the next time he goes out. Similarly, if the process of butchery is done improperly, the animal in its reincarnated form will avoid the hunter and spread knowledge of the hunter’s bad behavior among fellow creatures (LARSEN 1970; NELSON 1983). Animals therefore determine whether or not a village will have a good winter. If hunting is poor, a ritual specialist, usually with shamanic characteristics, will determine what caused offense to the animals and prescribe behaviors to mollify them (LEWIS 2003).
In these examples, animals cannot be considered ritual objects manipulated by humans. Instead, they are active participants in daily life; they are dynamic decision makers with the ability to cause great harm. Beliefs about animals held in these societies are expressed in zooarchaeological patterns that can be discerned during analysis. In subarctic Alaska, certain elements of the body are removed in a specifi c way or a certain order and left at the primary processing site (NELSON 1983). The absence of these elements at a camp site may therefore have a religious explanation in addition to or in place of a functional one.
Animals in Myth
A third way to conceptualize animals in ancient religion is to consider their roles in myth. Deities may take the forms of animals, or they may be animals. Humans may take animal form and vice versa (ANDERSON 2005: 27–8). Animals such as dogs or bears may behave as humans, speaking, marrying, and deceiving as humans do; dogs and bears may put on the skins or appearance of humans and impersonate them, a common theme in stories of Eskimo and other arctic groups (e.g. FIENUP-RIORDAN 1994; LAUGRAND – OOSTEN 2008; WILLERSLEV 2007). Myths may explain the origins of certain animals, or an animal may have a central role in myth as an ancestor or affi ne, as the anaconda does in many Amazonian stories (e.g. ÅRHEM 1996; BIERHORST 2002: 36; NUCKOLLS 2004).
Iconography is one source of information about myth. In some cases, iconographic representations may be linked to ethnohistoric data or to stories retained by descendant populations. In her study of Maya cave deposits, Emery observed that deer were most commonly represented by elements from the left side of the animal. In Maya cosmology, the left side of the body is associated
275Imagining Animals in Prehistoric Religion
with the underworld and the heart (COGGINS 1988; EMERY 2004a). A Maya ritual is known from several painted vases and codices in which a deer or deer impersonator is sacrifi ced and dismembered. In some versions, the blood of the deer is shown fl owing from bones and feeding a plant that sprouts corn cobs, an image of fertility and renewal. POHL (1981) has argued that the deer was a prominent supernatural in the Maya pantheon and suggests that deer sacrifi ce reenacted a myth involving confl ict with a jaguar deity. The deer remains found in caves may therefore represent the results of the ritual, placed in locations inhabited by supernaturals. By linking the animal with the myth, we can understand the deer not just as a ritual offering, but as the embodiment of a deity and as part of a primordial confl ict that ensured cosmic regeneration.
In a fi nal example, Lentacker and colleagues (LENTACKER et al. 2004) analyzed the remains of a Belgian temple to the god Mithras. On the basis of the faunal remains, they determined that a ritual feast of domestic fowl had occurred. Oddly, those birds that could be sexed were males. It is at this point that so many zooarchaeological studies end. Analysts might suggest that consuming males was an effective way of keeping a large population of female egg producers, or simply write off the sex imbalance as some impenetrable “ritual” decision.
But the investigators extended their argument beyond these points to include myth and iconography and argued that the domestic fowl, in addition to being a feast item, was a symbol of central religious importance. In Mithraic myth, the dawn and the rebirth associated with the rising of the sun are symbolized by the crowing of a rooster. So, while the consumption of domestic fowl had a caloric function, and may have been associated with social status, since fowl was a much desired food item, LENTACKER et al. (2004) make a very convincing argument that religious beliefs also played a role – a major role – in the choice of fowl at a Mithraic feast. Through consumption, diners were remembering, reenacting, and honoring a primordial event of central importance in their belief system.
Conclusions
In this chapter, I have sought to identify some of the reasons why animals in prehistoric religions have received so little attention. In particular, I highlighted the ways in which our interpretations of ancient animal remains refl ect Euro-American values, rather than carefully argued evaluations of the archaeological evidence, relevant analogs, and the numerous ways in which animals and religion intersect cross-culturally.
276 Erica Hill
The examples that I discussed above are intended to demonstrate how we can expand the roles of animals in religion by considering their biology and behavior, as well as their possible roles as agents and in myth. Because the Judeo-Christian tradition, and indeed most mainstream religions today, do not involve animals in any meaningful way, we have been unable to imagine them creatively in prehistoric religions. Instead, we have taken the roles animals play in the present – as pets, food items, and objects of entertainment – and extended these roles into the distant past. Iconography, myth, and ethnographic evidence give us a clear indication that animals were incredibly important actors in both ritual and belief. They could be god-like fi gures, as in the case of Raven, or they could be non-human persons, as among the North American Koyukon and Cree of the boreal forests. In such belief systems, animals are constructed as subjects and agents that play critical roles in human survival. Their actions directly affected humans, and humans constructed beliefs, taboos, and rituals to structure human-animal relationships. Animals in ancient religions were mythic subjects, non-human agents, and persons; in our reconstructions we must imagine them in such roles, transforming familiar categories in order to accommodate alternative human-animal ontologies.
Acknowledgments
I thank Thomas Meier and Petra Tillessen for organizing a symposium at the 2008 EAA meetings in Malta, and for all of the work they have put into publishing this volume. I also thank John Bintliff for his comments, which have signifi cantly improved this chapter.
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