On Sat, 22 Jun 2002 20:21:48 -0400
Francine Nicholson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> If you're talking about throwing rocks into the sea or a > pond for fun, then I'd agree with you. However, is that
> what's going on in most "holy well" sites? Seems to me
> that some spirituality is involved when people approach
> the site of a well in a certain way, often stopping at
> markers on the way to perform ritual bows or
> genuflections or other actions, circle the well sunwise
> three times while reciting certain prayers, drop an
> object into the well, and tie a piece of cloth onto a
> designated tree, and (sometimes) look into the well to
> see whether a certain reaction (such as the appearance of > a golden trout or salmon) occurs to give one some idea of > whether or not one's petition will be granted. And in
> some cases they repeat the whole thing on three
> successive Sundays. Doesn't sound to me like simple
> instinct. Or do I misunderstand your point? Are you
> saying that casting *rocks* has nothing to do with
> spirituality but casting other objects might?
I think it can be taken as read that people who practice water veneration do so for overtly spiritual purposes,and that ritual and religion are at the heart of their actions.
What I was most interested in, and I think Janet brought out very well, is why most of the rest of almost always feel compelled to throw coins, pins, rocks, keys, or whatever into water. I'm also interested in what someone said about them saying that its was 'lucky', indicating some belief in the notion of fortune or destiny, and therefore in 'controlling powers',to throw coins, objects of value and importance and therefore effective votives, at the core of our sadly money-oriented lives,into wells, springs, pools, caves, wishing wells, and other bodies of water, even ones which are temporary, artificial, and whooly out of natural context, like those in the Christmas tableaux in shopping centres, for example.
Do people throw their coin-votives into water because of some folk-memory of the bronze-age, iron-age, and other periods'water veneration so readily evidenced by good archeaology?
Is this modern practice conferred religious meaning, or just down to what Janet has observed in people's tendency to throw stones for fun?
Does the fact that so many people throw coins into water almost instinctively support the assertion that in the distant past formal water veneration was ubiquitous or generic among the greater number of people?
Are there some cultures where people do not throw coins into water, or other things, and in which there is no history of water venration?
Incidentally, the bit about throwing floating objects into rivers, which flow in an obvious direction from a starting-point to a finishing point, was very interesting. Almost as if people want to be part of the fluvial journey.
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Graham Mallaghan
Department of Classics (SECL)
Darwin College
University of Kent at Canterbury
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