Remembering Ancestors: Commemorative Rituals and the Foundation of Historicity
Gheorghiţă Geană
One of the most elaborated responses to human perception being‐in‐time (as essence historicity) has been cult ancestors. Consequently, ancestor may be considered foundational for historicity. This is core idea this article. It illustrated with Romanian ethnographic data and cross‐cultural examples. A few objects used in commemorative rituals—coliva (a special dish), trees pots—are interpreted according their symbolic force enabling people live temporality not only fragmentarily (past + present future), but as a transcendental unity temporal continuum. Finally, functions history are specified—namely, identity defining, critical function, especially revealed by cult) function memorialization.
History and Anthropology